Samsung Galaxy M21: The best Non-Chinese offering?

Hello and welcome to another blog of Annoyed Techie. Today we are here to help you out with a very crucial question which everyone who wants to buy a Non-Chinese mobile phone within a tight budget of ₹15,000 is facing. Today everybody wants to buy a Non-Chinese mobile phone and one should definitely, but the choices available are very few if you need a good Smartphone especially in the budget segment. There are not many Non-Chinese manufacturers who offer decent phones in the budget segment. But recently Samsung with its M-series of Smartphones has tried to give competition to the dominant Chinese manufacturers in the budget segment. One such very attractive offering from Samsung under the price bracket of ₹15,000 is the recently launched Samsung Galaxy M21. This phone was launched at ₹12,999 and is currently selling at ₹13,999 due to the GST price hike. How good is it and should you buy it? We find it for you.

For your ease, we have divided our findings into different segments after using Galaxy M21 for two months. So let’s get started.

Physical Overview

Physically Galaxy M21 looks very similar to Galaxy M30s and Galaxy M31. Similarly, the display is protected with corning gorilla glass 3 and has a plastic back with a plastic frame. The fingerprint sensor is placed at the rear which is comfy to use. Though it is not a phone made for single hand usage, but it is quite light to use as it weighs just 188gms considering it has a massive 6000mAh battery. It has a triple slot for SIM and micro SD cards. It comes with USB type-C port along with a 3.5mm jack and a single speaker that is placed at the bottom and the output from them is quite good. Overall the phone looks average and lacks premiumness. It comes in two color options: Raven Black and Midnight Blue.

Chipset

Galaxy M21 is powered by Samsung’s favorite mid-range budget processor Exynos 9611 which is based on the 10nm architecture coupled with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage. This chipset has an Antutu score of slightly above 1.75 lakhs and can be compared with Snapdragon 660 and 665.

Display

The display on this phone is hands down the best display in this price segment. It is a 6.4 inches infinity U super AMOLED panel. It has great contrast, punchy colors, and inky deep blacks. The display is adequately bright even in direct sunlight. Though it is a 60Hz panel the quality is excellent. Due to the excellent display, the media experience is top-notch.

Battery

Here comes the highlight, with the capacity of 6000mAh (which is highest in any smartphone), the battery life on this phone is amazing. What further helps is the power-efficient OS and super AMOLED display. The phone easily lasts for a day even with the very heavy usage with some juice still left, and can easily for 2 days with medium usage. The only compromise in this department is a comparatively slow 15watt fast charger which takes around 2.5 hours to completely juice up the mammoth battery.

Camera

Galaxy M21 comes with a triple rear camera setup which has 48MP main camera, 8MP ultra-wide, and a 5MP depth camera. The photos turn out to be rich and detailed when shot under good light. Although the dynamic range and color accuracy are better on the main 48MP shooter, the ultra-wide shooter does a good job in good light. Also, the low light mode is decent and helps in capturing quiet usable shots in low light conditions. The 5MP depth shooter helps in capturing sharp portrait shots. The video is supported up to 4K@30fps. The selfie camera is a 20MP shooter and clicks nice and detailed selfies, also it can record video at 1080p@30fps. Though the selfies are detailed but dynamic range can be improved.

Software and Gaming experience

Galaxy M21 runs on One UI 2 based on Android 10. It is one of the best Android skins out there which give a fluid and rich user experience while performing the day-to-day tasks. We didn’t encounter any stutter or lag with our time with the phone. The gaming performance is good for the price point but extended gaming is not its forte, especially when you play high intensive games like PUBG and Asphalt, where after playing these games continuously for a long time causes the phone to heat and lag.

Verdict

Now after considering all the above the points we come to the final verdict. Overall we have no second thoughts in recommending Galaxy M21 to anyone who wants to buy a Non-Chinese Smartphone and has a tight budget of less than ₹15,000. The only compromise one has to bear is that the extended gaming performance isn’t very great especially when you play graphic intensive titles and average camera (good for daily use), if one can extend his budget then he can opt for Galaxy M31 which houses a great camera. On the other hand, it ticks all the right boxes as it has an excellent display, exceptional battery, and good enough chipset.

Thank you for reading our blog and we hope to see you in our next blog.😊

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