Samsung Galaxy A31 Camera Review – Samsung may advertise and promote the Galaxy S20 series a lot, but it’s the company’s Galaxy A line of smartphones that sell in big numbers and help it become the world’s number one smartphone OEM. The Galaxy A series consists of a range of devices that cater to different price ranges. In this lineup, the Galaxy A31 is positioned as a sub-premium mid-range smartphone that still has some premium features.
These include a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, a design language similar to the Galaxy S20 series, a quad-camera system, an in-display fingerprint scanner and a large 5,000mAh battery. So, is the Galaxy A31 worth the money? Or is it underpowered compared to what Realme, Xiaomi and other OEMs are offering?
Samsung Galaxy A31 Camera Review
The design language of the Galaxy A31 is similar to the Galaxy S20 series, although some compromises have been made to keep the price down. The device has a “glass” body, i.e. the front is protected by reinforced glass, while the back is made of plastic. The rear design of the Galaxy A31 is a combination of the Galaxy S20 and the Galaxy Note10 series. The way the back reflects light and shows a colorful pattern gives it a unique and premium look. In fact, the design of the back of the device is very similar to the slightly more premium and expensive Galaxy A51.
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The front is dominated by a 6.4-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel. There’s a decent-sized chin at the bottom, and the bezel around the display is acceptable given the price of the device. The display has a waterdrop design to house the selfie camera at the top. The USB-C port, mono speaker and headphone jack are on the bottom, while the volume rocker and power button are on the right edge. Both are easy to access and offer good tactile feedback. While there’s no wireless charging here, the Galaxy A31 does have NFC, a feature mostly missing from other mid-budget smartphones in this price range. The device also supports Samsung Pay, which means you can replace your credit/debit card with the Galaxy A31 if the service is available in your area.
Overall, the Galaxy A31 looks more premium than it feels in the hand. There are many other smartphones that cost the same as the Galaxy A31 but feature Gorilla Glass panels on the front and back. At least in terms of design, the Galaxy A31 is not inferior to competitors.
One of the strengths of the Galaxy A31 is its display. The device has a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED panel with FHD+ resolution. It’s not a high refresh rate panel, and while AMOLED panels are a common sight in high-end Android flagships, they’re still rare in mid-range budget phones. The Galaxy A31’s display may not win awards for color accuracy or brightness, but it’s still a great display. It has great viewing angles, brightness levels are good enough that you can read content on the display in direct sunlight, and as usual with AMOLED displays, content stands out with boosted colors and saturation.
Another advantage of the Galaxy A31’s AMOLED display is the Always On Display feature. With a powerful 5000mAh battery, you don’t have to worry about this feature affecting battery life. You can also customize the AOD to a certain extent with different watch designs.
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The Super AMOLED panel on the Galaxy A31 also allows Samsung to include an in-display fingerprint scanner, again rare for a budget device. The scanner is a little slow, but I still find it better than the ultrasonic sensor Samsung uses on its flagship Galaxy S and Note devices.
The Galaxy A31 comes with a quad-camera setup on the back, including a 48MP primary camera with f/2.0 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, a 5MP macro sensor and a 5MP depth sensor. There is also a 20MP selfie camera on the front. On paper, the Galaxy A31’s camera specs may look impressive for its price, but in real life, the results are mixed. During the day, the camera tends to produce images that are pleasant to look at, although it increases color and saturation to do so.
There is no night mode on the Galaxy A31, which means that its low-light photos are almost unusable. They look good most of the time, although there’s a lot of noise, and it’s also easy to take blurry photos if your hands aren’t very steady. The device also tends to struggle to focus in very dark environments. It’s surprising that Samsung doesn’t enable night mode on $300+ devices. Video recording capabilities also fall short, as the Galaxy A31 cannot record video in 4K or in slow motion.
Samsung has traditionally used its own mid-range Exynos chips in Galaxy A devices. However, for the Galaxy A31, the company has switched to the MediaTek Helio P65 chipset. It is a low-cost octa-core chip consisting of six Cortex-A53 cores and two Cortex-A75 cores running at 2 GHz. This is paired with a Mali-653 GPU. In India, Samsung only sells the Galaxy A31 in one variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of slow eMMC 5.1 storage.
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The Helio P65 chip is not a performance monster. This is a relatively old chip that is usually found in devices that are much cheaper than the Galaxy A31 costs. So Samsung’s decision to use this chip in a $300+ device is certainly puzzling. In daily use, the Helio P65 can handle its own stress, and as long as you don’t push the A31 hard, you won’t notice any lag or stuttering. However, this phone is not designed for heavy gaming or multitasking as the device starts crashing when pressed hard. While it can run casual games like Temple Run 2, performance on games like PUBG is below par. Fortunately, with 6GB of RAM as standard, the device can multitask with a bunch of apps open without completely stalling.
The weak chipset also means the Galaxy A31 lacks some features common to other devices in this price range. These include no 4K video recording, no EIS, no night mode, average network performance and more. I’m not sure why Samsung chose the Helio P65 chip on the Galaxy A31, and it’s probably the weakest point of the device.
In terms of battery life, the Galaxy A31 really shines with its mid-range specs and large 5,000mAh battery. Even if you use the phone at full brightness with Always-On Display, spend a few hours browsing the web on a 4G network, play
, or any other game for several hours, you’ll still struggle to drain your battery in a day. With average usage, the Galaxy A31 will easily last almost 1.5-2 days without recharging. However, one problem is that the Galaxy A31 only supports 15W fast charging. Considering the size of the battery, this is on the slower side, and it takes almost 3 hours to charge the device from 0 to 100%, which can be a little frustrating.
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One of the highlights of the Galaxy A31 is its software. The device runs Android 10 with the One UI 2 interface. It works the same way as on more premium devices from Samsung, including the Galaxy S20 series. Samsung skins have come a long way since the era of Touchwiz and One UI easily ranks among the top OEM skins. The UI/UX is well thought out and there are plenty of options and customization features to play with. Some of the notable features of One UI 2.1 include dark mode, digital well-being, theme support, unobtrusive UI for incoming calls, one-handed mode and more.
Another area where One UI 2.1 excels is in its multitasking features. You can run selected applications in windowed mode on top of other applications. However, the weak chipset means multitasking on the Galaxy A31 is not ideal, as the device lags and lags when switching between heavy apps. There are no system ads in One UI 2.1 on the A31, although there is some pre-installed malware and you will get spam notifications from time to time.
Overall, the One UI 2.1 experience on the Galaxy A31 helps ensure that the device offers a higher level of experience than its price and internals.
The Galaxy A31 is priced at Rs 21,999 ($300) in India. At this price, the device loses many of the features found in devices that cost more than $100-$120 less. The Galaxy A30 is significantly cheaper than the A31 in this region.
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