Samsung Galaxy M31s review: Almost a great mid-range choice

Samsung Galaxy M-series has been quite popular among budget shoppers who demand a premium touch in smartphones. The latest Galaxy M31s is a successor to the M31, which was already a popular model and had made quite an impression in the budget segment. With the Galaxy M31s, Samsung is hoping to deliver an upgrade that should make the new smartphone worth considering. But should you really consider it? Let's find out.

Samsung Galaxy M31s starts at Rs 19,499 for the 6GB+128GB and Rs 21,499 for 8GB+128GB. The extra RAM should help in multi-tasking if you're a heavy user, otherwise, the base model should be sufficient. For the extra price as compared to the M31, the M31s brings Infinity-O display, 64MP quad-camera and the overall form factor has a much premium finish. Samsung has retained a lot of features from the predecessor, making it tough to recommend for Galaxy M31 users. But it could be worth considering as an upgrade if you're coming from any other smartphone.

Design and Display

Samsung Galaxy M31 has a modern design, leaning towards the premium A51 at a glance. Even though it is made of plastic, the finishing is premium enough to fool anyone for a glass body. But there's no denying the smartphone is bulky, and that's mostly due to the humungous battery pack. The gradient finish on the back of the phone is a nice touch and doesn't look to glam.

The quad-camera module sits on the top right corner and the volume controls are on the right. Interestingly, the M31s has a power button integrated with a fingerprint sensor on the right, which needs some getting used to. The USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm jack and primary microphone along with speaker are found at the bottom.

Samsung Galaxy M31s has a 6.5-inch Super AMOLED Full HD+ display with a punch-hole camera. As always, the display is bright and vibrant, but there are no surprises there as Samsung always has the best displays.

The display has an always-on display and it supports Widevine L1 for high-definition content streaming on over-the-top platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Videos, etc.

Cameras

There are plenty. The quad-camera setup bags a 64MP primary f/1.8 sensor paired with 12MP ultra-wide-angle lens, 5MP macro camera and 5MP depth sensor. The interface is identical to other Samsung phones and it borrows an interesting camera features from flagships S20 and Note 20 series. The Single Take feature captures various outputs with filters and such so you do not miss a moment.

The Galaxy M31s shoots 16MP shots by default. The colours come out natural and the sensor captures crisp details. Shooting in broad daylight brings out better details and dynamic range than in low-light. The wide-angle sensor gives dramatic results but the edges are slightly distorted in dark settings. The macro sensor also works great in good lighting conditions, capturing a good amount of details. The Live Focus has a soft bokeh effect, making it appear natural. Finally, the night mode does manage to bring out some interesting details, which is comparatively better but not good enough to compare against flagship models. That's where the affordability factor comes into play.

Check out some samples below:

Performance

It was disappointing to see Samsung go with the ageing Exynos 9611. We kind of hoped the upgrade would include the chipset, which had already been powering few other Samsung phones, including M31 and even M21. The Exynos 9611 is not a bad processor, but there's nothing extraordinary about it.

The day-to-day operations are easily managed by Galaxy M31s, but loading heavy apps take longer than usual. Multi-tasking doesn't strike a challenge and as long as your usage is reserved for calls, messages, browsing, social media, music and video streaming, you should be just fine. As I said, there's nothing standing out in terms of performance.

The phone runs One UI 2.1 out-of-the-box and it's well in line with the handset's performance. There were no lags or stutter. The default apps worked fine, but the bloatware still exists. The 128GB default storage came to the rescue. The level of customisations on the OneUI 2.5 is as in any other Samsung phones, ranging from themes, lock screen settings, full-screen gestures, in-game screen recording.

The side-mounted fingerprint sensor works efficiently and it's quite fast. This was a good decision over the in-display sensor, which usually isn't as fast.

Battery

Samsung Galaxy M31s biggest USP is its battery. The humongous 6,000mAh is retained as it is from its predecessor to easily last two full days with mixed usage. With heavy gaming or continuous streaming, the battery will last accordingly. Even so, it is better than most phones out there. So if a good battery is something you're looking for in a phone, the Galaxy M31s is the way to go.

While some might be worried over the charging speed of the phone given its size, there's a 25W fast charger in the box. It takes about 90 minutes to fully charge the phone, but charging it for an hour will last you a full day.

Verdict

Samsung Galaxy M31s gets the company's branding, which in itself is a huge USP. Then come various aspects of the phone such as the long-lasting battery, a vibrant AMOLED display, and a revamped appealing design. The camera results are almost similar to the M31, though slightly improved in certain aspects. Finally, the decision to go with an ageing processor might be disappointing to some, but at the end of the day, it gets the job done.