Samsung Galaxy A51 Review
When you think about Samsung phones, you probably think aboutthis one right here. This is the Galaxy S20, or maybeyou think of the Note line, if you like styluses. Those are Samsung's Halo phones, but they're not actuallythe Samsung phones that most people buy. You see the top two sellingAndroid phones worldwide last year, were notSamsung's S phones or Notes or Huawei or anything else. They were Galaxy A series phones. That is what people buy, and now Samsung's making abig push to get Americans in on buying those kinds of phones with this thing righthere, the Galaxy A51. In the U.S., it's availableon AT&T, and Xfinity Mobile, Amazon.com.
Samsung.com,but the big deal here is that is costs 399 dollars. So, how does Samsungdo a 400 dollar phone? (upbeat music) Every phone has compromises, and 400 dollar phones havemore compromises than most. You have to pick what you careabout, so just for an example of those trade-offs, hereis the iPhone SE from Apple, and Apple picked caring aboutthe processor and the camera, instead of caring about havinga big screen and getting rid of these big dopey bezels. So, what are Samsung'spriorities for the Galaxy A51? Well, Samsung will tell you that there are three things, their, ♪ Awesome screen, awesome camera,long lasting battery life ♪ Okay sure, yes, thatcommercial's a banger. ♪ Awesome screen, awesome camera,long lasting battery life ♪ It's, it's a, ♪ Awesome screen, awesome camera,long lasting battery life ♪ - Okay, stop, hang on, oh my God.
Screen, camera, battery lifethose are the priorities for the A51, and all three aregood for a 400 dollar phone, but none of them are awesome. (upbeat music) Let's just start with the screen. It is 6.5 inches at 1080pand it's OLED, and it's good. It is a big screen, it gets pretty bright, and I'm not gonna pixel peep it. I just like it. I thin having a big screen isawesome, and I do not think there are going to be a lotof other 400 dollar phones this year, with screensthat are this good. Except, there's a hole-punchselfie camera, and that's fine. I have no problem withhole-punch selfie cameras, but Samsung put a shiny chrome ring around the selfie camera rightin the middle of the screen, and you see it all the time,and it is super distracting. Why? why Samsung? Why? The other thing about the screen is that there's a fingerprintsensor underneath it which also should be fine,but y'all it's super slow.
It's an optical sensor whichwhatever, but you stare at it, and there's this littlegreen circle thing, and you kind of just hope itunlocks in under a second, and it never does. So, screen, good. Parts underneath the screen, not so much. Second thing, let's talkcamera, well cameras. There is a 48 megapixel main sensor that kicks out 12 megapixelimages by default. There's a 12 megapixel ultra-wide sensor, a five megapixel macrosensor and a depth camera, and then the selfie camera inside that stupid chrome ring is 32 megapixels. And the photos are, well, you can tell it is a 400dollar Samsung phone. White balances okay, but Samsung really, really,really hates shadows, so in light photos it triesto brighten them up too much, and in the dark, it just freaks out and takes kind of terrible pictures. The details when zoom in onanything are just kinda messy. The ultra-wide and the macrolenses, they're super fun.
I actually love using them, but this like fullresolution 48 megapixel mode that you can do, itreally doesn't add much. And the selfies they're hit and miss, and portrait mode is,well it's almost all this. I think that Samsung software for imaging processing isreally starting to fall behind in 2020, so when it doesn'thave great camera hardware to fall back on like itdoes with the Galaxy S20, you can really tell. Look, the Pixel 3a and theiPhone SE, they have cameras that are like whoa, I didn't think aninexpensive camera could do that. This camera system is like yep that's a cheap phone all right. (relaxing music) Alright, the third thing is battery life, and I have to be honest andsay that testing battery life when you're stuck at home allday isn't the easiest thing, but, I've been using it for alittle bit less than a week, and my takeaway is that you'llprobably get more than a day, but you're not gonna gettwo, so battery life is good, but I expected awesome because it has a 4000 milliamp battery, so I'm trying to figure outwhat the disconnect is there, and I think it might be the processor.
This has Samsung's Exynos 9611 which is an overclocked version of the last one, and so itshould be fast, but it's not. You can definitely tellwhen it's trying hard, and this only has four gigs of RAM on it, and you can definitely tell that, too. It's just kind of slow. When you're inside an app, it's okay, but sometimes it just makes you wait. Alright, what else? Well, I still likeSamsung's One UI software. I think it's really goodfor big screened phones, but I don't like thatI can't trust Samsung to give me software updatesfor this thing after two or three years, and I've gotthe Verizon version here, and I hate, I mean I super hate, how much crap they letVerizon put on this thing.
There's nowhere else charging, but there's 128 gigs of storage, and you can expand it with microSD, and there's a headphone jack. The overall design and build quality of this phone is really nice. Samsung calls this material glasstic. (fingers tap) And yeah, that's sortof like plasticky glass, but it's better than that sounds. It's actually alright. I really like the design of this phone. So, that is the Galaxy A51. Basically, it's not an overachiever. It performs exactly as well as you'd expect a 400 dollarSamsung phone to perform in 2020 which is better than it would'vebeen a couple of years ago, but it's still not awesome. You do get this really solid,really big 6.5 inch screen, and it is the best thing about this phone, and screens are reallyimportant on any phone, but look, there are gonna be a bunch of sub 500 dollar phones with big screens this year, and I think at least one ofthem is going to be awesome. It's just that this Galaxy A51,it doesn't quite get there. Hey, thank you so much for watching, if you wanna see another tech video, Becca actually justreviewed the Pixel Buds which are way moreinteresting than you'd expect, so you should click on it to watch it. I still don't know where to point.
Samsung.com,but the big deal here is that is costs 399 dollars. So, how does Samsungdo a 400 dollar phone? (upbeat music) Every phone has compromises, and 400 dollar phones havemore compromises than most. You have to pick what you careabout, so just for an example of those trade-offs, hereis the iPhone SE from Apple, and Apple picked caring aboutthe processor and the camera, instead of caring about havinga big screen and getting rid of these big dopey bezels. So, what are Samsung'spriorities for the Galaxy A51? Well, Samsung will tell you that there are three things, their, ♪ Awesome screen, awesome camera,long lasting battery life ♪ Okay sure, yes, thatcommercial's a banger. ♪ Awesome screen, awesome camera,long lasting battery life ♪ It's, it's a, ♪ Awesome screen, awesome camera,long lasting battery life ♪ - Okay, stop, hang on, oh my God.
Screen, camera, battery lifethose are the priorities for the A51, and all three aregood for a 400 dollar phone, but none of them are awesome. (upbeat music) Let's just start with the screen. It is 6.5 inches at 1080pand it's OLED, and it's good. It is a big screen, it gets pretty bright, and I'm not gonna pixel peep it. I just like it. I thin having a big screen isawesome, and I do not think there are going to be a lotof other 400 dollar phones this year, with screensthat are this good. Except, there's a hole-punchselfie camera, and that's fine. I have no problem withhole-punch selfie cameras, but Samsung put a shiny chrome ring around the selfie camera rightin the middle of the screen, and you see it all the time,and it is super distracting. Why? why Samsung? Why? The other thing about the screen is that there's a fingerprintsensor underneath it which also should be fine,but y'all it's super slow.
It's an optical sensor whichwhatever, but you stare at it, and there's this littlegreen circle thing, and you kind of just hope itunlocks in under a second, and it never does. So, screen, good. Parts underneath the screen, not so much. Second thing, let's talkcamera, well cameras. There is a 48 megapixel main sensor that kicks out 12 megapixelimages by default. There's a 12 megapixel ultra-wide sensor, a five megapixel macrosensor and a depth camera, and then the selfie camera inside that stupid chrome ring is 32 megapixels. And the photos are, well, you can tell it is a 400dollar Samsung phone. White balances okay, but Samsung really, really,really hates shadows, so in light photos it triesto brighten them up too much, and in the dark, it just freaks out and takes kind of terrible pictures. The details when zoom in onanything are just kinda messy. The ultra-wide and the macrolenses, they're super fun.
I actually love using them, but this like fullresolution 48 megapixel mode that you can do, itreally doesn't add much. And the selfies they're hit and miss, and portrait mode is,well it's almost all this. I think that Samsung software for imaging processing isreally starting to fall behind in 2020, so when it doesn'thave great camera hardware to fall back on like itdoes with the Galaxy S20, you can really tell. Look, the Pixel 3a and theiPhone SE, they have cameras that are like whoa, I didn't think aninexpensive camera could do that. This camera system is like yep that's a cheap phone all right. (relaxing music) Alright, the third thing is battery life, and I have to be honest andsay that testing battery life when you're stuck at home allday isn't the easiest thing, but, I've been using it for alittle bit less than a week, and my takeaway is that you'llprobably get more than a day, but you're not gonna gettwo, so battery life is good, but I expected awesome because it has a 4000 milliamp battery, so I'm trying to figure outwhat the disconnect is there, and I think it might be the processor.
This has Samsung's Exynos 9611 which is an overclocked version of the last one, and so itshould be fast, but it's not. You can definitely tellwhen it's trying hard, and this only has four gigs of RAM on it, and you can definitely tell that, too. It's just kind of slow. When you're inside an app, it's okay, but sometimes it just makes you wait. Alright, what else? Well, I still likeSamsung's One UI software. I think it's really goodfor big screened phones, but I don't like thatI can't trust Samsung to give me software updatesfor this thing after two or three years, and I've gotthe Verizon version here, and I hate, I mean I super hate, how much crap they letVerizon put on this thing.
There's nowhere else charging, but there's 128 gigs of storage, and you can expand it with microSD, and there's a headphone jack. The overall design and build quality of this phone is really nice. Samsung calls this material glasstic. (fingers tap) And yeah, that's sortof like plasticky glass, but it's better than that sounds. It's actually alright. I really like the design of this phone. So, that is the Galaxy A51. Basically, it's not an overachiever. It performs exactly as well as you'd expect a 400 dollarSamsung phone to perform in 2020 which is better than it would'vebeen a couple of years ago, but it's still not awesome. You do get this really solid,really big 6.5 inch screen, and it is the best thing about this phone, and screens are reallyimportant on any phone, but look, there are gonna be a bunch of sub 500 dollar phones with big screens this year, and I think at least one ofthem is going to be awesome. It's just that this Galaxy A51,it doesn't quite get there. Hey, thank you so much for watching, if you wanna see another tech video, Becca actually justreviewed the Pixel Buds which are way moreinteresting than you'd expect, so you should click on it to watch it. I still don't know where to point.
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