Samsung Galaxy M02s Review: best budget Samsung under ₹10k? By HT Tech

Hey guys, what's up, welcome to the AJ tech, show I'm sail, and today we're going to be talking about the entry level galaxy m02s, the first phone that Samsung's launched this year even before their flagship galaxy s 21 series, but this one doesn't cost as much as those uh. This one starts at 8, 999 rupees for the 3gb ram, 32gb storage variant and the variant that we've got is the 4gb ram, uh 64gb storage variant, which is priced at 99999 rupees, so effectively it gets a starting price of under 9000 rupees. So it's priced well, and I've already done a first impressions video. If you want to check that out, you can do so, but in this video I'm going to give you my word after using this phone for nearly two weeks and what my experience has been with it uh so far. So let's kick things off uh with the design. Now Samsung has sent us the black color variant of this phone.

But if you want something flashier there are also red and a blue color variant available as well. Now, aesthetically speaking, this phone isn't exactly a head turner. It gets a plastic rear panel and not those plastic designs that we've seen on galaxy a series phones, so this one isn't as premium, but Samsung has provided this nice matte finish, which offers a comfortable grip also keeps fingerprint smudges to a minimum. Then you've also got these crisscross lines running across the phone that helps in adding some flair and then there's this also the triple camera system in the upper left corner. That's housed in a rectangular camera module as well.

Now the one thing that you will notice or not notice is that there's no fingerprint sensor on the back or even on the side. In fact, there's no fingerprint sensor at all. Instead, you have to rely on the face unlock feature, or you have to set up a pin code, slash pattern. While the face authentication feature on this phone isn't bad. It also works well in dim lit conditions, but we know that they're just not as reliable or even secure as a fingerprint scanner.

So I think Samsung should have included one over here, but if security and privacy are concerns for you, then I suggest that you do set up a pin or a patent for this phone. Also, the phone isn't too heavy, although it does weigh 196 grams, so the weight distribution over here is good. It doesn't feel too heavy in the hand, and it's actually you can use it with one hand quite comfortably. I didn't have too many issues with that. There's a nice grip like I said because of that uh decent matte finish on the back as well.

Now, let's take a look at what we have at the bottom. There is a headphone jack which is always nice to see. Then you also have a single speaker over here which isn't exactly offering you groundbreaking audio quality, but it isn't too bad either when you're watching some content or listening to some music when the loudspeaker is on, and the best thing is that Samsung has opted for an USB charging port over here now, most uh budget, smartphone makers at this price range do go for micro, USB c micro, USB ports mega part, but Samsung hasn't done that in terms of convenience. This is way better because I'm guessing in a lot of people's houses you'll only find USB cables and not a micro, USB cable, at least that's the case in my house. So that's uh.

That's good and gets a big thumbs up for me in that regard, USB and not micro. USB on the right side, you get a sim tray that holds two NATO sim cards, and you also get the option of folding a micro SD card over here. Uh storage is expandable to up to one TV, which is a perfect thing, because you only get up to 64 GB of onboard storage over here then, on the left side, you do have your power button and also your volume, rockers. Okay, lets uh come over to the front now, and you will notice fairly sizable bezels over here- they're, not exactly slim, but they're, also not thick. The bottom chin is a little bigger than the other bezels, but that's okay, and you also do get that water drop notch right at the top, which houses a five megapixel uh selfie camera.

It's not too obtrusive, and you are getting a pretty big screen over here. It's a six point, inch LCD, HD, plus display now, considering that Samsung is the leader in OLED display technology. I was hoping that they'd, surprise us and include OLED panel over here, but obviously that's not happened at this price point. That's okay, because it's still a pretty decent, looking display fairly colorful, nice and punchy, and also it is of course an LCD panel. So you will notice some color shifting when you uh tilt the phone, but that's uh, pretty common with LCD panels and the fact that it is offering such a big display.

I think it'll make for a nice smartphone for children who want to do some online classes watch a little of content. So it's good that way. I think the only thing now uh smartphone makers at this price point have to chase. The new benchmark to chase is to include the 1080p panels over here and not a 720p, because this one is HD plus, like I said uh, so you are capped at 720p resolution when you're watching content on YouTube or Netflix or on Amazon Prime. So that's something that Samsung can keep in mind for the next iteration okay.

So this big display is backed by a big 5000 my battery as well, and it's all the battery life. It will last you for a whole day with medium usage uh. Also, I got about six to six and a half hours of screen on time. So that's not too bad for a phone at this price point uh. The only downside I'll say is that it comes with a 7.5 watt charger which is painfully slow when it comes to topping up the phone from zero to 100, took me about, let's say just about three hours, so yeah, it's pretty slow, and I think fast charging would have been a great addition over here, because the competition is offering you that now so again, something that Samsung needs to keep in mind for the future. Okay.

So let's talk about the processor that powers this float. It runs on the snapdragon 450 processor uh, which was launched in 2017, so it's a fairly outdated processor, and I think this is where Samsung could have upped their game if they wanted to yes, they're, not giving you an Enos processor, which I guess is a good thing, because we know that snapdragon processors are slightly better optimized and more effective than Eros processors. But despite that, this is a high-end processor. So if you're looking to do like a lot of high graphics stuff like play high graphic games, then you're going to be a bit disappointed over here, but for your day-to-day stuff for your normal daily chores, like opening apps, switching between apps a little of light web browsing playing some tap games. This phone can handle all of that, but I think for Samsung uh, you know the raw power isn't really their biggest selling point over here.

They are focusing on the display and on that big battery life, and also, of course, that triple camera setup on the back over here, which I briefly spoke about before. So let's talk about that now, you do get three camera lenses over here. So there's a 13 megapixel primary camera, there's a two megapixel depth sensor and there's also a two megapixel macro sensor. Now those last two sensors I uh mentioned you didn't really need those, because you don't actually need a 2 megapixel depth sensor, because the AI itself is powerful enough to give you that proper depth and the macro sensor over here wasn't that impressive either the best performing lens was the main 13 megapixel camera, and I'm going to quickly show you guys some pictures that I've taken with that. Just to give you a better idea about what I'm talking about.

So if you go over here, so let's take a look at this picture over here. It's okay, colors are pretty natural, and you can see there is some decent amount of depth over here as well. So, like I said, the AI working behind the scenes doing its magic and if we take a look at another picture like this one, this is a little more dramatic but again good amount of depth. There colors are also looking nice popping out so yeah, so in good lighting conditions. That main sensor will take some nice pictures.

You can also, if I open the camera app, you do have an option of shooting up to 8x digital zoom over here, but don't expect the clearest and detailed pictures with that also low light photography. Isn't this phone's strongest point? I did take a couple of pictures and, as you can see, not a lot of detail, that's supposed to be a tree, but it's very dark. It hasn't exposed anything at all. There's no night mode available over here either something that the competition is offering you in this price range. But I think this is something that Samsung can easily fix with the software update.

Okay, coming to the selfie camera, there's a 5 megapixel sensor like I mentioned before, and it takes decent enough selfies. This is with the live focus mode on so nice amount of depth. In the background there- and this is your normal picture- nothing to brag about, but it'll be fine. If you want to post it on Instagram or on your social media pages, not too bad, and let's also just quickly take a look at the camera modes available over here. Samsung has kept it pretty simple, not too many features, not too many modes over.

Here you do get that live focus mode. You do get the normal photo mode as well, and there's also a video mode over here which can shoot up to uh 1080p uh in 16 to 9 aspect ratios, no 4k. Obviously at this price point, but that's okay, also coming over to the more section again like you can see, hardly any modes available. You've got a pro mode, you do have a panorama, and you do have that macro sensor as well micro option available as well there, so that's about it! Samsung's kept it fairly simple, and I think that's a good thing with budget phones. You don't want to overcomplicate things too much, keep it as simple as possible, so it doesn't confuse people and yeah.

It works well enough for me, okay, so uh coming over to the software uh, this does run on android 10. , I'm just going to bring that up. I do love doing this yeah, so android 10 and it also uh, runs on Samsung's one UI core version.2.5. Now, we've done a lot of videos in the past where we've spoken a lot about one UI and all its features. So if you are interested in finding out about that, you can check those videos out, so I'm not really going to go into detail about that.

But the bottom line is that you do get one UI 2.5, which means you do get a lot of customization features and because it's android 10 there are cool features like dark mode and better privacy control and things like nearby share. One UI is one of the cleaner interfaces, especially when you compare them with phones like real me, UI or the software. So it's not too bad. There is a little of bloatware like phone pay, and this Candy Crush saga installed as well, but most of these you can be uninstalled. So it's not too bad, and overall it's a nice software I do.

I am a big fan of 1u8 is one of the better android skins that I do prefer to use. So all in all the galaxy m02s is a pretty decent budget, offering the only two drawbacks. For me is that snapdragon 450 processors and the lack of a fingerprint scanner, but if those things aren't priorities for you, then this is a pretty decent offering, especially at this price point the best user case, for this would be to give it to your kids if they want to do some online classes. If they want to do some light gaming, or you know, just watch a little of content, it's perfect for all of that. Thanks to that big display and massive 5000 my battery, and it takes some decent shots if uh lighting conditions are good as well with that uh 13, megapixel, uh, rear camera, so yeah, that's about it.

Let us know what you think about the galaxy m02s in the comment section and if you are watching this on YouTube, do hit that sub button, we'll be back with more gadget reviews. Thank you so much for watching we'll catch you in the next one. You.

Source : HT Tech