It seems like Samsung has finally woken up from a deep slumber and realized that it needs to focus on the budget smartphone (10K-15K) segment, because over the last 2-3 years it has emerged as the single biggest driver of growth in smartphone sales in our country. Samsung’s earlier efforts in this price range, the J series and the ON series, were pathetic, to say the least. They neither adhered to the trends of the industry, nor were they any good with the actual hardware that they packed. But all that has been changed now with Samsung officially launching it’s brand new Galaxy M series, targeted specifically at the Millenials. Samsung announced two new phones in the M series, the Galaxy M10 and the Galaxy M20. Let’s take a closer look at these two phones and their specifications.
Galaxy M20 vs Galaxy M10: Price in India, Sale and Offers
Both the Galaxy M20 and the M10 have been launched as Amazon exclusives and will be sold online only, in order to keep the costs down. The Galaxy M10 is the smaller sibling, coming in 2 variants: a 2GB RAM variant selling for Rs 7,990 and a 3GB variant selling for Rs 8,990. The Galaxy M20 starts at Rs 10,990 for its 3GB RAM variant and Rs 12,990 for its 4GB RAM variant. Considering Samsung’s history and the current pricing structure of budget brands, we’ll have to say Samsung has done quite well in keeping the prices competitive. Both of these devices are going on sale from 5th Feb at 12 noon.
Galaxy M20 vs Galaxy M10: Design, Build Quality and Display
The Galaxy M series features a design which is both futuristic and bland, at the same time. On one side (literally), it features bland polycarbonate backs with hardly anything that makes it look good. The M10 misses out on a fingerprint scanner at the back. Even the one found on the M20 is placed a bit too high for my liking, and it takes some time getting used to. There are vertically stacked dual cameras at the back for both of these devices. On the front, however, is a completely different story. Both of these devices feature a near bezel-less TFT LCD screen, with a tiny notch waterdrop notch at the top. Samsung calls it the ‘Infinity-V’ display and well it looks really amazing to see such tiny bezels on budget phones. While the M10 features a 6.2-inch HD+ display, the M20 gets a 6.3-inch FHD+ panel. Both of these displays look crisp and offer good levels of brightness. Samsung has also done well to equip both of these phones with Widevine L1 certification, which means you can stream Netflix and other media in HD.
Galaxy M20 vs Galaxy M10: Hardware, Software and Performance
The Galaxy M series also marks the debut of new chipsets on these Samsung devices. The M20 is powered by the Exynos 7904 processor, which is a 14nm chipset, with 2 high-performance cores clocked at 1.7GHz and 6 low-power cores, clocked at 1.55GHz. It features either 3GB of RAM coupled with 32 gigs of storage, or 4GB RAM with 64GB of storage. The 7904 is a capable budget chipset, with its performance matching that of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 636. The M10 comes packing an Exynos 7870 chipset, which is also a 14nm process based processor, and is comparable to the Snapdragon 450 in terms of performance. The M10 comes with either 2GB of RAM or 3GB of RAM, coupled to 16GB and 32GB of internal storage respectively. Both of these phones feature a Mali G71 GPU and have scope for memory expansion via microSD card. In terms of day-to-day performance, both of these phones do pretty well, thanks partly to the specially optimised UI skin they’re running. The phone launch with Android Oreo 8.1 out-of-the-box with Samsung Experience 9.5 on top. It’s basically a stripped down and refined version of Samsung’s skin, optimised specially for these budget devices. You do get Face Unlock feature on both these devices and it works quite fast. The OS also borrows some features from the One UI which Samsung debuted on its flagship devices, like navigation gestures, new icons etc.
Galaxy M20 vs Galaxy M10: Camera and Imaging
The M20 and the M10 feature identical dual camera setups at the back. The primary camera is a 13MP sensor with f/1.9 aperture lens, to aid in low-light photography. The secondary sensor comes with a 5MP ultra-wide 120-degree field-of-view lens and f/2.2 aperture. Having a wide angle lens adds so much flavour to your everyday pictures. The cameras perform decently well in well-lit conditions. However, the low-light performance is something that needs more work. The software processing adds a weird looking pastel effect to the pictures in order to make them look sharper. On the front, the M10 features a 5MP single selfie camera, whereas the M20 comes with a bigger 8MP f/2.0 camera. Both the selfie cameras come with screen flash to help you take better selfies in low-light.
Galaxy M20 vs Galaxy M10: Battery and Charging Speeds
The Galaxy M20 is the first Samsung phone to feature a massive 5000mAh battery. It also comes with a Type-C port and has support for Quick Charge 2.0. Samsung has done exceptionally well to bundle in its own 15W Adaptive Fast Charger with the M20. The phone takes about 2.5hours to charge completely from 0 to 100% and can hit 50% mark in under an hour, which is impressive for a battery this size. The M10 features a modes 3430mAh battery, however its lower resolution screen and less power-hungry processor would mean that it should be able to stand its own ground when it comes to battery life. The M10, however, misses out on any fast charging standard and also a Type-C port. It comes with a standard 10W charger and a micro USB port.
Galaxy M20 vs Galaxy M10: M-Pressive Enough?
The Galaxy M series, although not exactly a game-changer for the budget segment, but is definitely a game-changer for Samsung in India. It’s the first step in the right direction for a company that has literally no foothold in the budget smartphone segment. The M20 is the one which is going to get the larger chunk of attention out of these two devices, and it’ll be interesting to see how will other players like Realme, Redmi and Vivo react to Samsung’s re-entry of sorts in the under 20K segment. The M10 and M20 are just the beginning of what’s going to be an intense tug-of-war between Samsung and its Chinese rivals.
