Samsung announced the Galaxy A31 on March 24, 2020, and launched the device on April 27, 2020, adding another smartphone to its mid-range A series. Samsung Galaxy A series also includes the Galaxy A51, Galaxy A71, Galaxy A21s, etc.

At a price of Rs 21,999, the Samsung Galaxy A31 costs more than the Galaxy A21s (Rs 16,999) and is cheaper than the higher-end Galaxy A51 (Rs 25,250) and the Galaxy A71 (Rs 32,998). This smartphone is mostly compared with the Galaxy A51 by users to see which one is better for the price. While many say that the phone is overall great, some believe the Galaxy A51 offers more value for the money. So what’s the deal?

Display

In terms of display, the Galaxy A31 sports a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that measures 6.4 inches. This size screen is common among smartphones these days, it’s large enough to display a lot of content, especially videos and movies. But it’s also not too large to use on one hand unless you have tiny hands.

This handset features a top-notch display design, similar to the Galaxy A50 and Galaxy A20s. Meanwhile, the Galaxy A51 and A71 both come with a punch-hole display design.

AMOLED is the latest technology used for making smartphone screens and Super AMOLED is Samsung’s marketing term for an AMOLED screen that’s integrated with a digitizer. A digitizer is a layer integrated into the display instead of on top of it for detecting touch. Samsung says that Super AMOLED reflects 20 percent of the amount of sunlight reflected on the 1st-gen AMOLED.  

Overall, the Galaxy A31 comes with a design that has been upgraded to match higher-end devices like the A51 and A71. It features a classy plastic body that mimics glass that makes the entire device look more premium and not feel cheap at all.

Like other Samsung phones, the display quality is one of the strongest advantages of the Galaxy A31. Its screen resolution is 1080x2400 pixels and its pixel density is 411 ppi. The display boasts great viewing experience with vibrant colors, high contrast, and a great amount of detail. This is also where the screen of the A31 stands out, the relation of the screen size, screen resolution, and pixel density is perfect that it doesn’t have to sacrifice the pixel density for a larger size or compromise one thing for another.

 It’s safe to say the Galaxy A31 display will give you a viewing experience that’s just as good as on a flagship device, you won’t likely notice the difference. However, its refresh rate is only 30 frames per second, which is pretty low for gaming, so there may be some frame drops during your gameplay. Hopefully, that won’t affect your gaming experience very much.

Chip

The Samsung Galaxy A31 is powered by the MediaTek Helio P65 processor. Launched in summer 2019, this is an octa-core processor with dual 2GHz Cortex-A75 cores and six 1.7GHz Cortex-A55 cores. According to MediaTek, the Helio P65 offers a 25% increase in performance compared with competitors using the older octa-core structure. It offers a CPU speed of 14.47-16.25 GHz, which is comparable with some higher-end devices like the Huawei P30 Pro, the Huawei Mate 20X and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro.

At the same price point of Rs 21,999, there are also the Huawei Nova 3i powered by the HiSilicon Kirin 710 and the Oppo R17 powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 670. It appears that the MediaTek Helio P65 is as powerful as the Snapdragon 670 and outperforms the Kirin 710.

It seems that the Helio P65 processor, coordinating with Android 10 and One UI 2.0, can handle almost all tasks you give it, including gaming. Despite some frame drops, the chip lets you play mobile games fairly smoothly with minimal issues.

Storage

The Galaxy A31 features three variants when it comes to RAM and internal storage. The first variant comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB of onboard memory, the second one comes with 4GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage, and the third one comes with 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal memory.

The 6GB variant can handle mobile games quite well but the 4GB RAM variant is weaker and you may experience some lags while gaming. Therefore, if gaming capability is an important factor for you, we suggest you opt for the 6GB variant.

Initial gaming tests show that the Galaxy A31 is a decent device for gaming, it meets the basics and can handle the game, let you play through the entire session, but it’s not an excellent gaming smartphone, even compared with competitors in the same price range. However, we didn’t record nay overheating problems during the game tests, so it seems that the Helio P65 performs well on this front. If you notice the phone gets warm when you play games, keep in mind that this happens to even high-end devices.

Battery

Another great thing about the Galaxy A31 is its huge battery capacity. With a capacity of 5,000 mAh, it’s equal to the capacity of the hardcore gaming phone Black Shark 3 Pro. This capacity is also the largest we have seen in a smartphone these days, which is amazing. It should last you an entire day without any problems. Plus, this battery can offer you up to 33 hours of talk time over 4G connectivity. It also supports 15W fast charging to keep your gaming session continuous.

Camera

Regarding photography capability, the Galaxy A31 features a quad-camera module on the back, including a 48MP lens, an 8MP wide-angle/ultra-wide-angle lens, a 5MP depth lens, and a 5MP macro lens. You can record video at 1080-pixel resolution and a frame rate of 30 fps. The camera setup also supports panorama, HDR modes, and features an LED flash.

Meanwhile, on the front, there is a single 20MP lens for selfie and face-unlock. The front-facing camera allows for taking wide-angle shots and video recording at 1080p resolution as well as a 30fps frame rate.