After a long pause, Samsung is finally into the right track with M series. This new line of phone is meant for the millennial. Samsung is starting their series with Galaxy M10 and Galaxy M20. The M10 is the starting phone while M20 is the phone just above it. We tested the Galaxy M20 and we are very impressed with it. In our Samsung Galaxy M20 full review, we tested camera, battery life, performance and checked many other features.
Before this, J series phone were present at this price range but now things are changing. Samsung is also now in to the notch dimension and M20 is one of their first phone to have a notch. Till now Chinese players were winning the budget and entry level segment but now Samsung is also deploying their warriors now. After listening to users, they have made course correction and made many changes. Many people are taking this phone as answer to Chinese smartphones.
Galaxy M20 now comes with much bigger display, all screen look, water-drop notch, super massive battery, good processor, great camera and tons of features. If we look at the price, specs, features it is a nice to see that all these come in Samsung branding. We know that many people buy Samsung products because they trust the brand. Past phone were good but not as reasonable as they are now. Lets start our review by looking into the hardware specifications of the phone.
Samsung Galaxy M20 Specifications
These are the hardware specifications of this smartphone.
- 6.3″ LCD Screen with notch at top
- 1080×2340 Screen resolution
- Exynos 7885 Chipset with Octa core processor
- 2.2 GHz dual core + 1.6 GHz hexa core sets (Total 8 Core)
- Mali G71 MP2 GPU
- 3/4 GB LPDDR4X RAM
- 32/64 GB Internal Storage with 512 GB SD Card support
- 13 MP f/1.9 + 5 MP f/2.2 Rear camera setup
- 8 MP f/2.2 front camera inside the notch
- 5000 mAh Lithium Ion battery at 3729 mV
We tested the model with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory. The storage is Sandisk DG4032 to be exact.
Display
The screen is very interesting this time as Samsung is now implementing notch. These days people like big screen, all screen screen look, less bezel and notch. Instead of big ugly notch, Galaxy M20 has small water drop notch. Camera module sits inside it and the front speaker is tucked between screen and frame. The front big panel is 6.3″ LCD with 1080×2340 resolution. It looks very good and gives refreshing look to Samsung’s portfolio.
Notch might be new to some users but it looks good. We also adapted to it fast but if you don’t like it these is way to disable it from settings. Users can go inside Display and select Hide Camera from Full Screen Apps. It will show black bars at top and fix the screen. We know that notch is temporary phase and design in mobile industry until manufacturers figure out way to hide camera and sensors under screen.
In our video review, we can see that the notch doesn’t disturb the videos. We tried 16:9 normal sized ones and wide ones as well. Even if we expand, black bars cover the top potion and it all blends in.
Design
The full body is made up of plastic with volume rockers and power button at left side. At bottom there is headphone jack, USB Type C port and speaker grill. The right side has SIM card and SD card tray holder. At back there is camera module and fingerprint scanner. Design is very new in terms of front side and display. That is due to big screen, notch and less bezels.
Processing and Performance
Inside the Galaxy M20 there is Samsung’s own Exynos 7885 chipset. As we have told above it is quad core processor with two sets. One is Cortex A73 dual core set at 2.2 GHz and Cortex A53 hexa core at 1.6 GHz. This is not optimal because most better processors have two quad core sets. One is high power quad core and next is low power. But in case of Exynos 7885, there is only one high power dual core. So this combo can generate good power at need but not much. It does definitely help in power saving and increasing efficiency.
The processor is one of the key reason that the 5000 mAh battery lasts so long. Maybe it is one of the Samsung’s plan. It is their first Galaxy M phone in the budget so it quite acceptable. Anyway our using period was fan and smooth. The never heated and there we no hiccups what so ever. Our review model had 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage so our experience is based on that. Al we have to consider these models usually come to us with software that is not final or retail.
Octa core processor, 3 GB RAM and 32 GB are now the standard for the upper entry level phones. At the price segment, we have to admit Samsung is checking all the boxes. Our experience was great with this phone. We have also included benchmark results in our full review video.
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Camera
At the back side, there are 13 MP f/1.9 and 5 MP f/2.2 sensors. For the front side there is 8 MP f/2.2 sensor which is inside the notch. Galaxy M20 uses Samsung’s own sensor. This phone features some interesting features which we didn’t expect. We reviewed both Galaxy A7 and Galaxy A9 last year. Those phones needed one extra lens for ultra wide shots but Galaxy M20 manages to give wide shots with just one extra lens. There are two cameras at the back and it does Live Focus and wide shots just with those. So no more extra camera at the back.
Both front and back cameras can record videos at 1920×1080 resolution. Well there is option to shoot at 2336×1080 which wider 19.5:9 aspect ratio. There are modes such as Beauty, Pro, Panorama, Live Focus and Continuous shot. Our new favorite is wide shot because that is very helpful. Auto focus is fast, colors, sharpness are all great. We have tested phones from many companies and even though if they say 13 MP the final quality is not good.
Both sensor and post processing means a lot in camera result. If we ought to see the Camera results and consider the price segment of the phone with other specs, it is a great combo. The camera does fantastic job for budget phone. Our sample photos are available in our Instagram page and in our review video. Please view the video in Full HD and in 4K if possible to see the photos well.
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Do view our full video in highest quality for best photo samples
Extra Features, Battery, Software
When we are in this price segment, every small feature matters. Galaxy M20 has finger print scanner at the back and there is also face unlock feature. In our test, face unlock worked pretty fast. We did test in both well lit and dark situation. Face unlock worked really good for us.
In case of sound there is Dolby Atmos for headphones, this is a good addition because users can now enhance their experience by selecting different profiles,equalizer and other settings. It is good to see such feature included in this phone. This is very good for all the music lovers as there is headphone jack as well. As regular Samsung phones there is smart feature pack such as S Secure, S Bike mode, Power and Data saving modes. All these are small but very useful feature.
Next we are happy to see that Samsung is including good amount of sensors. The Galaxy M20 has compass, gyroscope and accelerometer. There is auto brightness features and as far as we know there is sensor at the top inside the notch. It is using camera for small time to control the auto brightness. Whatever the technology or approach is we are happy to see. All it lacks is a LED notification.
Talking about battery, this is a amazing thing. We have never tested a phone with such big battery. Even though it has a 5000 mAh battery, the phone is not that heavy. We were easily getting 7 hours of screen on time. This is true companion for YouTube lovers, music listeners and travelers. On top of this there is fast charging as well.
Conclusion and Wrap Up
The Samsung Galaxy M20 price in Nepal is Rs 18,490 for 3 GB model. Gathering everything and putting it over the table we see a budget targeted phone with power efficient octa core processor, 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. This is a good combination for phone of this range. Everything is good but a processor with more high frequency core would have been fantastic. Camera is also on point and produces fantastic result for the phone of its caliber. Currently the phone uses Android 8.1 OS with Samsung Experience for Galaxy M 9.5. This UI has new icons and adaptation for notch. We are a bit disappointed because the phone doesn’t have One UI and Android Pie at launch in 2019.
Samsung Galaxy M20 is budget phone done right after such a long time. It checks all the boxes of design, big display, bigger battery and good internal hardware. In our view the best feature of Galaxy M20 are battery size, screen and camera. Simple telling, Galaxy M20 is a recommended phone from us considering battery, camera and price. We have uploaded benchmark results, camera samples in our Instagram and they are also in our full review video. We hope they continue this and bring better phones in future. After the M10 and M20 we are really excited about the M30 and M50.
