Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: A Classy Design and Stunning Battery Life

271962

Samsung has been actively launching smartphones in the budget segment with a significant focus on delivering 5G handsets. As a result, we have seen a lot of Galaxy M-series phones that are 5G-compatible and offer some exciting set of features. And the latest newest addition to this list is the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G. The device comes with a price tag of Rs 17,999 for the 6GB RAM and Rs 19,499 for the 8GB RAM model.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G

Rs 17,999
7

Design and Build

7.0/10

Performance

7.0/10

Display Quality

7.0/10

Camera Quality

6.5/10

Software

6.5/10

Battery Performance

8.5/10

Audio

6.0/10

Day-to-Day Usage

7.0/10

Value for Money

7.5/10

Network Performance

7.0/10

What Is Good?

  • Smooth UI
  • Decent day-to-day performance
  • Excellent Battery Life
  • Good Design

What Is Bad?

  • No charger in the box
  • Bloatware
  • No AMOLED Display
  • Not for gaming

With this, Samsung is eyeing to attract users by offering an attractive design and stunning battery life. However, is it enough to make it a worthy option to consider, especially when the competition is so fierce? We got the chance to use the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G for a long time, and here’s what we think of it.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: Impressive design but plastic build

The latest Samsung Galaxy M33 5G is meant to impress with its fascinating rear-facing design. However, the front panel seems to disappoint a bit. The rear panel offers a modern look and appears super-premium. The back panel comes with a subtle finish, and we liked the fact that the camera module seamlessly merges with the panel.

The phone is available in different colour options, and we got Deep Ocean Blue, which gives a premium look. The side panel is made of plastic, and so is the back panel. Thanks to the choice of materials, the in-hand feel is decent, if not great. On the downside, the phone is quite prone to smudges on both the front and back panels, so I would recommend using it with a cover (which is not provided in the box). The round edges give you some comfort in holding the phone, but 215 grams of heft makes it feel heavy.

The right side of the device features volume controls and a power on/off button, which also doubles as a fingerprint sensor. It is quick to register fingerprints and unlock the phone with precision. Unfortunately, the volume controls are placed a little too high to my liking, making it difficult to reach. The left side of the device hosts the SIM slot, while the bottom comes with a single-firing speaker and a USB Type-C port.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: A responsive display

Coming to the display, the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G packs a 6.6-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD display with a screen resolution of 2408 x 1080 pixels. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection and offers a 120Hz refresh rate. Samsung was known for delivering AMOLED displays to its budget-centric phones in the past. However, this seems to be changing. The Galaxy M33 5G is yet another addition from the brand that does not offer an AMOLED display.

The display used in this smartphone is not that bad. You get good viewing angles and reasonably good colour reproduction. Plus, the 120Hz refresh rate makes the scrolling and animations much smoother. However, we still miss the punchiness of deep blacks of an AMOLED display, which makes the streaming experience a notch ahead. So it is a bit disappointing to see that Samsung, which is one of the largest manufacturers of AMOLED displays, is avoiding it in its affordable price range.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: Enough performance for casual use

Coming to the performance, the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G smartphone comes loaded with a reasonably capable Samsung Exynos 1280 processor. The octa-core processor offers up to 2.4GHz of clock speed and packs a Mali-G68 GPU. The Galaxy smartphone is powered by up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, expandable up to 1TB using a microSD card slot.

The Samsung Galaxy M33 5G delivers some good performance on a daily basis. Be it using the browser for suffering, posting pictures on social media, or using Google Maps during a commute, we never faced much lag or stutter. The multi-tasking capabilities of the Galaxy M33 5G are decent as well, and you can efficiently juggle between different applications without much lag. Moreover, the phone is 5G compatible and offers a wide range of bands, making it a future-proof device.

The Samsung Galaxy M33 5G delivers some good results in different benchmark scores as well. On AnTuTu, the phone delivered a score of 394913 points. On Geekbench, we got 742 points in the single-core test and 1840 points in the multi-core test. Lastly, on the 3D Mark Sling Shot Extreme test, the phone scored 3585 points.

That said, it is essential to note that the Galaxy M33 5G is not a gaming-centric smartphone, nor does the brand market it in this fashion. Instead, the phone is meant to handle casual games and it shows especially while playing graphically demanding titles.

When playing Call of Duty Mobile and BGMI, we observed stutter and frame drops, which makes the whole gameplay quite choppy, to be honest. The audio performance is also not that great. At full volume, the sound can be a bit pinchy to the ears. It lacks deep bass and the treble is too overpowering.

Coming to the software, the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G runs on the Android 12 operating system with One UI 4.1 on top of it. The user interface has been refined a lot with One UI 4.1. You get much better aesthetics when it comes to animations and design. The user interface comes loaded with interesting features like a screen recorder, Link to Windows, Dual Messenger, Quick Share, Music Share, Secure Folder, and more. Moreover, you also get the option to change the colour palette of icons based on the wallpaper, which is a good addition. Overall, the UI is smooth to run, but it still comes with a fair share of bloatware, which can be removed easily.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: Are quad cameras really required?

For optics, the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G equips a quad-camera setup on the rear panel, which comes with a combination of a 50-megapixel primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture, a 5-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture, 2-megapixel depth sensor, and 2-megapixel macro shooter. The company has loaded an 8MP shooter for selfies and video calling on the front. The phone also supports 4K video recording, though it is capped at 30 frames per second.

The camera UI offers a host of interesting modes, including Portrait, Photo, Video, Night, Panorama, Food, Super Slow-Mo, Hyperlapse, and Pro mode. You also get the Single Take feature, including photos, boomerang video, fast-forward video, regular video, and more. All the pictures taken from this mode are social media ready, and the mode is quite fun to use. Another mode that we liked was the Fun mode. The mode is made in collaboration with Snapchat, and you get a plethora of Snapchat filters to use.

Coming to the performance, the Samsung Galaxy M33 5G delivers decent results in daylight shots. The primary camera captures good colours in broad daylight, though we felt that details could have been a bit better. The ultra-wide camera captures more field-of-view, though we found that it is not able to capture the finer details. Moreover, we also noticed that the phone could not focus on a subject far away with the ultra-wide-angle lens. Coming to the macro sensor, the low megapixel count hinders the photo’s resolution. The phone is able to focus on the subject when you take it close enough, but the details and colour reproduction are not that great.

In low light conditions, we noticed that the primary 50MP camera delivers some good results in terms of capturing details, but the colours were a bit washed out. Ironically, the ultrawide camera captured the right colours, but the details went for a complete toss. The phone also has a Night Mode that allows you to capture more light, but the results still have noise, and the details are not well captured. The front camera does a decent job of capturing portraits in both low light and daylight. The edge detection has definitely improved with this smartphone, and it captures true skin colour with the right amount of detail in sunlight.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: Massive battery, no charger

One of the most significant selling points of this device is the massive 6,000mAh battery. The Samsung Galaxy M33 5G is a monster to beat in the battery department. It is just impossible to drain the battery in a day, even with heavy usage that includes a lot of gaming and streaming videos on Netflix or Prime Video.

We got a screen on time of roughly 9 hours with a mix of medium to heavy usage. The phone also delivered a good battery life of approximately two days with this usage. One can expect it to deliver up to three days of battery backup with average to light usage.

The phone also comes with 25W fast charging support, though the doesn’t ship with a charging brick. This means you have to bear additional charges to buy the 25W rapid charger from the company. During our testing, we found out that the phone was able to charge from 10 to 100% in roughly 1.6 hours. Moreover, half an hour of charge delivered around 40% of battery backup.

Samsung Galaxy M33 5G Review: Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy M33 5G seems to be a decent option in this price range. The smartphone comes with a stunning design, making it stand out from the crowd. The phone also delivers some excellent battery life, which also happens to be its best selling point. But apart from this, the phone might look like an underdog when compared to the competition. The exclusion of an AMOLED display in the sub-Rs 18,000 price segment is a big miss from the brand. Further, the lacklustre multitasking and high-end gaming capabilities is also disappointing. But, if you want a smartphone that delivers exceptional battery life and offers a good design, you can consider buying the Galaxy M33 5G.

If you want to check out some alternatives, you can try the Poco X4 Pro, OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite and Redmi Note 11 Pro. Even Samsung’s own Galaxy F23 5G provides better performance because of the more powerful Snapdragon 750G SoC.