Samsung Galaxy M31 review

(Disclosure: Samsung lent a unit for this review. This review also appears on the tech and video game site Solid State Now.)

When I think of value for money phones, Samsung is not exactly the first brand that comes to mind. The South Korean giant is best known for its luxurious, Galaxy S and Note lines, which seemingly push the limits of premium phones’ price with each iteration. Spending some time with the Galaxy M31, however, changed my perception of the brand and convinced me that it can be just as competitive in lower price segments. 

Touting some worthwhile specs at an affordable P13,990 price tag, the phone’s all-around appeal is enough to keep Samsung on equal footing with its Chinese competitors, who have long dominated the budget and midrange market. Is it the best out there? Well, as with a lot of phones, that depends on which features are important to you. 

If battery life is what you’re after, you can’t go wrong with the M31, packing a whopping 6,000mAh cell. Off the top of my head, the only other phone available in the country right now with the same battery capacity is the ASUS ROG Phone II, and that’s a flagship phone. 

Of course, a higher mAh count doesn’t always mean longer battery life as there are a number of other factors that influence how long a phone can last. But the M31 is truly a resilient phone, letting you get about two days worth of use on a single charge.

You can probably even push it up to 3 days, if you lower your screen’s brightness and reduce your mobile data consumption. While your mileage will surely vary from mine, there’s no denying that the M31 makes its case for being the king of batteries among midrange phones.

What’s also impressive is how Samsung was able to maintain a rather compact form factor given the massive battery. The phone has some weight to it, but it’s still very comfortable to use. 

Design-wise, it looks almost exactly like its predecessor, the M30, save for the new rectangular rear camera array. It sports Samsung’s Infinity-U display, complete with water drop notch and some fairly large bezels, a physical fingerprint scanner, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Sure, it’s not the most unique-looking phone, but everything about its design is functional, and sometimes that’s all you really need. 

Another thing I love about the phone is the 6.4-inch Super AMOLED screen, which produces excellent color accuracy and some decent black levels. It’s also quite bright, so using the phone under direct sunlight won’t be a problem. Personally, I think the screens of Samsung phones are usually a notch above other brands and the M31 is no exception. 

When it comes to cameras, the phone’s quadruple rear setup is very impressive for its price. The 64MP main lens captures a lot of sharp details with good exposure. I love how photos come out looking more natural than the ones taken from some of its competitors. 

Meanwhile, the 8MP ultrawide lens lets you fit a lot more into the frame by sacrificing a bit of image quality. It’s not bad as long as you avoid magnifying your photos. 

You also get a 5MP depth lens for portrait shots and a 5MP macro lens for extreme close-ups. Both are satisfactory at their specific functions. 

For selfies, the front-facing 32MP lens is pretty great too. It lights up faces quite well, showing more than enough detail to satisfy your general social media posts.

As for performance, the Exynos 9611 chipset can handle most day-to-day tasks without any problems, which includes a bit of multitasking and graphics-intensive gaming. Apps launch in a snap and run smoothly thanks to it also having 6GB of RAM. Gaming is really good as well, with titles like Call of Duty: Mobile and Marvel Super War maintaining a stable frame rate at the medium to high settings. 

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy M31 is a solid all-around phone, with a versatile quadruple rear camera setup, an incredible display, and an extremely large battery capacity. Whether it’s more bang-for-your-buck than its competitors is up for debate. But, if you’re on a tight budget and battery life tops your list of priorities for phones, there’s no question that this is your best option.

Here are its key specs:

• Octa-core Exynos 9611 chipset
• 6.4” FHD+ Super AMOLED display
• 6GB RAM + 128GB storage
• 64MP f/1.8 main + 8MP f/2.2 ultra wide + 5MP f/2.2 Live Focus + 5MP f/2.4 macro quadruple rear cameras
• 32MP f/2.0 front camera
• 6,000mAh battery with 15W fast charging
• USB Type-C
• Dual SIM (triple slot sim 1 + sim 2 + microSD)
• Blue and Black color

The Galaxy M31 is available now for P13,990. An updated M31s is coming but no details have been announced yet for the Philippine market. – Rappler.com

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