Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming – Samsung M31 honest review?

Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming? It comes with Super AMOLED infinity U display, with 6.4 inch FHD+ screen, 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution, 404 ppi pixel density and 16 million colour support. It has 64MP main camera, 5MP depth camera, 8MP ultra-wide camera and 32MP front facing camera. High performance 6000 mAh Lithium-ion battery with 15-watt quick mobile charging function. Find here everything you need to know in Samsung M31 honest review?

Pros & Cons – Samsung M31

Specifications – Samsung M31

GENERAL

KEY SPECS

SPECIAL FEATURES

MULTIMEDIA

PERFORMANCE

DESIGN

DISPLAY

STORAGE

CAMERA

BATTERY

NETWORK CONNECTIVITY

Samsung M31 honest review – Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming?

Build

Samsung has gone with glasstic for the back of the phone — plastic that looks and feels like glass — which is smart, because it gives the phone a premium finish while keeping the weight low. And weight could have been a problem given that Samsung shoved a monster 6,000 mAh battery into this thing.

And don’t let the “glass” in “glasstic” fool you, it’s still plastic and still prone to scratches, and it’s glossy, making the phone slippery to hold, especially for someone as butterfingered as I am. On the bright side, the phone doesn’t look cheap, unlike its predecessor.

It has great viewing angles, deep blacks and punchy colours, which makes it look just as good as the ones you find on high-end flagship phones, if not better. But I must point out that the bezels surrounding the display can an eyesore. It’s not something to complain about at this price range, but I think there’s definitely some room for improvement.

Design and display – Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming?

The 6.4-inch Infinity-U Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy M31 is excellent for this segment of the smartphone market. Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming? It has wide viewing angles, vivid colors, deep blacks, and pretty good brightness levels that only fall short in the harshest of sunlight. However, since this is the same panel as the one on the Galaxy M30s, the bezels are rather big for a 2020 smartphone. The bottom bezel in particular is an eyesore, though I guess we can’t complain considering the M31’s price tag.

At the back, the quad camera setup is housed inside a rectangular window in the upper left corner, with the words ’64 megapixels’ mentioned next to the LED flash. It may come off as cheap to some, but in my opinion the font used for the text makes it look quite stylish. There’s also a capacitive fingerprint sensor next to the cameras, which I still think is the best solution for fingerprint recognition on phones.

The Galaxy M31 has a polycarbonate body that’s pretty much the same as the Galaxy M30s. Since there’s a 6,000 mAh battery inside, the M31 is heavy, but not so heavy that it would turn you off. However, the phone doesn’t feel very premium to hold, and that might not be to everyone’s liking despite the rather affordable price tag. The design is quite utilitarian, in short, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your preferences.

The Galaxy M31 has a headphone jack, for those wondering. But you will have to buy your own headphones, as there are no earphones in the box. There’s no case, either: All you get is a USB-C cable and a 15W Samsung fast charger, which was also the case (no pun intended) with the Galaxy M30s. You will need a case, though, if you want to keep the phone in a pristine condition, as the back panel picks up scratches very easily.

Galaxy M31 camera

The M31 is Samsung’s cheapest phone to feature a 64-megapixel rear camera, and using pixel binning, it takes 16-megapixel photos in auto mode. And daytime performance is pretty good. There’s plenty of detail in the photos and good dynamic range. The same goes for video recording. The M31 is also the cheapest Samsung phone to sport 4K video recording (at 30 fps), and apart from a lack of stabilization, videos captured in daylight look pretty good.

First off, the Night mode photos are cropped considerably so you see a lot less in the frame compared to standard photos. Secondly, Night mode photos have a watercolor painting effect and often have their detail smudged when it should be the other way around. Finally, some scenes don’t show noticeable difference when captured in Night mode. Night mode is great for brightening up a scene when it’s too dark, but otherwise, it doesn’t really work as well as Samsung would make you think. Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming?

It’s the nighttime performance where the M31 drops the ball. First off, the phone simply has too much shake even when you hold it in two hands, and with a single hand, well, good luck getting a perfectly clear picture. If you do manage it, you get sufficient detail and little noise when there’s good artificial lighting around. In the dark, things aren’t so rosy. Samsung is marketing the M31 as having an amazing camera Night mode, but that Night mode isn’t exactly that great.

The ultra-wide camera on the M31 is an 8-megapixel sensor like the M30s’ ultra-wide camera. It’s useful to capture a wider scene, but don’t expect to see any fine detail when you zoom in, especially at night. As for the 5MP macro camera, it’s great if you love taking close-up shots, though it’s often difficult to understand exactly when the object is in focus, resulting in a few out-of-focus shots. Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming?

For selfies, the Galaxy M31 has a 32MP camera and manages to take pleasing pictures outdoors. By default, you get 8MP photos, but you can switch to 32MP mode if you like to see more details in your selfies. At night, detail is lost whether it’s an 8MP photo or a 32MP photo, and you can also expect some camera shake if you don’t hold the phone steady using all the willpower you can muster.

In case you’re wondering, you can capture 4K videos with the front camera as well. Other camera features include Live Focus mode for bokeh shots with the front and rear cameras, which works pretty well most of the time (see some samples below). You can also capture Super Slow-mo and standard slow motion videos and create AR Emojis. Standard modes like Hyperlapse and Panorama are present as well.

Galaxy M31 performance – Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming?

The Galaxy M31 is powered by the same Exynos 9611 chipset that you find on the Galaxy M30s, Galaxy A50s, and Galaxy A51. It’s the processor choice for Samsung’s budget and lower mid-range phones, and all I can say is that it gets the job done in day-to-day use. The M31 runs smoothly as long as you don’t try to switch apps and browse through the user interface too quickly. Apps mostly launch quickly, and since there’s 6GB of RAM on both the 64GB and 128GB storage variants, multitasking isn’t usually an issue.

The Exynos 9611 is a tried-and-tested SoC and it’s very good at handling a mid-range phone. So the M31 runs smoothly for day-to-day usage with little to no lags or stutters. The software is still a bit for this SoC, so you might notice a few hiccups while switching between the apps. You get 6GB RAM on both 64GB as well as the 128GB variant of the phone. I haven’t faced any issues with multitasking.

The phone runs Android 10 with Samsung’s OneUI 2.0 on top. The OneUI found on this phone is not baked with all the features, but it’s good enough. The Galaxy M31 doesn’t support features like Samsung Pay and Samsung Pay Mini, but you do get stuff like Bixby Vision in the camera app.

Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming? The gaming performance of the phone is also pretty good. I was able to run titles like PUBG Mobile, Asphalt 9 without any issues. As long as you’re not pushing the graphics in the games, you should be totally fine. I suggest tweaking the graphics settings before jumping into the game.

Gaming performance is pretty good in titles like Call of Duty and PUBG, at least at the default graphics settings. The phone can stutter here and there when you initially load a game and start playing, but those stutters don’t show up after the first minute or two. It also didn’t have issues running well at the ultra frame rate setting in PUBG, and games like Asphalt 9 and Modern Combat 5 also run fine. This is something I also noticed on the Galaxy A50 and M30s – the Exynos 9610/9611 isn’t great for the general user interface, but its Mali-G72 MP3 GPU handles popular gaming titles very well.

Galaxy M31 software – Is Samsung M31 good for PUBG gaming?

And when I pressed Samsung about why the M series runs One UI Core even though devices like the M30s and M31 have the same processor as the Galaxy A51, which do get standard One UI 2.0 (though not with all features), I was told the company designs each phone according to the target market. But that doesn’t explain why stuff like Samsung Pay Mini and Secure Folder aren’t part of the package, and I can only assume Samsung wants to keep some features exclusive to costlier phones.

Like every other Galaxy phone Samsung has launched in 2020, the Galaxy M31 runs Android 10 with One UI 2.0 out of the box. Well, it runs One UI Core 2.0, which is a stripped down version of One UI 2.0 that Samsung also brought to the Galaxy M20 and Galaxy M30 with the Android 10 update. You don’t get features like the built-in screen recorder or even something as basic as Secure Folder. Samsung Pay and Samsung Pay Mini aren’t supported, either. Bixby is completely missing as well, except for Bixby Vision in the camera app.

Since the Galaxy M31 runs Android 10 out of the box, it will receive an update to Android 11 and Android 12 at some point. Android 11 might arrive quickly – the Galaxy M20 and M30 received the Android 10 update before the Galaxy Note 10 did, after all. Security updates are likely to come once every three months for the first two years, and whenever necessary from the third year onward.

Galaxy M31 battery life

One of the marquee features of the Galaxy M31 is its 6,000 mAh battery. A lot of manufacturers have stepped up their game when it comes to battery life, but I’d say Samsung has done a really good job. Let’s just say that the Galaxy M31  can last a really long time on a single charge.

Even if you’re pushing the phone to its limit, you’ll have a hard time killing the phone in one day. And with a not-so-heavy usage, you can even squeeze two days. Yes, it’s that good.

The Galaxy M31 also supports 15W charging. I mean, it’s a huge battery so faster charging speed doesn’t help that much, but now it’ll take you about two and half hours to fully charge the phone from a dead state. So I’d say you should consider charging the phone overnight or plan your day accordingly.

Charging Speeds

Increasing charging speeds is one way smartphone manufacturers have made up for the lack of battery stamina in modern-day smartphones. But the Samsung Galaxy M31 falls behind in this aspect. Agreed, the inclusion of a massive battery pack does alienate anxiety to an extent, but fast charging is crucial for times when you’ve forgotten to plug the phone for a longer duration.

The M31 supports 10W fast charging that takes 2 hours to completely fill the phone. This is unfortunate especially when the segment has phones like the Realme XT and the POCO X2, the latter of which completely charges its 4,500mAh unit in an hour. It would’ve been nice to see faster-charging tech from Samsung here.

Galaxy M31 audio and call quality

For wired audio, you will need to opt for a third-party product as no earphones are bundled with the phone. When used with earphones from other budget/mid-range Galaxy smartphones, the M31 produces sound that is very heavy on the high frequencies (treble) but lacks punch in the lower frequencies. As for call quality, I noticed no issues with either of the two SIMs I was using, except for the fact that both the earpiece and the loudspeaker are on the quieter side and make it hard to hear what the person on the other end is saying.

The M31 has a single bottom-firing loudspeaker that gets the job done if you’re in a small room but is too quiet to hear even at full volume otherwise. It’s the same story with every budget Galaxy phone, and the M31 doesn’t do anything to change that. Like the M30s’ speaker, the M31’s doesn’t distort at the highest volume, though, which is a plus. It could just do with a bit more depth in the low frequencies (bass).

How to resolve heating issue in Samsung M31 PUBG gaming?

Kindly perform the below mentioned steps and be assured it would resolve your issue:

1.On the home screen swipe down the notification panel.Turn off Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and other connectivity features when not using them.
2.Long duration of graphics intensive gaming sessions may cause the heating issue.

Kindly visit the below link for the complete steps:
https://www.samsung.com/in/support/mobile-devices/why-the-heating-issue-occurs-in-mobile-device/

If this doesn’t help, send an error report again with log file as soon as you experience the issue (preferably within 15 mins in order for us to get the data that we need) by following below path:-
Samsung member app> Get Help> Send Feedback> Error Report

Is there a big difference in the gaming speed between the Galaxy M31 and the Galaxy A71?

Well the Galaxy M31 has the Exynos 9611 chipset (4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53) with Mali-G72 MP3 GPU and the Galaxy A71 has the Snapdragon 730 chipset (2×2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold & 6×1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver) with Adreno 618 GPU.

If the GPUs were compared side by side, generally the performance will favored the Adreno 618 in the A71 by at least 7%, if going by the notebookcheck figures in the gaming department. If so then it won’t be a big difference.

Can a Samsung M31 smartphone play a PUBG mobile game on an extreme and smooth setting?

Not possible. M31 is powered by Exynos 9611 which us good for day to day uses but not high end gaming. You can play PUBG at HD setting but you will feel some lag and frame drops. So all an all this phone is not for Gamers.

If you wants to buy a gaming phone at this price range you can go for Realme 6 or Redmi Note 9pro which can provide much better gaming experience.

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