Can the new Galaxy M20 win you Chicken Dinner?

By Sylvester Sy
7 Min Read
PUBG Galaxy M20 01

South Korean tech giant has released its newest budget smartphone that packs quite a punch and offers a refreshing break from the crowd of affordable smartphone in a bid to target the millennials.

The new Samsung Galaxy M20 has created quite a stir in the budget smartphone market. And the Galaxy M20 is poised to be the common man’s go-to smartphone. While the Samsung Galaxy M20 promises good value for money, it is not the best looking phone in this price range. After using the Samsung Galaxy M20 for some time, here’s our review.

Build Quality/Design

The new Samsung Galaxy M20 appears solid in the hands and fits comfortably as well. The smartphone gets a polycarbonate body which undoubtedly feels good to hold and looks decent for the price tag it carries. So if you are ok with the plastic rear panel, then you will have no complaints about the looks of the phone at all.

The front of the device looks amazing with the “Infinity-V” notch that is similar to the waterdrop notch design as seen on devices like OPPO. The Galaxy M20 uses a big 6.3-inch 2.5D curved TFT panel with 1080p+ resolution and 19:5:9 screen aspect ratio that takes its design to the next level.

Performance

The inside of the new Samsung Galaxy M20 is powered by the 14nm 64-bit Exynos 7904 octa-core processor where two of those are high-performance ARM A-73 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz and the other 6 are Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.6 GHz. It is paired with Mali-G71 MP2 GPU. This chipset is powerful enough to get an AnTuTu score of 108K.

As for the phone’s performance, basic task like social media runs smoothly. I had no problems in multitasking whatsoever and the apps are opening fast and did not experience any lags on heavy usage as well.

PUBG on Samsung Galaxy M20
PUBG on Samsung Galaxy M20

As for gaming, I tried playing different kinds of mobile games like Pokemon Go, Mobile Legends, and my personal favorite PUBG. All are playable at medium to low settings with a few frame drops here and there but nothing that would affect the gameplay! To be honest, I even got to finish testing the unit with a PUBG chicken dinner. Overall, I must say the gaming experience is very decent. I also would like to mention that the 3.5mm headphone jack is one of the things I like about Galaxy M20, especially when I’m playing my favorite mobile games.

PUBG on Samsung Galaxy M20
PUBG Chicken Dinner with the new Samsung Galaxy M20

It’s a power packed smartphone equipped with a massive 5,000mAh battery capacity. I actually managed to get a days worth of battery life on an average usage.

Overall, it’s a very smooth device with minimal hiccups. This phone will easily please average users in terms of performance. However, heavy users may find the device getting warm a bit occasionally.

Camera

The Galaxy M20 comes with a dual camera setup that includes a 13MP primary lens and a 5MP wide-angle lens. I was able to test the device both on low light and outdoors. But in my opinion, the camera is a little below average.

To start with, nearly all the pictures lack details. As you notice above, there is noise as well. Although the snaps are well-exposed, the light makes the color suffer which are already not vivid enough to start with.

Check out some sample shots taken with Samsung’s Galaxy M20 during our trip to Jomalig Island and put its camera to the test.

Galaxy M20 Sample Shots Galaxy M20 Sample Shots Galaxy M20 Sample Shots Galaxy M20 Sample Shots Galaxy M20 Sample Shots Galaxy M20 Sample ShotsThe Galaxy M20, sports a combination of a 13MP primary sensor with an aperture of F/1.9 at the back along with a 5MP ultra-wide camera with an aperture of F/2.2 ultra wide-angle lens, which is great for capturing larger landscapes or group of people in a single frame.

Images are not the best we have seen with these settings. When shots are taken in adequate ambient light, the phone manages to capture good looking images with a decent amount of detail. However, there’s something off with the way the phone manages white balance. Images can at times look just a bit overexposed with unnatural colours.

Galaxy M20 Sample Shot
Since the Galaxy M20 has no night mode settings in it’s camera I tried shooting in (manual) mode to take a photo of the makati skyline at night.

Galaxy M20 users can now stamp a custom watermark on your photos. To enable it, go to Settings > G then toggle the switch to on. You can now edit your watermark and add it at the bottom left corner of your photos.

Galaxy M20 custom watermark
Samsung Galaxy M20 custom watermark

Verdict

Overall, the Galaxy M20 is a good budget smartphone. If you wish to have a sturdy reliable smartphone for daily usage with a very good battery life and good performance from a well-known brand like Samsung, then the Samsung Galaxy M20 is a great choice. Also, if you are looking for affordable smartphone to play PUBG mobile or other mobile games with good battery life, the Samsung Galaxy M20 will easily please you.

Samsung Galaxy M20 Specifications:

  • Display: 6.3-inch 2.5D TFT screen w/ FHD+ 2340 x 1080 resolution at 409 ppi
  • CPU: 1.8GHz 64-bit Exynos 7904 octa-core processor
  • GPU: Mali-G71 MP2
  • RAM: 3GB/4GB
  • Storage: 32/64GB; Expandable via micro SD card (Dedicated slot)
  • OS: Android 8.1 Oreo w/ Samsung Experience 9.5 skin
  • Rear Camera: 13MP f/1.9 + 5MP f/2.2 ultra wide-angle lens w/ AF and LED flash
  • Front Camera: 8MP f/2.0
  • Sensors: Fingerprint (rear-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
  • Connectivity: WiFi 802.11b/g/n, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5, GPS, GLONASS, dual SIM
  • Battery: 5,000mAh w/ 15W fast charge
  • Colors: charcoal black, ocean blue

The Samsung Galaxy M20 is priced at Php 10,990 and is available via Abenson.com, Argomall, Lazada, Shopee, MemoXpress online store.

About Author

Share This Article
Leave a comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *