Samsung Galaxy M32 sits firmly on the mid-range tier with a price tag of Tk22,999 for its 6GB RAM and 128GB storage variant.
But the features punch way beyond its price tag.
Within this price range, the smartphone offers a 64MP camera, Super AMOLED display and many other features that any Xiaomi or Realme mid-range devices offer.
But how did Samsung fit all these features at an affordable price and did it cut corners somewhere else?
Display
The display segment of the smartphone is top-notch, to be honest. The 6.4 inches Super AMOLED display offers up to 90Hz of display refresh rate. For a phone that costs only 23k, this is something quite rare.
If we want to make comparisons, the Realme 8 Pro offers a 60Hz display and it costs Tk27,990. The only phone that offers more refresh rate (120Hz) in Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 10 Pro Max, and that costs around Tk28,999.
The display of Galaxy M32 is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, the same protection offered by the much more expensive Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. Meanwhile, Realme 8 Pro offers only Gorilla Glass 3 protection.
However, this panel goes as far as 800 nits of peak brightness, according to gadgetsnow, which is kind of a drawback.
Chipset
Now, if you read carefully, we did talk about the sacrifices at the beginning of the review, and the sacrifice was made in this segment.
The smartphone is equipped with a MediaTek Helio G80 chipset. The chipset isn’t bad in any way. But there are much better options available in the market.
Take Snapdragon’s 720G for example. 720G’s AnTuTu benchmark score is up tp 51% higher than Helio G80.
But the cons do not stop there. According to Nanoreview, game developers often optimize their games for Snapdragon processors rather than Helio.
The transistor size in 720G is also smaller (8nm) than Helio G80 (12nm) and the CPU clock speed of 720G is also 15% higher than Helio G80.
The only pros Helio G80 has here is the fact that it offers a higher GPU frequency or around 27%.
I am not saying that Samsung should have put a Snapdragon 720G chipset in a smartphone that costs 23k. That would be too much to ask. All I’m saying is that they could have included a better Helio chip instead, for example, Helio G95.
Realme did think this through and put a MediaTek Helio G95 chipset in their regular Realme 8 handset, which costs the same as Galaxy M32.
Camera
The competition is still there due to Samsung’s camera setup in M32. The rear camera setup included four lenses. The main one is a 64MP wide camera. Then comes an 8MP ultrawide followed by two 2MP macro and depth sensors.
In front, the phone has a 20MP wide camera, which will easily fit more people while capturing a selfie.
That being said, smartphone cameras nowadays rely a lot on the phone’s processing power, and the G80 might not be enough for such a camera setup.
Realme 8 has the same camera setup at the back. However, the images captured in that phone will look much better, thanks to the more advanced Helio G95 chipset inside.
Battery
This is where Samsung straight-up killed off all the competitors. The smartphone has a beast of a battery which is 6,000 mAh in capacity!
This is so impressive that one might expect to use the smartphone for two days with a single charge. Samsung’s One UI is also quite famous for being battery friendly.
Besides, one of the perks of having an Helio G80 chipset rather than Snapdragon 720G in the smartphone is the fact that the battery life will last much longer. So, everything turns out to be fine when you consider the chipset and battery capacity.
Final verdict
Well, if you like to play graphics-intensive games on your smartphone such as Asphalt 9 or Call of Duty Mobile, Galaxy M32 is definitely not your ideal choice.
However, if your main tasks are browsing the web, using Facebook or WhatsApp, making phone calls, sending lots of texts and playing occasional Candy Crush or similar less graphics-intensive games, the phone will be the perfect match for you. It will be a cheaper alternative and the scrolling experience will be very soothing, thanks to that 90Hz refresh rate.