Galaxy A51 Review: Decent Upgrade Over Galaxy A50s, Especially Camera

It seems that the brand's new product launch cycles are gradually getting shorter. This is especially true for Samsung's Galaxy A smartphones, as this year's Galaxy A5x series has three versions. The Galaxy A51 price in India has not yet been revealed by Samsung India, but we speculate that it might be priced around Rs. 24,500 in the country.

The Galaxy A50 launched in March was one of the first Galaxy A products to feature a completely new design. Three months later, the Galaxy A50s version was released with new color options and camera upgrades. Now, six months after its launch, the 3rd-generation model called Galaxy A51 has been released! Let's check out our Galaxy A51 review and see if it is a worthy choice in the segment.

“The Similarities”

Launching three smartphones in a span of around six months, it is certain that Samsung cannot create new smartphones that are completely different from its predecessor. That's why the Galaxy A51 has quite a few similarities to the Galaxy A50s.

Regarding the external design, we still have a device that is finished in plastic, which feels light, comfortable, but also less luxurious than those with glass and metal. Still, the two sides are rounded to prevent discomfort when used for a long period.

The version I have here is in Blue color with a similar gradient finish to the A50s. This design is also quite beautiful and youthful, so the company keeps it in one more version is not something to blame.

The bottom edge is a USB Type-C port with 15W fast charging capability, accompanied by a 3.5mm headphone jack. Once again, it isn’t always bad to stay unchanged because we still have a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is gradually 'extinct' in high-end models. If it can upgrade to a 25W charging standard like the Galaxy Note 10, it will be a bigger plus, because the 15W standard is now slower than rivals from China like Xiaomi and especially OPPO with VOOC 3.0.

The internal configuration of the device has not changed much, including the Exynos 9611 processor (you can find out more about its performance in the Galaxy A50s review) and a 4000mAh battery that is enough for one-day battery life. The small difference between the two is that the Galaxy A51 will only come in a single variant with 6GB of RAM / 128GB of internal storage, which is the highest version of the Galaxy A50s.

In the Galaxy A50s review, users of this device also complained that some heavy games can be reloaded because the device only has 4GB of RAM, so Samsung wants everyone to have a better experience and doesn’t offer the variant in the new Galaxy A51.

The final similarity is the under-display fingerprint sensor. This is still an optical sensor similar to the Galaxy A50s with decent reading speed, not too fast but also does not create discomfort when opening the device every day.

However, when looking back and comparing with the sensor on the Galaxy A50, the difference is more significant, so those who feel frustrated by the sensor on this handset, but find the Galaxy A50s is not different enough to upgrade, the Galaxy A51 may make you change your mind.

“The Differences”

In short, there are 2 differences compared to Galaxy A50s that is the screen and the rear camera setup. Firstly, the company no longer uses the Infinity-V design with a water-drop notch to place the selfie camera, but it switches to Infinity-O design and places a 32MP camera in the center-aligned punch-hole.

The point here is that the cut-out of the Galaxy A51 is very small, even smaller than the Galaxy S10 launched earlier this year, which is quite impressive! Thanks to this design, the front of the device looks nearly ‘perfect’.

A small drawback that I realized during actual use is that the front camera of the Galaxy A51 has a lighter color than the one equipped in high-end devices, so when turning off the screen, it will be easier to spot. However, this is only a small drawback because when you turn on the phone, you no longer pay attention to it.

Not only the 'upper part' changes, but the 'lower part' also changes as the Galaxy A51's front panel has a noticeably thinner bottom chin than its two predecessors. Thanks to that, the size of its Super AMOLED FullHD + screen has increased by 0.1 inches to 6.5 inches, not much but can also be noticed during actual use.

Around the back, the camera setup is no longer stacked vertically. Instead, the quad cameras are placed in an L-shaped rectangular cluster.

In terms of configuration, there are two cameras taken from the A50s and they are the 48MP main camera with f / 2.0 aperture and a 5MP depth sensor. Meanwhile, the super-wide camera has been upgraded from 8MP to 12MP resolution, along with an entirely new camera specializing in macro photography with 5MP resolution.

Overall, the camera has very little change compared to the Galaxy A50s version, so the final image quality will certainly be the same. The photos taken from the main camera have good details, the color is a bit darker than usual but it is not too much like the previous Galaxy A series.

The weakness that I noticed of Galaxy A in general, Galaxy A51 in particular, is that its white balance is still one tier below the high-end Galaxy S and Note smartphones. 

We also have our own Night Mode, which is used to take photos with high details in low-light conditions with both main and wide-angle cameras. This will not be a unique feature of the Galaxy A51, because according to my research, Samsung has also upgraded the software for the Galaxy A50 and Galaxy A50s.

The ultra-wide-angle camera has a higher resolution than that of the Galaxy A50s, increased from 8MP to 12MP, and if you really look closely, you can also see a slight change in sharpness, but in most cases, it will still give same pictures. Galaxy A51's super-wide-angle shooting capability will still be inferior to the S10 and Note 10, due to their better ability to handle colors and better HDR. Of course, they have to make sure that the mid-range models have to be inferior to the high-end models!

And finally, we come to something completely new: a super close-up camera (macro). With this new camera, users can capture small objects such as flowers, leaves, Christmas decorations or human eyes ...

Like the macro cameras of other brands, the one used by Samsung has quite a wide angle, so users will have to take the camera very close to the subject (3 - 5cms) before capturing a beautiful macro photo. Some other disadvantages include the lack of focus and lower quality than the main camera (in terms of resolution, brightness handling ...)

But as usual, this is a kind of camera for 'special use' and if you have time set-up carefully, then surely you will have unique and fancy pictures. Here are a few more photos taken by the Galaxy A51 macro camera:

Gaming Performance

If Galaxy A51 carries several changes in the design department, the configuration of the device still "stands still" with the Samsung Exynos 9611 chipset. In particular, the Galaxy A51 is available in a single model with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage. Of course, it is impossible for Samsung to launch a new chipset in just a couple of months, especially when the Samsung Exynos 9611 chipset itself is a minor upgrade of the Exynos 9610 on Galaxy A50. However, other smartphones in the mid-range segment are having a lot more powerful processors from both Mediatek and Qualcomm.

During actual use, I found that the performance of the Galaxy A51 is similar to the Galaxy A50s, on par with the Snapdragon 660 and significantly lower than the newer mid-range chipsets such as Snapdragon 712 or Helio G90T.

Not perfect but hard to ignore

It is hard to call the Samsung Galaxy A51 perfect when we still have a plastic-finished smartphone with the same processor as its predecessor or lacks or the lack of 2x, 3x zoom ability to take photos in a further distance.

On the positive side, we have a well-designed smartphone (especially the new Infinity-O display), the new OneUI 2.0 interface and a still good camera system for various needs. Overall, we believe that it is a great choice for a price of around Rs. 24,000. For now, the Galaxy A51 launch date in India is still unknown, but it has recently listed on a support page on the Samsung India website. Therefore, its launch should be coming soon.