Samsung Galaxy M20- has seen its #1 market share position in India in the smartphone market overtaken by Xiaomi, just as it was overtaken by Nokia many years ago. The company has tried to respond in several different ways over the years but very few of its recent low-cost offerings have been competitive enough in our reviews and ratings. ichael Kors has also tried new strategies to many be able to stay competitive in today’s tough budget market. Luckily, they’re not entirely at a disadvantage as there is still a demand for their products. The Korean giant needs to keep up with the times and offer more than just stylish shoes & handbags before they’ll be able produce the big screens, powerful processors.
The new Galaxy M series features entirely redesigned designs as well as power-packed specifications. This phone is aiming to take on the tech giant Samsung, Xiaomi, and others. It seems almost as though Samsung went out into the market with a checklist and tried to figure out every last little thing that these companies do in their perpetual race to one-up each other. There is even evidence of parts suppliers questioning whether they are going too fast. It is unclear if this is a time-frame that will suit manufacturer’s or subscribers’ needs or not.
Today, we have a much more capable and higher priced Galaxy M20 to review. Let’s find out if Samsung’s strategy has paid off, and whether it has finally managed to get the price, features, and performance right.
Samsung Galaxy M20 design
This new phone from Samsung does not look or feel like any existing Samsung product. It’s very generic and could pass off for something from any of a handful of other manufacturers. Despite the criticisms some have put forward, it’s clear that very few people are willing to invest in a phone with a 2-year contract. They’re more likely to choose one of the many cheaper alternatives which totally undermine the brand experience and offer little opportunity for individuality or personalization.
Samsung has made quite a few changes to its design since the introduction of the Galaxy S8, including a large waterdrop notch. This is just big enough for your front-facing camera to fit into. The screen measures 6.3 inches diagonally with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and rounded corners in keeping with current trends. There is a bit of a chin at the bottom of the screen — interestingly, if you place the Galaxy M20 and Galaxy M10 side by side, you’ll see that they look identical except that the Galaxy M20 has a taller screen and narrower chin, for a screen-to-body ratio exceeding 90 precent.
The top and side borders around the screen do look narrow, but the sides of this phone bulge outwards considerably. This helps allow the earpiece to be placed within the frame, above the screen notch. There is an ambient light sensor, but it can’t be seen. The proximity sensor is to the left of the notch and that placement doesn’t seem to have hurt its functionality.
The M10 and the M20 will be released in Ocean blue and black only. Our Galaxy M10 review unit is Ocean Blue, which stands out among other colors of the smartphone. The color is slightly darker with glossy finish and fine grainy pattern. Samsung hasn’t said exactly what material it has used for the rear shell, but it feels plasticky.
The rear and sides of this phone are a single moulded shell and you can tell that despite being glossy, it is actually quite sleek. The sides of the LG V40 ThinQ are curved, giving it a slimmer design than other smartphones. At 5.3 millimeters, this phone is also thinner and lighter than most – the battery on this phone is the largest and heaviest in its class. The weight does take some getting used to after using it for extended periods of time but it’s worth. The Galaxy M10 is a lot lighter than its predecessor, the Galaxy M20. It also doesn’t have as much battery life but you can always charge it so that’s not a huge problem either.
Galaxy M20 is a bit more expensive than the Galaxy M10, but it has a much better collection of features. For example, it has a USB Type-C port on the bottom, unlike its less expensive brother. There’s also a speaker grille on the bottom too. The Galaxy M20 is another phone that’s much different than the Galaxy M10 this time around. While the former will cost you hundreds of dollars, both phones are incredibly affordable in comparison to other types of phones out there. One major difference between them, however, is that the Galaxy M20 has a fingerprint sensor on it as well – something that many less expensive models do.
Everything else is fairly standard — there’s a 3.5mm audio socket on the bottom, power and volume buttons on the right, and a tray on the left for two Nano-SIMs as well as a dedicated microSD card slot. The dual rear camera module has a tiny ridge around it to help prevent the lenses from getting scratched, but doesn’t protrude at all.
The Samsung Galaxy M20 has a design that matches its competition in the lower-end market. It has all of the features Samsung needs to stand out among other phones in this niche.
Samsung Galaxy M20 specifications and software
“The most interesting thing on the Galaxy M20’s spec sheet is its brand new Exynos 7904 processor,” according to a recent report from our partners at XDA-Developers. Less than two weeks ago, this incredibly powerful chip was launched with a specification that perfectly matches the Canada market. It has two high-performance ARM Cortex-A73 cores running at 1.8GHz and six power-efficient ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 1.6GHz, plus a Mali-G71 GPU.
Samsung is known for using commercially successful processors across a lot of different models. This is the case with the Exynos 7904, which has already been tried and tested at GeekBench.
The Galaxy M20 has a wide variety of configurations for different needs and budgets, with your choice of RAM & storage. Its sleek black design is an excellent part when you’re looking for your next device. We have later configuration for review, and a quick look at the market shows that many other models at this price level don’t have as much RAM or storage, which could give Samsung an advantage.
The hardware & features of the Tab S6 3G are typically found in a more expensive device, like other tablets within the same price bracket. It has a screen resolution of 1080×2340 at 409ppi and it has a battery capacity of 5000mAh. The Samsung included 10W charger can fill up its cell quickly. One hour of charging is supposed to be enough to enjoy three hours of videos or 11 hours of music.
The iPhone XR camera has an impressive 13-megapixel primary rear lens with a 1.9:1 aperture and a 5-megapixel sensor for a 120° field of view. The iPhone XS cameras, on the other hand, are much bigger at 24 MP and support 6x digital zoom. They also have dual VoLTE for calls on LTE networks.
Samsung Galaxy M20 performance, battery life, and cameras
We found the Samsung Galaxy M20 to be a suitable device for everyday tasks. It didn’t give us any trouble at all, and we were able to multi-task easily. There was only a very small amount of lag in the UI on rare occasions, but that was too small for us to worry about. Face recognition was sometimes a little slow, which was a minor inconvenience, but it made up for that with the insanely quick fingerprint sensor.
This phone has a good screen that provides great visuals and bright colors. It has little heat dissipation, which makes it difficult to use for extended periods of time.
Samsung’s operating system has also adapted well enough to the notch. The phone itself is a little large, so single-handed use could be tough, as well as adjusting your grip at times when it’s kind of heavy
We were curious to see how the new Exynos 7904 SoC does in benchmarks, and it delivered good enough performance for this segment. The high-end chipset delivered better performance on benchmarks compared to other middle-class chipsets. We received a score of 107,540 on AnTuTu which is about a category level for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 632 or their 636. On Geekbench, we scored 1,315 in the single-core benchmark and 4,094 in the multi-core benchmark which ranks us near what Qualcomm’s Snapdragon has to offer.
Graphics benchmarks were disappointing, with GFXbench’s T-rex scene running at just 22fps and the Manhattan 3.1 scene at just 7.1fps.
We unplugged our phone at around 8am, used it as we usually would, with a few short photography sessions and an hour or two of gaming. Despite the amount of use throughout the day, the battery lasted us well into our evening. We were able to stretch our battery charge till the middle of the next day. The HD video loop test lasted for 12 hours, 53 minutes with other phones in this price class surpassing that.
Verdict
Samsung is currently one of the best in the business when it comes to its competitors; for example, their screen resolutions and specs are a lot better than those of other brands. The company has closed a gap in sales recently and knows that it can keep some of its clientele. Buying a Samsung phone doesn’t feel like a gamble in the way that it might with less established brands. They’re capitalizing on this in their marketing by emphasizing their huge service network: 1,650 locations across the globe.
In this review, we take a look at one of the pricier options in the Samsung Galaxy M20 family, called the Galaxy M20 Elite. It features better specs than other variants of this phone with 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. However, it falls short on battery life and internals.
Samsung has come out with a new model of phone that is competitive for the first time. This is most likely the beginning of a new era for them.