In early January, Samsung introduced the new Samsung Galaxy A51 and Samsung Galaxy A71, two mid-range smartphones that seek to convince the general public thanks to their generous batteries, a large set of rear cameras and an immersive experience thanks to a perforated screen.
The Galaxy A series has become the place where Samsung tests some functionality not seen before on another smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy A50 introduced the first under-screen fingerprint reader and the Samsung Galaxy A51 is the first smartphone from the Korean brand to arrive with a macro camera.
Samsung Galaxy A51 arrives with a 6.5″ SuperAMOLED FullHD + screen, Exynos 9611 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of expandable storage via micro-SD, rear wide-angle cameras (48MP, f / 2.0) + ultra-wide-angle (12MP, f /2.2) + macro (5MP, f / 2.4) + depth (5MP, f / 2.2), 32MP f / 2.2 front camera, and 4,000 mAh battery.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 is for sale at an official price of € 362, but you can find it for around 284.99$ in online stores like Amazon.com.
Samsung Galaxy A51 Review
The Samsung Galaxy A51 comes with a fairly modern design, with a large screen surrounded by narrow frames and a hole at the top that houses the front camera. As a result, it presents a screen-to-body ratio of 87% (according to GSM Arena), which has little to desire for many high-end smartphones.
Its construction, however, does not offer such a premium appearance. Instead of opting for metal and glass for the chassis and the back, Samsung has provided the Galaxy A51 with an all-plastic body. This material looks and feels less attractive to the touch and, in my experience after several weeks, it breaks more easily.
The screen of the Samsung Galaxy A51 is a Super AMOLED type and offers a Full HD + resolution, more than enough for this screen size. The Super AMOLED panels are the best we can find in the market, so it is a point in favor that it incorporates this screen instead of an IPS LCD.
The color fidelity of the screen is very good in the Natural color mode, but it is not so good in the Intense mode that is activated by default. This mode features colors that are too saturated and therefore less faithful to reality, but many users prefer this aspect.
The maximum brightness of 568 nits is quite high compared to other mid-range smartphones, so you will have no problem using the phone in bright sunlight.
Samsung has incorporated the Always On Display functionality, which can be configured to be active at all times, only for 10 seconds when we touch the screen or on a scheduled basis between certain hours.
In this mode, we can see the time, date, battery level and the icons of the apps with pending notifications always on the screen.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 arrives with a mid-range Exynos 9611 processor accompanied by 4 GB of RAM. This processor was released in late 2019 and is built on a fairly energy-efficient 10nm process.
In performance tests, the Samsung Galaxy A51 has performed well but far from other rivals of a similar price with the Snapdragon 730G.
In general, the Samsung Galaxy A51 moves smoothly, but sometimes it misses a little more power – especially when switching between open apps, moving through Camera app modes or lenses, or trying to use an app while installing another in the background. Searches within Settings are also quite slow.
To check the actual graphics performance, I have tried some recent 3D games like Asphalt 9, Dead Effect 2 and Call of Duty. All three offer good performance with average FPS rates close to 30 or 60 FPS (depending on the title) in average graphics quality.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 comes with 128GB of storage that should be sufficient for most users. If not, Samsung allows you to expand this capacity by a micro-SD card without losing Dual SIM functionality thanks to the fact that it has three independent slots.
One thing to keep in mind is that the USB 2.0 port is not too fast, so it will take time to move data to/from your computer if, for example, you want to transfer movies.
One of the strengths of the Samsung Galaxy A51 is the 4,000 mAh battery that gives it good autonomy. In the autonomy test with the screen calibrated to 200 nits, it has obtained a good mark surpassing several mid-range smartphones, so you usually will not have problems reaching the end of the day with a good amount of battery remaining.
Samsung has built-in 15W fast charge and in tests, it takes about 1 hour and 50 minutes for the phone to fully charge. After half an hour, it only reaches 33% charge, so it’s not too fast of a charge.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 arrives with Android 10 and, above, Samsung’s One UI 2.0 layer, which incorporates a large number of added functionalities such as gesture control, energy-saving modes, dual messaging, Secure Folder, Samsung Pass, Samsung Pay, etc. The only notable absence is Samsung DeX and screen recording, which are not present in this smartphone.
Samsung has incorporated an optical fingerprint reader under the screen to the Samsung Galaxy A51.
Fingerprint recognition works well as long as you place your finger correctly in the fingerprint area, which is not too wide. Unlocking is not one of the fastest since it normally takes 1-2 seconds, but it is not a problem either.
Samsung has also incorporated facial recognition that doesn’t always work for the first time. Being a 2D system, the security is lower than that provided by the fingerprint reader.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 has a single speaker on the bottom, which sounds quite powerful, although it is too easy to cover when placing the phone horizontally to play or watch a video. Luckily, the Galaxy A51 has a 3.5mm headphone jack.
In the connectivity section, it is compatible with WiFi 802.11 b / g / n / ac networks in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, Bluetooth 5.0 and supports NFC for payments with Google Pay or Samsung Pay.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 comes with a quad rear camera: a 48MP f/2.0 wide-angle, a 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle, a 5MP f/2.4 macro, and a 5MP depth camera. Neither of these cameras offers optical stabilization.
The Galaxy A51’s main camera is capable of taking good shots in good light conditions but it falters in low light conditions due to the lack of optical stabilization and the limited aperture of its lens. It offers an HDR capture mode that works quite well at recovering detail in very dark or brightly lit areas, and a Night mode that, in tests, has hardly made a difference.
The main camera is also capable of shooting Portraits with Dynamic Focus mode thanks to the use of the depth camera. The result is very good, except for occasional problems with hair that also occur on more expensive smartphones. Samsung offers the possibility of modifying the degree of blur a posteriori, as well as applying certain effects to the blur.
The ultra-wide-angle camera is very versatile when capturing monuments, buildings or large groups of people. It offers good quality in bright lighting conditions, but again it is not a camera suitable for low light situations.
The macro camera is a novelty on Samsung smartphones and allows you to take pictures of very close objects (3-5 cm). It stands out for its high resolution of 5MP since other competitors stay at 2MP. Now, in my experience, the use of the Macro camera is very exclusive, so I would have changed it without hesitation for a telephoto lens.
The camera selfies with 32MP resolution offers a very good quality and support HDR, which allows funds (white) appear burned like other smartphones. In addition, it allows taking photos in Dynamic Focus mode, with results that are again quite good.
When recording video, the Samsung Galaxy A51 can record in HD, Full HD or 4K at 30 FPS, but it is not possible to record at 60 FPS at any resolution. Electronic stabilization works quite well but can only be used at Full HD resolution or lower.
The Samsung Galaxy A51 has an official price of $ 362, but you can find it for only $ 284.99 in stores like Amazon.com. Its main competitors are smartphones that, with a similar price, offer a more powerful Snapdragon 730G processor, although they may have shortcomings in other aspects where the Galaxy A51 shines.
The Best and Worst about Samsung Galaxy A51
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Samsung Galaxy A51 Price and Competitors
The Samsung Galaxy A51 has an official price of $ 362, but you can find it for only € 284.99 in stores like Amazon.com.
If we look at other phones, we have some interesting options that can compete against the Galaxy A51 in performance and price.
The Realme X2 has a 6.4 ″ FullHD + AMOLED display, Snapdragon 730G processor, 8 GB of RAM, 182 GB of storage, quad rear camera (wide-angle, ultra-wide-angle, macro, depth) and battery. 4,000 mAh.
The Xiaomi Mi 9T ( $282.39 on Amazon) has a 6.4 ″ FullHD + AMOLED screen, Snapdragon 730 processor, 6GB of RAM, 64 / 128GB of storage, triple rear camera (wide-angle, telephoto, ultra-wide-angle) and 4,000 mAh battery.
The Huawei Nova 5T ( $395.00 on Amazon) 6.3 ″ LCD screen, Kirin 980 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, quad rear camera (wide-angle, ultra-wide-angle, macro and depth), 32MP front camera and battery 3,750 mAh.
