Samsung Galaxy A31 review

Competition

Samsung is unlikely to get an easy shot at the mid-ranger and budget segment any time soon. At least not while players like Xiaomi with Poco and Redmi and the BBK corporation with Realme, Vivo, Oppo and OnePlus. Of course, there will always be something to be said about brand value, potentially even loyalty. But the truth is that even amidst Samsung's own sprawling and ever-expanding device lineup, the Galaxy A31 doesn't stand out as a great value offer.

Naturally, not all of the Korean giant's lineup will be easily or instantly available on every market. That's kind of the point of having so many similar devices out. Still, for just a few dollars more than the A31, you can have the A51. That nets you 4K video capture and better ultrawide and selfie cameras, among other things. You do have to sacrifice of some battery endurance, though, since the A51 only managed 86 hours in our tests. The good news is that you can get all of the above improvements, plus a 1,000 mAh extra battery on top of the already ample 5,000 inside the A31, with almost no adjustment to your original budget. The Galaxy M31 seems line a no-brainer alternative, if you can get your hands on one.

Samsung Galaxy M31 • Realme X • Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro • Realme 6

It should be noted that outside camp Samsung, in this price bracket, OLED options are rather scarce. There is the very intriguing Xiaomi Mi 10 Youth 5G, also known as the Mi 10 Lite 5G, that it is unlikely to ever escape China and is hence hard to get, especially at its too-good-to-be-true MSRP.

The slightly older, but still excellent Realme X comes to mind, though. You will be sacrificing on an ultrawide camera and some battery life. However, the Snapdragon 710 is a nice step up in performance, 20W VOOC 3.0 fast charging is a nice little bonus and so is the motorized selfies camera, leaving the gorgeous 6.53-inch AMOLED undisturbed edge to edge.

Finishing the list of competitors off, we just have to include the Realme 6 and the Xiaomi Mi Note 9 Pro. Two devices that are currently blowing-up in popularity on the site and likely don't need an introduction. Each of these tries its best to squeeze as much value out of a similar budget price tag. Both have the Galaxy A31 beat in raw performance, offer 4K video capture, as well as a set of slightly-different bells and whistles, that you might personally find more appealing. The Realme 6, of instance, has its gamer-geared 90Hz refresh rate panel to stand on.

Verdict

We've been spending a lot of time deep-diving into Samsung's newly-refresh Galaxy A lineup lately. Between all the new models joining it and the Korean giant's sprawling Galaxy M family, we honestly think some devices, like the A31 have ended-up on the bad side of market segmentation.

In isolation, the A31 can stand on its own as a decent, if not perfect budget to mid-range offer. If you are after an AMOLED panel on a budget, Samsung is kind of the place to look. Doubly so, after the A31's panel managed solid performance all around in our tests. Furthermore, it has excellent battery life and its camera setup is both versatile enough and competent enough to recommend for stills.

However, the MediaTek Helio P65 chipset unfortunately disappoints in terms of performance, especially GPU, as well as DSP capabilities, leaving the A31 with a FullHD@30fps video capture cap. One that is not even backed-up by any kind of stabilization.

All the while, devices like the Galaxy A51 and especially the Galaxy M31 manage to fill most of the holes left inside the A31's specs and feature sheet, while also staying at or close to its original budget. For that reason alone, and before even looking around, outside Samsung's current offers, we find it hard to recommend the Galaxy A31. You can get more for your money elsewhere.

Pros

• Solid feel. Very unique, recognizable design and finish on the back side.
• Super AMOLED display that's plenty bright and color accurate with the Natural profile.
• Impressive all-round battery endurance and decent charging speed.
• The single bottom-firing speaker offers solid performance for its class.
• Android 10 out of the box, One UI 2.1 has plenty going for it.
• Superb portraits, better than average closeups, generally good daylight image quality from all cameras.
• Standout photo and video quality from the selfie camera.

Cons

• Slightly older design with bigger bezels and some uncertainty regarding presence of Gorilla Glass.
• Slower than usual fingerprint reader.
• Chipset isn't as powerful as what the competition has to offer. GPU performance is particularly lacking.
• Camera app is a bit light on options. No Night mode. No manual HDR.
• No video stabilization at all. Video recording is capped at 1080p@30. No 4K, no 60fps.