Samsung Galaxy A60/M40 review

Triple-camera setup, 32MP main snapper

Just like the Galaxy A70, the A60 features pretty much the same camera setup on its back that consists of a 32MP main snapper with a wide f/1.7 aperture. The camera also supports PDAF and it's one of Samsung's large sensors relying on the pixel-binning technology combining four adjacent pixels into one effectively capturing more light, more detail, improving dynamic range and offering better nighttime shots.

However, just as on the A70, the A60 outputs the images in 12MP instead of the 8MP we expected (32MP divided by 4 pixels equals 8MP). Our best guess is that the software upsizes images to 12MP or there is something else going on behind the scenes which we're not aware of.

Anyway, the second camera is 8MP paired with an ultra-wide lens with f/2.2 aperture with 123-degree field of view. The EXIF says it's a 12mm equivalent focal length. And as for the third sensor, it's just a 5MP unit used only for depth sensing.

Camera software

Opening the default camera app greets us with a familiar UI and icons. If you've used another Samsung device, you will find it easy to navigate through the camera features, modes and menus. In fact, nowadays the default camera apps on all phones are pretty similar to one another. The arrangement of the camera modes, the additional settings and the styling of the icons is what sets them apart.

Anyway, swiping left and right will switch between modes while the small tree icons on the viewfinder are for switching between the main cam and the ultra-wide one.

For additional settings, you need to tap on the Settings icon in the upper-left corner of the viewfinder. It gives you control over the scene optimizer (not that it does anything, except recognizing documents, for example), the HDR, re-arranging camera modes and choosing the video resolution.

Camera settings and features

Also, keep in mind that in the standard Photo mode, the 3:4 toggle shoots in the standard 12MP while the 3:4H icon means 32MP mode. And when shooting selfies, you have to choose between the full image resolution or the cropped one and you can't set the native resolution by default - you always have to switch manually to non-cropped mode.

Daylight samples

The 12MP images from the main camera come out with good dynamic range, and color reproduction is rather accurate. The level of detail, however, isn't so good. For the pixel peepers out there - the image processing also applied some heavy sharpening halos around straight lines. Moreover, the scene optimizer didn't do anything for us - no boost in colors or anything.

Strangest of all, we observed severe corner softness in photos with distant subjects while photos with close-by subjects were just fine.

12MP daylight samples

12MP daylight samples

Switching to 32MP mode will result in slightly better detail but the sharpening halos are still there. Additionally, the corner softness we observed in the 12MP images is present here as well. Overall, the rendition remains unchanged and the dynamic range is good even though HDR won't kick in this mode. It's not supported in the camera's full resolution.

32MP daylight samples

Keep in mind that in 32MP, it takes a second or two to take a photo and the sensor isn't intended for shooting in its full 32MP resolution anyway so we don't recommend the 32MP over the standard 12MP.

The ultra-wide camera delivers good colors, contrast and dynamic range are just as nice as on the main cam. However, there's noticeable purple fringing around high-contrast objects, the detail is poor, there's a lot of corner softness and noticeable barrel distortion.

Daylight ultra wide-angle samples

Overall, the ultra wide-angle camera's performance is underwhelming, to put it mildly. Still, we can't really expect better from it given that even phones with twice the price struggle with their ultra-wide cameras.

If it's any consolation, we can confirm that if there's enough light, the photo will probably turn out good enough for use on social media and such.

Nighttime samples

Once again, the level of detail isn't impressive by any means and images look soft. However, we did notice some improvements compared to the Galaxy A70. The A60 offers more definition but increased noise too. Also, when shooting night scenes, you might want to turn on the manual HDR control since the software doesn't use it always. It would greatly improve the highlights and restore some detail in the shadows. This should do for the lack of dedicated night mode.

Main camera nighttime samples

And as for the ultra-wide camera, we suggest you refrain from using it at all during the night. It's noisy, it lacks detail, there's plenty of corner softness and it almost feels like you are shooting with a VGA camera.

Ultra wide-angle camera nighttime samples

And before we dive into the portraits and selfies, let's do some more pixel peeping but this time under a more controlled environment.

Galaxy A60 against the Xiaomi Mi A3 and Realme X in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

If there's enough light, you will end up with a nice-looking portrait with natural skin tone and a decent amount of detail but if you are shooting indoors, the subject will turn out softer than we'd like. The edge detection algorithm looks pretty nice, though, and does a good job when presented with a non-complex background.

Portraits

Selfies

Due to the lack of autofocus, you will end up doing a number of selfies before choosing the one that's in focus. And even then, there's some general softness all-around. Dynamic range and skin tones look nice, though. The portrait mode struggles with edge detection.

Selfies: Normal • Portrait • Normal

Video recording

The phone can record videos in 2160p@30fps and 1080p videos at up to 60fps with the main camera. You can also use the ultra wide-angle camera, which is capped at 1080p@30fps.

The 2160p video looks nice with punchy colors and good contrast. There's a good amount of detail and just a tad more noise than we would like to. The dynamic range is good once again but some loss in detail in the shadows can be observed. The whole video looks a bit darker.

And as you'd expect, in Full HD, there's noticeably less detail but the rendition is pretty much the same as in 2160p mode. The same pros and cons apply here.

Now let's do the traditional video quality comparison in our lab.

2160p: Galaxy A60 against the Xiaomi Mi A3 and Realme X in our Video compare tool