In the box: M 13 5 G, cable with adapter.
Samsung is a quick learner. After it dethroned Nokia almost a decade ago, it wasn't ready to accept the same fate from the Chinese competitors. In 2019 it was quick to revise its strategy by introducing value-for-money, affordable smartphones. The M 13 5 G is a testament to that.
Samsung has chosen a plastic unibody design with a soft finish that has a good hand feel and does attract finger impressions, keeping things simple and affordable. The power button and volume controls are housed in the right panel, the SIM tray on the left, the charging port at the bottom. The volume button doubles up as a fingerprint scanner, which is quick to unlock the phone. The front has a 6.5 inch IPS LCD panel with 720 1,440 p resolution and a small notch for the selfie camera. It has a variable 90 Hz refresh rate, where the screen refresh rate can be changed to 60 Hz depending on the nature of the app and even saves battery. The screen is good to look at and consume content, both indoors and outdoors, with 400 nits of brightness. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The neat rear doesn't have a dual camera setup with not-so monstrous lenses. The compact lenses are flushed very neatly with the rear, making it appear as a part of the chassis.
The dual camera setup includes a 50 MP primary sensor and a 2 MP depth sensor. The images taken from the primary camera were impressive - sharp with natural-looking colours and fine details. The reds and greens looked over-saturated in certain scenarios. Portrait shots captured using the depth sensor came out fine. It worked well on humans and pets but not on objects as the edges were distorted in some cases. There is an option to adjust the blur effect while capturing the image and even while editing. The low-light imaging isn't a strong area for the M 13 5 G and that is where night mode comes to the rescue. You'll have to hold still for a good 3 -- 5 seconds for a clear image. For example, shots captured indoors and even outdoors in low light had noise. The camera app is simple and neat with not many modes. The basics include pro if you want to experiment with manual settings along with panorama, food and night.
This entry-level 5 G smartphone from Samsung is powered by a 2.2 Ghz octa-core MediaTek Dimensity 700 chipset, paired with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB of storage, which is a good choice for daily use, including emails, web browsing, social media, video streaming and casual gaming. You can assign additional up to 6 GB of storage to RAM in case you need more power while playing games or doing basic video editing. While this is a 5 G enabled device, we were not able to test the same due to the lack of a 5 G network in India. The good news is that it houses dedicated slots for two SIM cards and a MicroSD that supports up to 1 TB expandable memory. A Samsung feature auto data switching makes sure the phone is connected all the time. There are some preinstalled ones, including Snapchat, which are more than just the Samsung apps.
This is backed by a 5000 battery which lasted me over a day and a half with average usage. The phone is accompanied by a 15 W fast charging solution that took close to three hours for a full charge.
It makes sense to be future-ready with 5 G services to be rolled out soon, before the end of the year. Samsung s M 13 5 G is an impressive budget phone with a decent camera and good performance, and above all is 5 G ready, making it worth considering.