Taking a Closer Look Into the Samsung Mid-range Phones

Samsung has become a household name when it comes to smartphones in India. The company has been producing and bringing in multiple devices and models for consumers in recent times. Since India is a price-centric market, the price of the product makes a difference to the demand. Samsung has a number of phones in the mid-range series, but are they any good? In this article,  we analyse the mid-range offerings from Samsung and what are they doing about their mid-range phones.

What are the Expectations?

The expectation from Samsung mid-range smartphones is not very high. All the consumer wants is a good product priced aggressively. A good example of aggressive pricing is a mid-range smartphone from Xiaomi or Realme. Samsung has not been this aggressive with the pricing and the expectations have not been met by the company.

The Reality

Most things about Samsung are about brand value. The mid-range smartphones in India, the M-series, F-series and the A-series smartphones from Samsung are priced slightly higher than the value and performance that they offer. This means that users need to pay a premium for the brand name. The premium can go up to 15-20% more. This has been calculated on the basis of the price of the phones that have similar specifications but come from other brands. When it comes to the A-series smartphones, these are for the offline markets. Here, the Samsung premium margins are a lot higher than online-centric phones. Therefore, if you are expecting that Samsung will come up with a mid-range smartphone priced closely to Realme or Xiaomi, then that is not going to happen. It would be good to see that, but the chances are extremely thin.

The Component Selection

Samsung has been known for its premium line-up of smartphones. However, for their mid-range phones, they have always selected components that are cheaper. The processor with the lower specifications is what they mostly use in their smartphones. For instance, the Exynos 9611 was used by the brand in a number of smartphones in the mid-range. Very recently, they have started moving towards MediaTek chipsets. Phones with processors like the MediaTek Dimensity or the Snapdragon 730G are priced higher than usual by the brand in the mid-range smartphones. The choice of processors is where Samsung saves a lot of costs. They use an older or a lower cost processor. The screen is also an area of concern for users.

There have been times when Samsung has gone for 720p screens in their mid-range smartphones. This is a baffling fact because Samsung is one of the biggest manufacturers of AMOLED screens in the world. Using AMOLED screens in their phones would give them an edge over other brands, but they are not using any of that technology.

Things that Need Changes

One of the first things that Samsung needs to change is bundling 15W chargers and calling them fast chargers. There are brands that provide up to 50W chargers with their mid-range devices. Secondly, the brand should switch to AMOLED screens for their mid-range phones. It looks better, the colours are better, and the overall experience also enhances for the user. Thirdly, bloatware. This is a problem with a lot of smartphones in this price range, and Samsung is no different. The phones have started coming with a lot of bloatware that users need to uninstall manually.

The Good Things

It's not all bad on Samsung's part. To start with, One UI is much better now than before. It's more responsive and smoother than before. Even when it comes to updates, the brand has been providing regular updates for its mid-range phones. 2 years of Android updates has been promised by the brand.

These are the things that you need to keep in mind if you are planning to get a mid-range smartphone from Samsung. The phones are not bad, but they can always be better.