Design Samsung Galaxy M31
At first glance it is difficult to differentiate between the Samsung Galaxy M30s and the Galaxy M31. Both smartphones sport a 6.4-inch screen with a waterdrop-style notch, which Samsung calls the Infinity-U Display. Its bezels aren’t thin, but based on the price you can’t expect much from it. Like other M-series smartphones, Samsung made the body of the Galaxy M31 out of plastic. The earpiece is quite slim and sits on the frame just above the screen.
The Galaxy M31 feels comfortable to hold in the hand. Its sides are slightly curved, so the grip on the phone is good. Samsung has placed the power and volume buttons on the right side of the device. The power button is easy to reach with your thumb, but the volume buttons could have been better placed. On the left side is the SIM tray, which didn’t close properly in our review unit. The 3.5mm headphone jack, main microphone, USB Type-C port, and speaker options are all set up at the bottom of the Galaxy M31. Only the secondary microphone is given on its upper side.
When you look at the Galaxy M31 from behind, you will definitely notice some changes. The camera module is similar to the Galaxy M30, but now it comes with an additional fourth camera. There is a fingerprint scanner along with the module. After holding the smartphone in hand, the finger comfortably reaches this fingerprint.
The Samsung Galaxy M31 has a massive 6000 mAh battery and weighs 191 grams. Having a large battery definitely makes the device feel heavy. Samsung has also included a 15W charger in the box, which should charge the battery a bit faster than standard chargers. The company has presented the Galaxy M31 in two colors: Ocean Blue and Space Black. We had the Space Black variant for review, which detects fingerprints very easily.
Samsung Galaxy M31 specs, features
The specifications of the Galaxy A31 are very similar to those of the Galaxy M30. The smartphone comes with a 6.4-inch AMOLED display with Full-HD+ resolution. It also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection, which protects the Galaxy phone from scratches. The screen has good viewing angles and also performs well in ambient light.
Samsung has also kept the Exynos 9611 chipset included in the Galaxy M30s in this phone. It is an octa-core processor with four ARM Cortex-A73 cores with a maximum clock speed of 2.3 GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores with a maximum clock speed of 1.7 GHz. It has Mali-G72 GPU for graphics. You get the options of 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage variants and 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variants in the phone. The price of these two is Rs 15,999 and Rs 16,999 respectively. However, Samsung offers a discount of Rs 1,000 on this phone for some time, after which its price becomes Rs 14,999 and Rs 15,999 respectively. At the moment, no information has been given on the validity of this offer.
The Galaxy M31 has two Nano-SIM slots and includes support for 4G and VoLTE. It also supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Its storage can be increased to 512 GB via a microSD card.
Talking about the software, One UI 2.0 based on Android 10 has been included in the phone. The software is exactly the same as what we have seen in the recently launched Galaxy S10 Lite and Galaxy Note 10 Lite. We also found some unwanted apps on Galaxy M31. In addition to the Google apps on the smartphone, Netflix, Facebook, Candy Crush Saga and Samsung Max came pre-installed. The phone also has Samsung’s own apps. These include My Galaxy and Samsung Shop. We found My Galaxy to be an annoying app, sending multiple notifications throughout the day.
We recommend that you be careful when setting up your device. Samsung asks you for some permissions during setup. You need to be careful here, because according to these permissions, Samsung will also send you marketing notifications. You will also be given the option to install some apps in the setup process, which we suggest skipping.
The Galaxy M31 also gets Android 10 features like dark mode and focus mode, which can be very easily enabled via the notification shade. Dolby Atmos is also available, but it only works with headphones. Digital Wellbeing and parental controls are also present on the device. Apart from this, the common gestures like double tap to wake up, gesture screenshot are also available on Galaxy M31.
Samsung Galaxy M31 performance and battery life
Samsung has provided 6 GB of RAM in Galaxy M31 which is very useful for multitasking. We did not notice any lag when using the smartphone. The device loads apps fairly quickly, but larger apps take a while. Because it has more RAM, multitasking is a breeze on the Galaxy M31.
The fingerprint scanner unlocks the smartphone quickly and the selfie camera performs facial recognition smoothly and accurately. We enjoy watching content on the AMOLED screen. With Widevine L1 compatibility, you can stream Full-HD content comfortably.
We also played the PUBG Mobile game on Galaxy M31 and the game ran on high graphics settings with HD resolution by default. There was no problem playing the game on this setting. After playing for 20 minutes, we saw a four percent drop in battery. Apart from this, a slight warmth was felt on the device, but it was not much. The large battery will give you the opportunity to play for a long time. In our HD video loop test, the phone lasted 22 hours and 31 minutes. With our use, the battery lasted two days without any problems. If long battery life is important to you, then the Galaxy M31 definitely won’t let you down.
Samsung Galaxy M31 cameras
The Galaxy M31 has a quad camera setup on the back and a 32-megapixel selfie camera on the front. The rear camera setup of the Galaxy M31 has a 64-megapixel main camera sensor, which comes with f/1.8 aperture. The camera takes binary 16-megapixel photos by default, but you can easily switch to full resolution. The setup also houses an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera lens with a 123-degree field of view, which has an aperture of f/2.2. The other two cameras come with a 5-megapixel depth sensor and a 5-megapixel macro lens. Samsung’s camera app is the same as before. It is easy to use and easy to access all the included features. There comes an option to switch between the main and wide-angle cameras. Scene Optimizer can detect scenes and configure the camera accordingly.
We found that the Galaxy M31 easily locked focus on the subject. The images came out fine on this and there is no lack of detail in it. The smartphone enables HDR when necessary. Switching to the wide-angle camera is easy and allows you to capture more area in the camera frame than the standard one. Although the pictures taken of it look good, but when zoomed in, there is a lack of detail in them. The rounded effect is also visible at the edges in wide-angle shots.
Galaxy M31 separates subject and background well during close-up shooting and provides the effect of natural blur. However, we feel that bright colors appear brighter. The macro camera also takes decent photos, but camera quality suffers in low-light conditions indoors.
Portrait shots are decent, and the camera app gives you the option to set the blur effect before taking a photo. The camera’s edge detection is also very good and the Galaxy M31 does a good job of separating objects from the background.
In low-light conditions, the Galaxy M31 took longer to lock focus, so you’ll need to hold the phone steady while taking photos. Low-light shots look decent, but you’ll notice a grainy effect when you zoom in. Although this effect can be slightly reduced through night mode.
Selfie taken with Galaxy M31 also looks good. Although it works well in sufficient light, but in low light the quality drops drastically and the grainy effect is visible even in selfies.
Video recording can be done through both the main rear camera and the selfie shooter in 4K resolution. The Galaxy M31 offers a decent recording output during the day. However, we found that the images came out a bit shaky. There’s a Super Steady mode that uses the wide-angle camera and slightly reduces shake. We got fairly stable output using this mode, but the video lacked detail. If you shoot 4K video, you won’t get any stabilization features.
Verdict
Samsung has had decent success with the Galaxy M30s, which could be one of the reasons why the company hasn’t made any major changes to the phone. The company upgraded the RAM in the phone compared to the old one and added an additional rear camera and added a quad rear camera setup. Other than this, it was given Android 10 preloaded. The Galaxy M31 may not feel like a completely new device. To a large extent, it can be seen as a small update to the Galaxy M30S.
The Exynos 9611 chipset packs into the phone a capable processor, but we would have been happier if this phone had a more powerful processor to take on the competition. Certainly some upgrades make this phone a bit better, but it can’t be called a major upgrade compared to the previous smartphone.
The strong battery backup of the phone remains the main draw of this series. The phone can easily last two days on a single charge, which competing phones in this price range simply can’t. Redmi Note 8 Pro and Realme X2 still give you extremely powerful hardware for the price, but if you don’t care about benchmark scores and just want a device that covers the basics comfortably and with a great battery, then Galaxy M31 is a good one. option for you.