The Samsung Galaxy A51 is a mid to high range smartphone with some flagship features. You get a Super AMOLED display, unique L-shaped rear camera design, under-display fingerprint sensor, and a sizeable battery. The Samsung A51 is available in 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. You can buy A51 at a reasonable price of $350 (AUD 508 and AED 1,330).
Design and Body Material
The Samsung Galaxy A51 is an attractive device with a centered-punch hole display like flagships Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus. There is an eye-catching ‘Prism’ design on the rear panel, and its weight is 172 grams. It feels solid in hand, and you’ll get an impressive display in the 158.5 x 73.6 x 7.9mm (body dimensions). Samsung has built this device with a plastic frame, and Galaxy A51 is missing the IP rating, which means it's not water or dust resistant. The power button and volume keys are nicely located on the right side of the handset, while it has a SIM slot on the left side. On the other hand, the bottom of the phone has a USB-C Port, Speaker grilles, and 3.5mm Audio jack. There is an L-Shaped quad rear camera module, and you’ll be able to pick the Samsung A51 up in four different colors – Black, White, Pink, and Blue.
Display
The 6.5 inches Full HD+ (1080 x 2400), Super AMOLED display, is bright and colorful with excellent detail, and it also has Samsung’s smallest ever pin-hole camera on the screen. Although it has 6.5 inches large screen, but Samsung has kept the bezels super slim, which makes the size of the phone more compact, and can be used with one hand. The phone provides 87.4 percent screen-to-body ratio, 20:9 aspect ratio, 405 PPI density, and the front panel of the handset is coated with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. There is an in-screen fingerprint sensor for authentication. In terms of display brightness, we measured about 420 nits of maximum brightness in manual mode and 550nits in the auto with the ambient light sensor is exposed to bright light. We measured a minimum brightness of 1.8nits.
Battery
There is a 4,000 mAh battery packed into the Samsung A51, which is pretty sizeable for a phone in this price range. It can support up to 15W for fast charging, which can charge the battery only in 70 to 80 minutes. Samsung A51 gets 100h best endurance rating, and we can spend up to 32 hours for 3G Talk Time as well as 17 hours for watching videos. The predecessor sibling Galaxy A50 also has 4,000 mAh battery, but it has a 98h endurance rating. Moreover, Samsung A51 can allow users to spend up to 14 hours for web browsing.
Software
The Samsung Galaxy A51 is one of the first in the mid-range device that comes with the brand new One UI 2 based on Google’s latest Android 10 operating system. In the settings menu, there is a Device care feature that accommodates the Battery settings and information, storage, and memory management and security features. In the power mode, you’ll get three power options - Optimized, medium-power saving, and Maximum power saving. For multimedia, the phone has a new Gallery app by Samsung for browsing photos and videos. There is also an FM radio app onboard, a proprietary My Files file manager app, Samsung Health app, Bixby assistant, among others. It also offers a Dark Mode that can save some battery juice by convert while light in black. The phone also has an Always-on display feature and various essential apps such as Facebook, Play Store, NetFlix, Video Player, YouTube, and Themes.
Tap down from the top, Samsung A51 has many icons such as Wi-Fi, Sound, Bluetooth, Auto-rotate, AirPlane mode, Flashlight, Power mode, Mobile data, Mobile Hotspot, Link to Windows, Scan QR Code, Blue light filter, Location, Smart View, Do Not Disturb, Secure Folder, Always On Display, Phone Visibility, Sync, Edge lighting, Dolby Atmos, Kids Mode, Dark Mode, Bixby Routines, and Focus mode. The display menu has a Brightness controller, Adaptive Brightness, screen mode, Font Size and Style, Screen Zoom, Full-Screen Apps, and Screen timeout. In the Screen timeout feature, you can adjust 15 seconds to 10 minutes for auto lock in inactivity condition.
Performance and benchmarks
The handset is powered by Samsung’s latest Exynos 9611 Chipset and paired with up to 6GB of RAM and 128GB onboard storage. The Exynos 9611 SoC is constructed on a 10nm Octa-core processor (4x2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x1.7 GHz Cortex-A53), and it has a Mali-G72 MP3 GPU. This Chipset provides 150MB upload speed and 600MB download speed as well. Let’s see some benchmarks.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
AnTuTu scores
Back Camera setup
The Samsung Galaxy A51 comes with an L-Shaped quad-camera setup on the back panel. The primary camera is a 48MP, and it joined by a 12MP ultra-wide (123-degree field-of-view) snapper, 5MP macro sensor (f/2.0 aperture), and a 5MP depth sensor (f/2.2 aperture). The primary sensor of the Galaxy A51 provides excellent response for photography, with the option of wide-angle shots, detailed close-ups, and blurred backgrounds (a mode that Samsung calls Live Focus). The 48MP primary shooter has f/2.0 aperture, 26mm (wide), 1/2.0, 0.8µm pixels, and PDAF technology. On the other hand, the 12MP ultra-wide sensor has an f/2.2 aperture and 1.12µm pixels. The captured images are all soft with original skin tones and natural color effects. The HDR feature also helps to shot pretty pictures in the night time.
The Samsung A51 can capture photos from 0.5X to 8.0X optical zooms, and the camera app has more options – Live Focus, Photo, Video, and More. The More icon in Camera app provides many options for photography such as Pro, Panorama, Macro, Food, Night, Super Slow-mo, Slow Motion, and Bixby vision. In the Camera Settings, you’ll get Scene optimizer, Shot suggestions, Scan QR Codes, Hold Shutter Button, Save Options, Rear Video Size, Front Video Size, and High-Efficiency Video. It has three options for rear video size – UHD 3840 x 2160, FHD 1920 x 1080, and HD 1280 x 720. Moreover, Samsung A51 records 4k videos at 30fps and FHD videos at 30/60/120fps. We have also captured beautiful images with a Portrait mode with blur Background.
Front Camera
The centered punch-hole of the Galaxy A51 has a 32MP sensor with f/2.2 aperture and 0.8µm pixels. The predecessor Samsung A50 has a 25MP sensor, but it has sharper f/2.0 aperture and 0.9µm pixels. Anyway, the 32MP immersive sensor of Samsung A51 can record Full HD videos (1080p) at 30fps. It also has HDR and Portrait mode for better selfie experience. We have saved pretty images from Portrait mode with blur background and natural skin tones. Surprisingly, you can also capture beautiful selfies at night time.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Big Super AMOLED display
L-Shaped quad rear camera setup
32MP Selfie shooter
Centered punch-hole like Galaxy Note 10
Cons
Lacks water-resistance
The speaker quality is poor
There is no option for 4k video recording at 60fps
Verdict
The Samsung A51 has various incredible features like Super AMOLED display, L-Shaped quad-camera setup on the back, 32MP selfie shooter, Exynos 9611 (10nm) Chipset, and 4,000 mAh battery capacity with 15W fast charging support. After all, if you want to buy a smartphone with a big screen, big battery, and plenty of photography features, but don't want to spend much money, the Samsung Galaxy A51 is for you.
Alternatives
If you’re finding the best competitor or alternative of the Galaxy A51, then you can purchase Galaxy A71 with a 32MP selfie sensor, 64MP L-shaped quad-camera setup, 4,500 mAh battery with 25W fast charging and under-display fingerprint sensor. The Galaxy A71 also has some upgraded features like 6.7 inches Super AMOLED display and SDM 730G (8nm) Chipset, but it cost $450 price ($100 more). On the other hand, the Vivo S5 also competes with Galaxy A51. The Vivo S5 has a diamond-shaped 48MP quad rear camera setup, 32MP selfie shooter, 6.44 inches Super AMOLED display, 4,100 mAh battery, an under-display fingerprint sensor. The Samsung A51 costs $350 price while S5 costs $380, but it also has 8GB RAM instead of A51’s 6GB of RAM.
Compare with competitors
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