Samsung Galaxy A51 review
Tom’s Guide Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy A51 offers a nice design and attractive OLED display, but it’s hamstrung by middling performance, cameras that underperform in low light and relatively short battery life.
Pros
- Excellent display
- Sleek design
- Versatile quad-lens camera
- Low price
- 128GB of storage
Cons
- – Underwhelming performance
- – Camera struggles in low light
- – Battery life could be better
- – Fingerprint sensor occasionally frustrates
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Price: 399 OS: Android 10 with One UI Display: 6.5-inch OLED (2400×1080) CPU: Exynos 9611 RAM: 4GB Storage: 128GB; expandable up to 512GB Rear camera: Quad-lens: 48MP wide (ƒ/2.0), 12MP ultrawide (ƒ/2.2), 5MP depth (ƒ/2.2), 5MP macro (ƒ/2.4) Front camera: 32MP (ƒ/2.2) Battery: 4,000 mAh Size: 6.24 x 2.90 x 0.31 inches Weight: 6.07 ounces
One look at the 399 Samsung Galaxy A51 and its laundry list of features, and you might wonder why anyone needs a 450,000 Galaxy S20. You get a 6.5-inch OLED display, four rear cameras and a big 4,000 mAh battery for a very reasonable price.
There’s only one problem: Samsung may have stepped up its midrange phone game, but so too has the competition. And while the Galaxy A51 can claim a few advantages over the similarly-priced iPhone SE 2020 and Google Pixel 3a, it still suffers from occasionally subpar performance, low-light photography that often fails to impress, and battery life that’s only decent.
Indeed, this is one of the best cheap phones around; though, as you’ll find in our Samsung Galaxy A51 review, it’s more of a jack of all trades than a master of one.
Samsung Galaxy A51 review: Pricing and availability
The 399 Samsung Galaxy A51 released on April 9. You can buy it unlocked direct from Samsung, or through a variety of carriers, including Verizon, Sprint, ATT and Xfinity Mobile. Amazon is also selling the unlocked version.
There’s only one configuration of the Galaxy A51 available in the U.S., and it comes with 4GB of RAM and a generous 128GB of storage. If you need even more space, you can add a microSD card up to 512GB in size.
While 399 is a reasonable price for a phone with all the features the Galaxy A51 boasts, Samsung is running a number of promotions to make it an even better deal. The company is offering up to 220 in credit toward a Galaxy A51 if you trade in a Galaxy S9, Note 9 or older; iPhone X or older; or Pixel 3, 3 XL or 3a. With an eligible trade-in, you can also pay off an unlocked Galaxy A51 over 24 months with zero-percent interest, at 14.58 a month. For a limited time, Samsung is even throwing in a free pair of first-generation Galaxy Buds with every A51 purchase.
One word of advice for shoppers: Be wary of alternate Galaxy A51 models circulating around retailers across the web. If the price seems to good to be true, chances are you’re probably looking at the Latin American or international variant, rather than the U.S. edition tuned for domestic networks.
Samsung Galaxy A51 review: Design
Lots of phone makers like to tout how their flagship designs trickle down into more affordable midrange models, and Samsung is making similar noises about the Galaxy A51. However, in a shocking twist, I’ve found I actually prefer the A51’s look and feel to its Galaxy S20 extended family.
There are several reasons for that. First, the A51 is light — really light. Samsung has always done a good job of building featherweight phones that still feel well made, and the A51 is indicative of that. Its 6.5-inch display is nearly two inches larger than the 4.7-inch panel inside Apple’s new iPhone SE, and yet the A51 only tips the scales at 0.8 ounces heavier. Holding them each in one hand, you can tell the Galaxy is a smidge heftier, but not by nearly as much as you might assume.
Second, the A51’s display is flat, which is actually a breath of fresh air from the curved panels inescapable in every modern premium handset. It’s hard to put my finger on, but a flat screen simply feels simpler to use and easier to live with. Some curved panels look weird head-on (e.g., Motorola Edge Plus) while others are magnets for unintentional taps, made worse by poor palm-rejection software (e.g., OnePlus 8 Pro). But the A51 is attractive, with its super-slim bezels and a display that perfectly follows the silhouette of the body. Those aspects in particular truly make it feel like a pricier phone than it is.
But it gets better: the A51 has a headphone jack — something you won’t find on Apple’s cheap new iPhone. Unfortunately, though, it’s not IP-rated water resistant; in fairness, that’s a rarity at this price point.
I have but two small criticisms of the A51’s design. First, while the iPhone SE and Pixel 3a both pack stereo speakers mounted in the earpiece and the bottom of the frame, the A51 routes all audio through the latter. It’s not a dealbreaker at this price, though it does lead to that classic problem of muffling sound when cradling the phone in your hands sideways as you play a game.
Second, the materials that comprise the A51 don’t feel cheap, though they’re no replacement for the glass-and-metal iPhone SE, or the partially matte-textured Pixel 3a.
Samsung actually has a name for what it uses on the back — it’s officially known as “glastic” — and I’m pleased to say it feels more like actual glass than that groan-eliciting name might lead you to believe. I don’t even mind the subtle iridescence of our Prism Crush Black review unit. Usually, that sort of thing registers as gaudy to me, though the A51 doesn’t catch light in an obnoxious way. However, I could do without the frivolous lines and triangular designs on the back, as it’s a constant reminder of the phone’s budget roots.
Samsung Galaxy A51 specs
Samsung Galaxy A51 is visibly different than the predecessor. Unlike the A50 that relied on the Infinity-U display, the latest version features Infinity-O display, a punch hole locked at the top middle of the screen and which is also the reason we are witnessing a little more truncated top bezel and the full view display. However, not significant, all four bezels are not as slim as we see on Samsung’s flagship devices.
At 172gm, it is marginally heavier than 166gm of A50; it still feels lighter on hands considering the fact there is a 4000 mAh battery inside. The 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C, and a single firing speaker grille are locked at the bottom area, whereas the volume keys and power button are placed on the right side. The latter one also doubles to activate Bixby with presshold for a while when the display is active.
A51 offers a SIM tray on the left that can accommodate two nano-SIMs and a microSD card simultaneously.
Flip the phone to find a rhythmical pattern on a plastic body that is glossy and appears to belong to a premium phone family, but it’s a mid-range phone in reality. This prism-shaped design that refracts rainbow colors when light falls on it is so subtle that it augments the presence of an L-shaped quad-camera setup that juts out a millimeter from the body and does not cause any wobbling effect when placed flat on a surface.
We used the phone in white color, which looks tempting, but the pink and black colors are not lesser beautiful either. There is protective silicon back cover that comes out of the box that we would recommend to paste on the rear to keep the phone spick and span.
Samsung Galaxy A51 offers 6.5 inches of Super AMOLED Full HD screen of 1080 x 2400 px resolution and 405 dpi. We also see Samsung’s usual aspect ratio of 20:9 that makes it a little elongated device that we are quite used to. It’s a tad bigger than 6.4 inches of A50 screen that accommodated lesser screen resolution and aspect ratio.
It’s a flat-screen that gives no trouble looking at it, both indoor and outdoor. Even the harsh sunlight doesn’t block the display much, but you might feel it getting a little dull for movie content under the sun. The colors are sharp, and the display is bright, though, not as impressive as Samsung’s upper models, but its vividness can be further boosted up from the display settings (SettingDisplayScreen mode) where in addition to selecting ‘natural’ or ‘vivid’ option, you can also tweak RGB colors.
Samsung Galaxy A51 also gets an in-display fingerprint scanner that was also the part of A50. We wouldn’t like to give it the benefit of being a mid-range device for a little sloppy performance since we have already come across Vivo S1 Pro’s snappy unlocking. Samsung still struggles with its optical scanner; even the problem has been reported a few times with higher-end models. Samsung does not recommend to use a low-quality screen protector that might not perform accurately for reading the finger impression; the one that comes out of the box does not help either.
We consistently experienced a lag at the time of unlocking the phone, and it worsened, many a time, to an extent when it failed to scan the finger over and over forcing us to use an alternative method to unlock.
Performance and Battery
Samsung Galaxy A51 carries a mid-range chipset, Exynos 9611, and for the graphics, a Mali G72 GPU. They are further supported by 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage expandable up to 512GB through a MicroSD card. Depending upon the region, you may also come across a 4GB or 8GB RAM version as well. The four bigger cores are clocked at 2.3Ghz for heavy works while the smaller cores are clocked at 1.7Ghz.
The chipset may not be a bigger improvement from the earlier 9610 inside A50, but surely, the One UI 2.0 on top of Android 10 is the real excitement for the Samsung fans.
On AnTuTu, it scored 186414 that is not far ahead of underperforming entry-level Galaxy A20s that reached 181215; however, A51 is still better in numbers than some of the rival Chinese phones such as Vivo S1 and S1 Pro, Realme 5 Pro and Honor 9X.
In real life performance, we found it almost similar to what the Galaxy A50 did during our tests. The processor can handle day to day tasks very easily though a little lag can be felt at the time of switching apps, which is fine for a mid-range device. At the end of the day, it all depends on how high you expect from a mid-level chipset.
We could play PUBG at higher graphics settings for longer sessions with intermittent minor frame drop that pushed us to bring down graphics. The game booster comes built-in, which helps to allocate more resources for the game apps, but that does not seem to efficiently work if other resource-hungry apps are running side by side, the lag becomes more prominent then.
Samsung Galaxy A51 packs a 4000 mAh battery and a 15W charger that is capable of fast charging. It can refill the battery from 0 to 100% in 1 hour and 53 mins, almost two hours. On the other side, it can easily get you through an entire day before you will need to recharge it again.
Our video play test drained the battery in 15 hours and 52 mins which brings it on par with Vivo Y19’s 5000 mAh battery. Both fall behind Samsung’s own A30s 16 hour and 13 mins.
Our four hours battery test on mobile data (4G) took away 66% of the battery juice. You can have a look at the following chart to see what battery performance you should expect from this phone on social media.
Samsung Galaxy A51 Camera
A primary difference Samsung Galaxy A51 creates this time is the quad lens setup in contrast to the triple camera in A50 that, too, was limited to 25MP primary lens.
Here on A51, the main lens has been upgraded to 48MP Quad-Bayer, which is a more common asset now on almost every mid-range phone on the market.
A 12MP ultra-wide angle lens replaces the 8MP of the earlier model. Then a 5MP dedicated macro lens is another major upgrade that is far bigger than 2MP usual macro sensors we find on most of the Chinese devices that barely do the job.
And the last one is another 5MP depth-sensing shooter for bokeh effects.
On the front side, there is a 32MP Quad-Bayer selfie shooter settled inside the punch hole, which is again bigger than 25MP of 2019’s A50. However, it does not offer an LED flash on the front.
Though there are not many changes in the default camera app, you can still tweak things to customize the environment.
As usual, the bottom bar holds the menu we typically find in almost every other phone today that is swipeable. There is an option to rearrange them as well, which is very handy for most of the folks.
The top bar of the app holds a ‘setting’ icon on the left and an ‘aspect ratio’ key on the right side (next to the timer), which also holds the button ‘3:4H’ for 48MP full lens. The default is set to 12MP at 3:4.
You also get to play with slow-mo and super slow-mo that are shot in HD resolution (720p) with 20fps and 30fps, respectively. A Pro mode is also available, which is not as pro as you would wish. Although ISO, white balance, and exposure offer a limited range of values, it can still be useful for some creativity.
Day Images
Unless you choose the full 48MP lens from the aspect ratio menu, Samsung A51 shoots at 12MP, which is the default behavior of the phone camera.
It decently captures the natural colors and does not turn them extra vivid, which we usually happen to experience in the Chinese rivals. Scene optimizer mode is available that recognizes the scenes in most of the cases and further boosts up the colors, which tend to show bluish effect in some of the cases.
Nevertheless, the noise level is well under control, and details are adequate if not the best at this price.
48MP is supposed to catch more details, but it only marginally improves the overall scene, though the file size increases considerably. You can also notice more noise in the picture. A51’s 48MP is not the best in town; we saw some better detail shots from much lower-priced Honor 9X in many situations. Check out the following images and the cropped version of the horse’s head that reveals A51 grabbed lesser detail though it appears to catch bolder colors.
Ultra wide-angle lens is a welcome addition, and although the color reproduction is comparatively better, the image details are far lesser than 12MP mode.
HDR is quite active on Galaxy A51 in both 12MP and ultrawide angle mode, but it is not available for a 48MP full lens. One needs to make a few taps for turning it on. Samsung might think to bring it out and stack it with the rest of the modes for easier access.
A51 can go up to 8x digital zoom that looks more like a cropped version of the 48MP lens, which gets a further software treatment for producing just acceptable images.
Verdict
Samsung Galaxy A51 is a decent addition in the A-series. Only if you are not bothered about unpredictable and shaky photography skills in the low, the macro shots and slow videos are definitely going to impress you. The Super AMOLED screen of this size is surely an attraction that coupled with an awesome rear design makes this phone a tempting device. If you are looking for a stable camera and performance is also on your chart, also look at Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 8 Pro or Vivo’s S1 Pro that are also good with battery life.
If you are looking for better camera results and performance, you should consider Redmi Note 8 Pro, Vivo S1 Pro as well as Huawei Nova 7i, which are priced way less than Samsung Galaxy A51, to be your new everyday companion. If you are looking for superior battery performance as well, then you will not lose anything by choosing Vivo S1 Pro.
Samsung Galaxy A51, A71 Battery Test Complete: good and better
Samsung’s affordable A series of smartphones have been a huge hit across the globe: selling at well below that of an iPhone SE (2020), they offer premium features like vibrant AMOLED screens and Samsung’s features rich interface, but what about their battery life?
Our PhoneArena battery life test is a relentless test consisting of three components to show you just how good battery life really is: first, we test light use with browsing, then slightly more demanding tasks like playing back video, and lastly, we test how long the phones last with 3D gaming.
The Galaxy A51 and the Galaxy A71 differ mostly by physical size, and naturally, the larger A71 has a bigger battery too. Here is the battery capacity on these two phones:
So basically, these are the same battery sizes as on the Galaxy S20 and S20 Plus, respectively. Here is how well the budget A series did on our battery life test.
PhoneArena Browsing Battery Test Results
Interestingly, in our web browsing battery test, the Galaxy A51 and the A71 lasted virtually the same time at about 11 hours and a half. That’s a great score, but as you can see many affordable phones achieve the same results, and the Moto G8 Power (aka G Power in the USA) beats all records with a score of nearly 16 hours.
Samsung phones traditionally are among the best phones when it comes to YouTube video streaming battery life. The scores here differ significantly, though, and if you watch a lot of videos, you will definitely appreciate not just the larger screen of the Galaxy A71, but also it’s much better battery life on this test. It scored 11 hours and 38 minutes of non-stop video playback, while the Galaxy A51 recorded a total of 8 hours and 35 minutes.
In fact, the Galaxy A71 is not just excellent, it’s among the longest lasting phones we have ever tested for YouTube video streaming. Great job, Samsung!
PhoneArena 3D Gaming Battery Test Results
Finally, we have our 3D Gaming battery test. This is a super tough test and the results are extremely interesting: the A71 with its larger body is better able to dissipate the heat created when gaming and it scores an incredible 12 hours and 46 minutes for non-stop 3D gaming, while the Galaxy A51 can only muster about half as much with a score of 6 hours and 40 mintues. That’s a huge difference, and it definitely shows the amazing work the Samsung team has done on the A71. It’s a thin and lightweight phone, yet with a really long-lasting battery. Gamers, if you don’t absolutely need the very best performance, you should definitely look into the Galaxy A71 if you just want to play for a long time off the charger.
And that wraps up our battery test for the Galaxy A51 and the Galaxy A71. You can check out our in-depth review of the smaller Galaxy A51 here, while the deep dive into the Galaxy A71 is available right here. One popular alternative you might be considering is the iPhone SE (2020). It’s much faster than these two phones and has a better camera, but it’s battery life is just not good. You can read more about the iPhone SE (2020) here. You can learn more about our battery test and see all the phones that we have tested here.
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