When it comes to the smartphone, no can deny that fact that Samsung has reverent goodwill owing to its friendly aftersales service and an enhanced user engagement policy. With the rising competition in the budget market, where competitors are aiming volumes to drive the business altogether, it was time for Samsung to reclaim the lost ground. Samsung revisited their earlier strategy with a fair bit of reiterations coupled with spices that seem to work well for the Indian market.
Behold the Samsung Galaxy M10 – Samsung`s straight up answer against the raging battle of the emerging Chinese competitors. M series is Samsung`s outright, online only attempt to conquer the entire spectrum of the Indian smartphone market. The device thankfully doesn`t seem to follow the monotonous design philosophy set by their budget J series smartphones. The design is entirely new from the ground up and is targeted towards the smartphone millennials. We explored the device in the house to see if it has what it takes!
Design and Display
The teardrop style notch makes its way on the massive 6.22-inch HD+ resolution Infinity V TFT display. The display comes with a resolution of 720×1520 pixels which a bummer considering the rivals offer 1920×1080 pixels, but surprisingly the display brightness and colour reproductions make up for it. Viewing angles are decent enough to accommodate a tenacious experience.
The chassis is made entirely out of plastic polycarbonate with smooth contours and rounded bezels that feels quite robust and proportional to hold. Speaker is shifted to the back which seems a quite old school but gets muffled up when placed on the back. The top left corner comes with a dual camera setup but loses out on a fingerprint sensor – a feature prevalent in all the devices in its segment. A feature user would appreciate a lot comes in form of a dedicated dual Nano sim and microSD slot.
Camera
In terms of Camera spec, M10 packs a Dual camera setup with the 13MP + 5MP camera sensor. This camera setup facilitates 120-degree wide angle shots which came out quite great. The camera quality is quite justified considering the price point it comes at. The Images came out great under sufficient sunlight, however, it lost out on essential details to a fair bit of grain under shady conditions. The Front-facing the 5MP sensor took average selfies and managed to capture the details under daylight conditions.
Processor
When it comes to processing power the M10 falls far behind the segment rivals with the Samsung`s own Exynos 7870 1.6GHz Octa-core SoC. Build with a 14nm process the chip handles nominal tasks with ease but struggles a lot when the demand exceeds the raw output, the chip can deliver. You can opt for a 16GB+2GB or a 3GB+32GB storage option as per your needs. The Samsung Galaxy M10 runs on the latest Android 8.1 Oreo with Samsung experience 9.5 UI on top. The transitions were smooth and the device performed flawlessly under permissible limits.
A 3,400mAh battery pack ensures a day worth of average use age with charging time of over three hours with the 5W charger provided in the box.
Gizmo Verdict
Well at Rs. 7990, the Galaxy M10 is Samsung answer against the likes of the Redmi 4. They seem to have done an adequate job, but provided users with a mixed bag of pros and cons.
While a beautiful body, great UI and decent Camera work for it, the ageing processor & average display works against it. If you were looking for an entry-level smartphone that looked stunning and performed all the daily task sufficiently, M10 would be your best shot. Look no further!
