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- $4 is a great smartphone in almost every respect, with the best screen on any mid-range smartphone, a premium design, an effective camera system, and stunning battery life.
- However, the
Galaxy A51 a big let down in terms of performance. It has the same performance as mid-rangesmartphones from 2019, which is actually still fine for now, in 2020. But, I seriously question its longevity over the years.
The mid-range smartphone category is a game of balance and compromises, and different phone makers place more importance on certain aspects than others.
For the $4, Apple placed massive importance on performance by essentially giving the iPhone 8 the same powerful mobile chip as the iPhone 11 series. Everything else about the iPhone 8, including the design, screen, battery life, and camera was good enough and could remain the same, so the company correctly thought.
As for $4 from May 2019, the company focused on giving its mid-ranger a stunning flagship-quality camera, as well as a great OLED screen. That meant compromise on the design and materials — it's a plastic phone (that still feels great) with an uninspiring design.
For the Galaxy A51,
Check out what Samsung has focused on and what the company has compromised in the $4:
Samsung Galaxy A51 specs
- Display: 6.5-inch 1080p (2,400 x 1,080) 60Hz AMOLED
- Processor: Exynos 9611
- Memory & storage: 4GB RAM & 128GB storage, expandable up to 512GB with microSD card
- Rear cameras: 48-megapixel wide, 12-megapixel ultra-wide, 5-megapixel macro lens
- Selfie camera: 32-megapixel
- Battery: 4,000mAh
Design and display
The Galaxy A51 is as premium as it gets when it comes to mid-range $400 smartphones. It has everything you'd expect on phones twice as expensive, like narrow bezels around the screen, a notchless design, Samsung's hole-punch selfie camera, and a glass back.
It only gets better when the large 6.5-inch screen is on — it's an AMOLED screen that's bright and produces rich colors. The screen could easily belong to a $1,000 high-end smartphone, but here it is on a $400 mid-ranger. It's also among the larger screens you can find on a $400 smartphone.
There are only two things that give the Galaxy A51 away as a mid-range smartphone: it's lighter and slimmer than high-end flagships, which have only been getting thicker and heavier as they feature more and more tech. The thinner and lighter A51 is a pleasant variation on the flagships I'm used to.