Samsung Galaxy A51: Samsung's Budget Buy

Samsung Galaxy A51: Samsung's Budget Buy 

The Galaxy A51 has big shoes to fill. It takes the baton from the Galaxy A50, one among the foremost successful smartphones that Samsung released in 2019. Samsung revamped the whole Galaxy a series last year to become more competitive within the mid-range segment of the market. Thereto end, it launched a plethora of latest devices, including multiple variants several months apart.

That strategy appears to possess worked for Samsung and therefore the company is getting to continue it in 2020. It’s kicking things off with the Galaxy A51, one among its most highly anticipated budget handsets of the year. The new handset also carries the Galaxy A50’s tradition of being the primary to introduce new features to the budget lineup. The Galaxy A50 brought the optical fingerprint sensor, the Galaxy A51 introduces the macro camera to Samsung’s smartphones.

There’s tons to dissect here so let’s get right thereto. How does the Galaxy A51 pile up against its predecessor, and more importantly, where does it stand on its own merits? Is it deserve your money? Our Galaxy A51 review will answer these questions for you.

Galaxy A51 Design

It’s quite easy to inform the Galaxy A51 aside from its predecessor. Unlike the Galaxy A50 which had an Infinity-U notched display, the Galaxy A51 has an Infinity-O display. The centered punch hole for the front camera allows for a slimmer top bezel. It’s made up of an equivalent “glasstic” material as previous Galaxy A devices. It doesn’t feel cheap or obviously plasticky and it’s not slippery either. The subtle curves at the rear leave a cushty grip during prolonged use.

The new L-shaped camera setup dominates the rear, which is adorned by a prism-like crisscross pattern. It’s far more subtle than a gradient finish and therefore the light plays off of it beautifully. Full marks to Samsung for creating it very easy on the eyes. The 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C port and speaker are all positioned at rock bottom. Given its position, you’ll often end up inadvertently covering the speaker grille together with your finger when playing a game or watching a video in landscape mode. It’s a small inconvenience initially but you’ll get wont to placing your finger appropriately in time.

All of the physical buttons – and there are only three of them – are placed on the proper side of the frame, like they were on its predecessor. By default, if you press and hold the facility button when the phone is on, it'll launch Bixby. You’ll change it to mention the facility off menu within the advanced features area within the Settings app. That’s also where you'll configure which app you would like to launch by double-pressing the facility key.

Overall, the Galaxy A51 feels rather well built, love it can withstand being your daily driver for a few of years without breaking a sweat. We’ve seen all of the four colors that it’s offered in and you’ll definitely be spoiled for choice because all of them look gorgeous.

Galaxy A51 Display

The Galaxy A51 comes with a 6.5-inch Infinity-O Super AMOLED Full HD+ display, with 1080×2400 pixel resolution and 20:9 ratio. It’s marginally taller than the Galaxy A50’s 6.4-inch panel. The bezels are a touch slimmer than its predecessor but there’s no edge-to-edge action happening here. It’s a flat panel that really seems like a refreshing break if you’ve been using curved displays for an extended time. A screen protector comes pre-installed.

Samsung radiates exceptional OLED displays without breaking a sweat. This obviously isn’t a flagship-quality panel but you’d be hard-pressed to seek out a competing device with another supplier’s OLED display which will claim to be better. It gets nice and bright with excellent viewing angles, deep blacks and rich colors.

The punch hole for the front camera is a smaller amount obtrusive than the Infinity-U notch so it’s really not getting to bother you. One improvement we felt that Samsung should make with the Galaxy A50’s successor was to form the chin below the display smaller. It’s done just that for the Galaxy A51.

An in-display optical fingerprint sensor is additionally present. We had highlighted in our Galaxy A50 review that its performance was but ideal. It’s far better on the Galaxy A51. It doesn’t struggle nearly the maximum amount because it did on its predecessor. I attempted extensively, placing my finger on the sensor at an angle, just placing it dead centre when the screen was off, and just lightly tapping it. The fingerprint sensor works because it should for the foremost part.

There’s a clear improvement within the sensor’s ability to acknowledge the fingerprint. That being said, it’s not as fast as a physical fingerprint sensor; not even the high-end ultrasonic sensors can match those. There’s an honest 1/1.5 second lag between the time you place your finger on the sensor and therefore the phone actually unlocking. That’s just how it's for these in-display sensors. You’ll be cautioned to not use a screen cover when registering fingerprints in order that any false-positive fiasco are often avoided.

Galaxy A51 Camera

This is where the Galaxy A51 really comes into its own element. The camera setup is that the biggest point of this smartphone and Samsung is offering a stimulating mix. The Galaxy A51 features a 48-megapixel f/2.0 primary and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide f/2.2 camera that features a 123-degree field of view. It retains the 5-megapixel f/2.2 depth camera of its predecessor. The Galaxy A51 also has the excellence of being Samsung’s first smartphone to feature a 5-megapixel f/2.4 macro camera.

The main camera doesn’t actually output 48MP photos. It uses pixel binning technology to output 12MP photos. Without going into too many technical details, pixel binning allows for more accurately exposed and detailed images because it combines 4 pixels into 1 superpixel. This superpixel contains fourfold the quantity of knowledge compared to one pixel during a 48MP image.

The resulting images are nice and sharp with great color reproduction. Low-light performance is certainly better than it had been on the Galaxy A50. It doesn’t tend to overexpose shots the maximum amount under artificial lighting. The Galaxy A51’s primary camera is quite capable of getting the work done when the lighting isn’t that great. It also allows for 8x digital zoom but the image will just get progressively worse with each increment.

The ultra-wide camera was an enormous point for Samsung smartphones last year, particularly when the corporate brought it over to mid-range and affordable budget devices. The 12-megapixel camera on the Galaxy A51 features a higher megapixel count compared to the ultra-wide cameras on recent mid-range smartphones. The rise in resolution does make a small difference because the camera is in a position to capture more detail and therefore the images end up sharper, but it’s getting to be imperceptible to those that have used the 8-megapixel ultra-wide on the Galaxy A50. It does struggle a touch within the dark compared to the first camera, which is essentially thanks to its f/2.2 aperture.

It’s the 5-megapixel macro camera that the majority people are going to be curious about. That’s really what’s “new” with this device. For those that are unaware, a macro camera allows you to require incredibly detailed close-up photos of alittle subject as they will focus closer to the topic compared to standard lenses. This allows you to fill the frame with the topic and thus capture more detail. Despite its 5-megapixel resolution, the macro camera is capable of taking some good close-up shots.

Keep in mind that you’ll got to get much closer to the topic than you think that so as to urge it into focus. The phone recommends that you simply should hold the camera 3-5 cm faraway from the topic. However, you ought to have incredibly stable hands, because the shortage of optical image stabilization means even the slightest of movement will end in blurry shots.

As you'll see within the samples below, the camera is sort of capable of capturing the flaky, buttery texture of a croissant in an indoors, low-light environment. An equivalent goes for closeups of other small items. you'll really get some great shots with it outdoors, so if you’re a nature buff who loves taking closeup photos of flowers, the Galaxy A51 is that the phone for you. It’s impossible to record videos using the macro camera, though.

Is the macro camera really useful? That depends on how you normally use your smartphone’s camera for photography. Macro is not any replacement for a zoom lens and therefore the latter would convince be far more useful during a wider sort of situations. Samsung had cost considerations with the Galaxy A51, which is why it opted for the macro instead. Its usefulness is restricted therein it can only take really closeup shots. The macro camera isn’t even that great for photographing your food since most of the people want to capture the entire aesthetic, not a selected a part of whatever’s on their plate. It’s not getting to be something that you’ll use quite a few of times unless super closeups are your thing. Even a cursory glance at social media shows that it’s not for many people.

What doesn’t add up is why the Macro camera mode isn’t visible within the camera UI by default. You’ve got to hit more to access the complete list of camera modes so as to tug it out from there. It’s an unnecessary step for a marquee feature of this device. A 5-megapixel depth sensor completes the Galaxy A51’s quad camera setup. Several Samsung smartphones have this sensor already, it’s the one that permits for Live Focus or bokeh pictures. It works as intended, producing reasonable background blur and providing decent separation between the background and therefore the subject.

The Galaxy A51 possesses your selfie needs covered with its 32-megapixel f/2.2 front camera. A light-weight ring glows round the Infinity-O punch hole once you switch to the front camera. Selfies begin nice and sharp, albeit a touch overexposed, but that’s probably intentionally. Both the front and rear cameras are capable of recording 4K UHD video.

It’s possible to make an AR Doodle in your videos. The feature works within the same way that it does on the Galaxy Note 10. you'll either doodle on someone’s face or anywhere within the frame, and therefore the camera will remember that position in space and show the doodle whenever it’s panned thereto position. This is often a neat little addition to Samsung’s mid-range lineup. The opposite camera modes include Panorama, Food, Pro, Night, Super Slow-Mo, movie and Hyperlapse. AR Emoji and Bixby Vision are present also,

The Galaxy A51 may be a unique device because it an opportunity from tradition for Samsung. The company’s Galaxy S flagships previously won’t to be the primary devices to return with the newest Android OS version out of the box. Samsung didn’t await the Galaxy S20 this point around. The Galaxy A51 is its first smartphone to ship with Android 10 and One UI 2.0, beginning before this year’s Galaxy S flagship. It’s covered for subsequent two Android platform updates.

One UI 2.0 feels more natural and visually comfortable than previous iterations. Samsung made tons of improvements to the software and therefore the Galaxy A51 obviously benefits from them. It does miss out on the built-in screen recorder that Samsung has included in One UI 2.0 for a few devices also because the ability to require movie selfie videos. Bixby Routines and Edge screen are both present, additionally to App Pairs. Android 10 itself brings many new features like more granular privacy and site tools, Focus mode, enhanced parental controls, and Google’s navigation gestures.

Bixby Voice is onboard also. There’s really nothing to mention about it aside from the very fact that it exists on this device. It doesn’t do anything out of the standard and you almost certainly won’t be using it much anyway. There’s also an entire smattering of other features sort of a system-wide Night mode, Dual Messenger, Game Launcher, Secure Folder, Always On Display, Blue diffusing screen , Link to Windows, Scan QR code and more.

Galaxy A51 Performance

The Galaxy A51 is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 9611 processor, the exact same chip inside the Galaxy A50s. It’s simply a higher-clocked version of the Galaxy A50’s Exynos 9610. Don’t be confused, what this simply means for you is that the Galaxy A51’s performance is marginally better than its predecessor.

It’s an adequate setup, including 6GB RAM on the variant we tested. The Galaxy A51 packs enough punch to handle whatever you'll reasonably throw at a smartphone during this segment. as long as it's four 2.3GHz Cortex-A73 cores to try to the work , the Galaxy A51 are going to be ready to support your PUBG habit at the very best graphics setting without breaking a sweat.

There are many reminders about this being a mid-range device, though. There’s some lag and therefore the odd stutter even on our 6GB variant; in some markets Samsung will offer 4GB RAM on the bottom model, on which the lag and stutter could be even more noticeable. This didn’t really come as a surprise as we’re quite wont to seeing this on Samsung’s mid-range smartphones. It just comes with the territory. Its performance isn't disappointing by any stretch of the imagination, even as long as you've got the proper expectations from it.

Galaxy A51 Audio And Call Quality

I wasn’t that impressed by the Galaxy A51’s single bottom-firing speaker. The audio sounds flat and there really isn’t any oomph (bass) thereto. It’s actually quite almost like its predecessor and that i think this was a missed opportunity and Samsung should have improved the speaker. Your standard Samsung wired earphones are available the box, they’re nothing out of the standard. The handset has Dolby Atmos support for both wired and Bluetooth audio which does help improve the audio experience a touch. I faced no network reception issues on the Galaxy A51 so it’s pretty solid during this department. The decision audio is usually loud and crisp so it ticks all the proper boxes.

Galaxy A51 Battery Life

The Galaxy A51 has an equivalent 4,000mAh battery with 15W fast wired charging because the Galaxy A50. It’s a reasonably chunky battery, one that’s easily getting to get you thru the day with substantial usage. If your usage isn’t as intense, the battery can easily last you only under two days, particularly if you've got only one SIM within the phone.

I wish Samsung had enabled 25W fast wired charging on the device. It might have made sense for the Galaxy A51 to urge that upgrade. But, the corporate does need to maintain some differences between the Galaxy A series models. That’s likely one among the explanations why the Galaxy A51 sticks with 15W. Expect the battery to charge completely from 0-100 percent in around two hours.

Galaxy A51 Verdict

One of the most important reasons why the Galaxy A50 clothed to be such a roaring success isn't that it had been exceptional in every way, it’s that the device offered great value for money for the selling price. Samsung’s only job with the Galaxy A51 was to preserve that legacy and repose on it.

In my opinion, Samsung has been ready to do this alright. You’re getting tons for ~$350. A faultless AMOLED display, cameras better than what you’d find on the competition, and solid build quality with a striking finish. Increase that the very fact that it ships with the newest version of Android, and customers will stay up and notice. Albeit you own the Galaxy A50, the camera improvements alone might cause you to want to think about the upgrade.

That being said, the macro camera may be a very niche thing. It’s not something that the majority users will actively be using, and that i feel only those that truly feel the necessity for it might believe upgrading from its predecessor. The Galaxy A51 doesn’t face competition from within the Samsung family just like the Galaxy A50 did when it arrived (the Galaxy A71 won’t be beginning for a minimum of a month). In markets like India, customers who wanted a rather less capable device at a relative bargain could skip the Galaxy A50 in favor of the Galaxy M20 and therefore the M30 which were new at that point last year.

But Samsung has timed the Galaxy A51 launch good. There’s little competition for it from within the family and at its $350 tag, it’s a reasonably compelling option for patrons looking to shop for a replacement mid-range smartphone, no matter how they feel about the macro camera.

No device will ever be perfect, and there’s always getting to be room for improvement. i might have loved to ascertain a beefier processor, faster charging for the battery, a far better loudspeaker, and even a telephoto camera. But these devices need to exist within their own realities and thereto extent, the Galaxy A51 is sort of possibly one among the simplest smartphones in its category.

FOR

• Bold OLED screen
• Has a headphone jack
• It’s a Samsung Galaxy, without an S20 price

AGAINST

• Feels slower than most at this level
• Poor fingerprint scanner
• Unusually prominent punch-hole camera