Our Vardict
We have known Samsung for some years now for producing quality and decent devices, but what they lack was a good battery to power their phones for long.
But 2020 is an eye opener for many tech companies Samsung has adjusted and stepped up their games for bringing in the Samsung Galaxy M51.
Pros:
- 7000mAh battery life, fast charging for the capacity
- Good, if a little basic OLED display
- Camera system delivers quality stills and video
- Dedicated memory slot, FM radio
Cons:
- 60Hz refresh rate when some competitors offer 90Hz and even 120Hz
- Fingerprint sensor is somewhat awkwardly placed
- No 60fps video recording
- Stripped down OneUI - or is that a pro?
Highlights:
When the Samsung Galaxy M51 falls under 30K, we automatically swing our heads towards the OnePlus Nord for comparison. That's the impression that the resurgent value proposition of OnePlus has created for itself in the Indian market these days. Samsung aimed to change that and with the Galaxy M51, it kind of has.
With a massive 7,000 mAh battery, the Galaxy M51 deserves to be the topic of discussion. This is the only smartphone offering such a huge battery in not just the mid-range, but across all price segments. Clearly, this will compel some buyers to go for this phone. But what about others? What else does this smartphone offer that can convince fence-sitters when a rival like the OnePlus Nord starts at Rs 24,999, offers a 90Hz refresh rate display, 33W fast charging and 48 MP triple camera?
Taking a quick glance on the Samsung Galaxy M51
- Specifications,
- Pros And cons
- Battery Durability
- Camera And performance
- Unboxing And Accessories
- Design.
Samsung Galaxy M51 Specifications:
Body: 163.9x76.3x9.5mm, 213g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass 3+), plastic back, plastic frame.Display: 6.70" Super AMOLED Plus , 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 393ppi.
Chipset: Qualcomm SDM730 Snapdragon 730G (8 nm): Octa-core (2x2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold & 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver); Adreno 618.
Memory: 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
OS/Software: Android 10, One UI 2.5.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.73", 0.8µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 12 MP, f/2.2, 123˚; Macro: 5 MP, f/2.4; Depth: 5 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 32 MP, f/2.0, 26mm (wide), 1/2.8", 0.8µm.
Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps.
Battery: 7000mAh; Fast charging 25W, 100% in 115 min (advertised), Reverse wired charging.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); NFC; FM radio.
Going over the above list, you may notice that the Galaxy M51 is not unlike the A71 as far as the numbers go - except, of course, the 7000mAh number the A71's battery stands at 4.500mAh. Another change is the relocation of the fingerprint sensor - the A71 has it underneath the display, the M51 gets a side-mounted solution.
The specs tell only half the story, though, and we'll be sure to see how they translate into real-world performance. But first, a look at the retail bundle.
Samsung Galaxy M51 Unboxing And Accessories:
The Galaxy M51 arrives in a simple white cardboard box, but there is a glossy color print of the phone on top for a bit of extra pop.
Inside, Samsung's put in all of the important stuff - you get a charger, a USB-C cable, and a set of earbuds. The charger is the best they have right now, too - the 25W one that supports USB Power Delivery with PPS. What didn't make it in the box is some sort of protective case - we're more or less used to finding a basic transparent silicone one with phones in this segment.
Samsung Galaxy M51 Design:
The Galaxy M51 is among the bigger ones. It has to be - with a 6.7-inch display and a battery capacity that makes it sound more like a power bank than a phone, being small and lightweight clearly wasn't on top of this Galaxy's priorities list.
Having said that, it's mostly a reasonably sized handset, as our current perceptions go. Measuring 163.9x76.3x9.5mm, it fits in the same footprint as that A71 we mentioned, and that's not a 'huge' phone per se. However, it is that third number that makes the M51 stand out - with a profile that's almost a full centimeter thick, this phone is thicker than most to have come out in 2020.
The rounded sides from the back do help to mitigate that to some degree, so the phone doesn't feel like a brick in your hand, but even then, it remains a chunky unit.
It's not light either, of course, though that's probably less tangible. Don't take this as if we're trying to downplay its 213 grams, but when an iPhone 12 Pro Max is 228g, and the Galaxy S20 Ultra stands at 222g, the M51 somehow doesn't strike us as any sort of an offender here, plus did we say it's got a 7000mAh battery inside?
It's no secret how Samsung managed to fit so much lithium in the phone yet its heft isn't verging on insane - they used plastic where those two premium devices above have glass and metal. The Galaxy M51's rear panel is plastic and so is the midframe holding things together.
Once again, plastic is no bad thing when it comes to durability on a smartphone and its only downside, really, is that it doesn't feel particularly posh. But poshness was probably right next to compactness when the M51 was on the drawing board, and you take the good with the bad.
That's not to say the phone feels cheap, no. If anything, the weight and thickness give it a substantial and, by association, a high-quality feel. And a positive side effect of the 9.5mm waistline is that the camera cluster can now fit inside the phone's thickness, as opposed to sticking out a couple of millimeters.
Okay, that's only partially true - there's an ever so slightly raised surround around the camera window, but it's nothing like the protruding assemblies on those that have tiny, sub-7000mAh batteries inside.
We mentioned the frame was plastic, but let's go over what's where on it. Starting off with the most important bit, the power button/side key/fingerprint reader is on the right.
Several things need to be said here. One, the M51's stature apparently doesn't allow for an under-display fingerprint sensor, even though the OLED display does - Ms don't get one, and that's that. Two, the button/sensor combo is placed high, well above the midpoint, and getting at it, particularly with a left index finger, requires a bit of a stretch. Three, as with all side-mounted fingerprint readers, this one is prone to registering input when you don't want it to - on the way into a pocket, or when you're just holding your hand in your pocket with the phone inside too.
There's a workaround for that last bit in software, where you can set the phone to require a press on the button, instead of just a tap. The position is also something you get used to over time. But why not use an under-display sensor in the first place?
Anyway, above the fingerprint reader is the volume rocker. That's even higher than usual, but we found little issue with its placement. It clicks nicely, too.
On the opposite side, there is the card slot. Triple-card trays have a special place in our proverbial heart. The M51 takes two nano SIMs and a microSD giving you all the versatility you may need.
Samsung Galaxy M51 Battery Durability:
The Galaxy M51 comes with a 6.7-inch SuperAMOLED Plus display. Its resolution is 1080x2400px in a 20:9 aspect ratio for a pixel density of 393ppi. It's missing a feature most midrangers have covered - a high refresh rate. The M51 has a conventional 60Hz panel.
It's not a bad panel, however. We measured a maximum brightness of 677nits in Adaptive mode under direct light and 373nits when operating the slider manually. The auto boost doesn't take it as high as flagships, but it's easily bright enough, while the manual maximum brightness is about on par with typical Samsung OLED behavior. The OnePlus Nord and the Reno4 Pro can indeed go brighter when the ambient light calls for it, but the Realme 7 Pro is capped a good 100nits lower.
The Galaxy M51's chief claim to fame is battery life - the 7,000mAh cell inside it is the biggest we've seen on a major brand phone. With great capacity, indeed, comes great endurance, as our testing proved.
We clocked a whopping 53 hours of voice calls on a single charge of the M51, an all-time record the Galaxy holds jointly with the Moto G9 Plus. The M51 is also good for 25+ hours of looping videos offline or 17 hours of Wi-Fi web browsing impressive stuff. Factoring in the standby performance, we arrive at an overall Endurance rating of 156h for the Galaxy M51.
The Galaxy M51 not only has a big battery, but also comes with a beefy charger to top it - it's supplied with the same 25W adapter that you'd get with a Note or an S-series flagship, an adapter that even the S20 FE doesn't get.
Using this charger, you'd be looking at 1:47h for a full charge from flat and 35% in the battery indicator 30 minutes into the process. Neither result is impressive in absolute terms, but you come to appreciate them when you consider the 7,000mAh capacity and the battery life that you can actually get from a 35% charge.
Samsung Galaxy M51 Camera:
The Galaxy M51 is equipped with a quad-camera system, though as is common in the mid-tier segment, only half of those are real cameras. To be fair, Samsung's 5MP 'macro' camera is a bit more useful than prevailing 2MP units, while we're yet to witness a tangible difference between 2MP depth sensors, 5MP depth sensors, and no depth sensors at all.
Anyway, the primary camera on this Galaxy uses a 64MP sensor - a Quad Bayer Sony IMX 682, with the usual 0.8µm pixels and 4-to-1 binning for a resulting 16MP image. The lens has a 26mm equivalent focal length and an f/1.8 aperture.
The ultra wide-angle camera combines a 12MP sensor (Samsung S5K3L6, 1/3.1", 1.12µm) with one of the ultra-widest lenses out there - EXIF data reports a 13mm equivalent, while Samsung's specs quote a 123-degree field of view, which is even wider than that. It is wide, that's for sure.
The selfie camera on the Galaxy M51 is based on another Sony Quad Bayer sensor, the 32MP IMX 616. It outputs 12MP images by default - Samsung's usual if slightly illogical numbers manipulation for its 32MP selfie cams.
The camera app on the M51 is the same as on any other Samsung, which is a good thing since it's straightforward and easy to use. The basics are as usual - swiping left, and right will switch between available modes, and there's an option to re-arrange, add or remove some of the modes from the viewfinder. Vertical swipes in either direction will switch between front and rear cameras.
The familiar tree designation for zoom control is here too, and with no telephoto on board, you get three trees for ultra-wide and two trees for the main cam. You could zoom in with a pinch gesture, at which point additional preset zoom levels appear at 2x, 4x, and 10x.
Selfie zoom levels on the M51 adopt the logic Samsung's been using for a while - by default, you're getting a cropped in view equivalent to a 32mm focal length and 8MP resulting images. To get the full coverage of the camera, you need to tap on the zoom toggle. We've been complaining about this behavior for a while, but no more! Samsung now lets you flip a toggle in the camera settings that will maintain your preferred magnification for selfies - yay!
The viewfinder has the standard set of icons with the settings cog wheel located in the upper left corner of the screen. The usual stuff like video resolution, grid lines, location data, etc., can be found in the menu, as well as the ultra-wide lens correction, tucked in under the 'Save options' category. You can also turn on and off the Scene optimizer on a global scale.
There's a Pro mode too, and, somewhat surprisingly, the M51 gets the full-featured one, as opposed to the more stripped-down version we typically see on lesser models. You get granular exposure controls and manual focus with peaking, but there's still no live histogram or the ability to operate anything but the main cam - perhaps if we continue to whine about those, Samsung will address them as well.
Conclusion:
The Galaxy M51 is here to cater to those with an obvious top priority - battery life. It doesn't neglect the other aspects that make a good phone, however, and brings solid camera performance and a good AMOLED display - a staple for Galaxies, plus a complete set of the little things.
So, in the end, the M51 is a competent mid-level handset throughout. And even if Samsungs don't normally compare well in the midrange when it comes to value for money, this one doesn't feel overpriced. It gets a recommendation then.
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