Samsung Galaxy M32 Prime Edition (Black, 6GB RAM, 128GB)
Samsung is best known for its innovative, high-end devices but
the Korean giant is no stranger to the affordable smartphone segment either. In
fact, the company’s M-series has for long, gone toe-to-toe with popular Chinese
OEMs and at times, has even bested the competition.
Now, the company is back with yet another M series smartphone
in the form of the Galaxy M32, which hopes to wow the audience with its
compelling specs and aggressive pricing. I’ve been using the phone as my daily
driver for a bit and here’s what I make of it.
SPECIFICATION
·
Segment Best 16.21
centimeters (6.4-inch) Super AMOLED - Infinity U-cut display, FHD+ resolution
with 90Hz Refresh rate, 800 Nits High Brightness Mode, protected by Gorilla
Glass 5
·
Versatile
64MP+8MP+2MP+2MP Quad camera setup-64MP (F 1.8) main camera + 8MP (F2.2) Ultra
wide camera+ 2MP (F2.4) depth camera + 2MP (2.4) Macro Camera| 20MP (F2.2)
front camera
·
Monster 6000 mAh
Battery| Memory, Storage & SIM: 6GB RAM | 128GB internal memory expandable
up to 1TB| SIM 1 + SIM 2 + MicroSD
·
Android v12.0, One UI
4.1 operating system with MediaTek | Helio G80 Octa Core Processor 2GHz,1.8GHz
·
6000mAH lithium-ion
battery, 1 year manufacturer warranty for device and 6 months manufacturer
warranty for in-box accessories including batteries from the date of purchase
DESIGN
The Samsung Galaxy M32 features an all-plastic build, but don’t
let that fool you into thinking that the device looks bad or feels cheap. On
the contrary, the M32 is among the better-looking devices in the segment and
the smartphone’s good looks can be accredited to the unique gradient finish on
its back which, oddly enough, reminds me of a disco ball. The coating employs
shimmering lines that run across the length of the smartphone and exhibit
different hues whenever light impacts them at an angle. Don’t worry though, the
finish isn’t too out there and my blue color review unit of the M32 looked
equal parts elegant and equal parts flashy.
I
also like how the device has no protruding elements, so be it the phone’s
camera module, or its flat display, everything blends seamlessly into the frame
or its shell. Those on the lookout for a phone with a comfortable in-hand grip
will also appreciate the device’s chamfered edges and its smooth, rounded-off
frame. Coupled with the device’s even weight distribution and its manageable
heft of just 196g, you’ll rarely want to put the Samsung Galaxy M32 down.
The smartphone also features a speedy capacitive fingerprint
sensor towards the side, which was easy to reach with my thumb – colour me
impressed, Samsung. The face unlock software did a good job during the day too,
though the accuracy was a bit low in dimly-lit environments. The device ships
with a tactile volume rocker above the fingerprint sensor / power button. The
handset also employs a USB Type-C port at the bottom, which can be found
sandwiched between the 3.5mm headphone jack and the phone’s mono speaker
grille.
DISPLAY
The Samsung Galaxy M32 offers a fantastic
screen for the price, albeit with some caveats. But before I get into that, you
should know that the device ships with a 6.4-inch, sAMOLED FHD panel with a
refresh rate of 90Hz. The display gets adequately bright at 800nits too and as
prefaced previously, comes with a layer of Corning’s Gorilla Glass v5 on top.
Spec-wise, the M32’s display is among the best in its segment, but, techno
mumbo-jumbo aside, leaves a bit to be desired.
CAMERA
On to the cameras and here, the Samsung Galaxy
M32 ships with a 64MP main sensor that works alongside an 8MP wide-angle lens,
a 2MP macro sensor and a 2MP depth sensor. For selfies, the device gets a 20MP
front camera. Here’s a summary of my experience with the camera across
different scenarios –
·
The Samsung Galaxy M32’s primary 64MP sensor
outputs quality images during the day. The photos show vibrant colours, especially
with the scene optimiser enabled and are plush with details. Of course, the
post-processing could’ve been better as the images appear oversharpened at
closer crop.
- Furthermore, in a bid to bring
out more details from the shadows, the device also introduces noise in the
composition. Case in point, the daylight shot of my apartment complex
wherein, you can see slight grainy-ness around the brick fence. I also
noticed that the phone wouldn’t automatically adjust the exposure and I
had to tap on the viewfinder before clicking a photo.
- That said, I doubt buyers
opting for the phone will have many complaints with the phone’s photo
capabilities during the day. In fact, unlike some similarly-priced
offerings, the M32 doesn’t blotch up the colour red, which is evident from
the shot of the red flower wherein, you can make out the details in the
petals clearly.
·
The 64MP mode, on the other hand, could’ve
benefitted from some software tweaks. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the dynamic
range in the high-res photos and there were noticeable instances of highlight
clipping too, which can be seen if you pan towards the top right-hand side of
the 64MP shot attached in the gallery. Here, you’ll notice that the smartphone
has struggled to resolve the blue colour of the sky.
- Moving on, shots taken from the
assisting sensors were nothing to write home about. The macro images, for
instance, appeared soft at a closer crop and the wide-angle images had
little to no corner details. The same goes for the images clicked after
the sun had set and even with the night mode enabled, the resulting photos
still had a lot of noise. Also, I was expecting the phone to brighten up
the scene and bring out more information from the darker parts of the shot
but to no avail.
- Thankfully,
selfies clicked with the phone looked stellar and the device managed to
create a convincing blur effect around my face too. That said, I wouldn’t
recommend the Galaxy M32 to budding videographers as the smartphone
supports only 1080p 30 fps video recording.
PERFORMANCE
As I mentioned
previously, the Galaxy M32 employs MediaTek’s Helio G80 SoC, which works
alongside either 4GB or 6GB of RAM. Correspondingly, buyers will get either
64GB or 128GB of eMMC 5.1 storage. Now, having spent a good chunk of my time
testing the phone, I can confirm that the smartphone cannot hold a candle to
similarly-priced devices like the POCO X3 (review), or the Moto G40 Fusion (review), at least in terms of
raw performance. The benchmark scores alone, pit the M32 below the competition,
but that’s not to say that the M32 is slow.
In fact, if
your heart is set on the phone, then you can improve the handset’s performance
tenfold with a few tweaks that include uninstalling unnecessary apps, putting
Samsung’s system apps to Deep Sleep and reducing the system animations.
Moreover, the SoC doesn’t throttle when subjected to sustained loads either and
I had an enjoyable time playing graphically-intensive titles like Battlegrounds
too. Now, granted, I had to tone down the graphics settings to the “smooth”
preset but, you’ll want to do that on competing devices running Qualcomm’s
Snapdragon 732G processor as well, in order to ensure the most consistent frame
rates.
Don’t get me
wrong, I am not trying to sugarcoat the M32’s performance woes. In fact, while
I can somewhat make a case for the phone’s processor, Samsung should’ve at
least offered faster storage with the phone. Be it opening apps, launching
games or even searching something in the settings menu, the M32 felt a bit
sluggish. The same was evident from the smartphone’s AndroBench score wherein,
the device outputted low sequential read and write speeds.
Moving
on, the Samsung Galaxy M32 ships with a bottom-firing mono speaker that gets
reasonably loud. That said, it’s quite easy to muffle the speaker grille whilst
gaming or holding the phone horizontally, so you’ll find yourself using a pair
of earphones with the phone an awful lot. I was also not the biggest fan of the
smartphone’s haptics, and typing on the phone isn’t the most enjoyable
experience. On the flip side, the device’s narrow frame ensures that you can
comfortably type with one hand.
Software-wise, the Samsung Galaxy M32 features
the company’s OneUI v3.1 on top of Android 11. The custom skin offers a handful
of utilities, albeit ships with a ton of bloatware. Thankfully, you can
uninstall most third-party apps and even declutter your phone’s built-in
storage by removing Samsung’s own duplicate apps, the likes of which include
Samsung Internet, etc. The device also comes with a slew of customisation
features and be it choosing a new Always-on Display clock face, to a different
system theme, you can do it all. I would’ve also liked to see support for
third-party icons with the custom skin but, for the most part, the software
experience on the Galaxy M32 is quite satisfactory.
BATTERY
LIFE & CONNECTIVITY
The Samsung Galaxy M32 ships with a 6,000mAh
cell which, coupled with the phone’s AMOLED screen, should comfortably see
users through the end of a long workday. The downside is that the device takes
awfully long to refuel completely. While the phone supports 25W charging,
Samsung has included a 15W brick with the phone which took almost two hours and
twenty minutes to charge the handset from 0 to 100 percent.
As for connectivity, the device comes with
support for both 2.4GHz as well as 5GHz Wi-Fi networks. I also netted excellent
download and upload speeds on my 4G Airtel Postpaid SIM in Delhi NCR, and the
quality of calls relayed through the phone’s earpiece was to my liking as well.
Unfortunately, the company confirmed that the M32 doesn’t support 4G Carrier
Aggregation, which is a bummer.
0 Comments