In the past few years, various Chinese brands have come to dominate the mid-range market for phones. With new models launched every year, this ‘middle’ market for phones is becoming ever more competitive with multiple brands vying for attention with new and nifty designs and improved functionality. In response to the considerable competition, the Korean company Samsung has sought to re-invent itself by launching two new devices at the higher-end of the mid-range section, namely, the Galaxy A6 and A6+. So, how does the A6+, which is priced at Rs 44, 390, fare in real life? Can we believe the hype? Let’s find out:

Camera

The major USP of the Samsung Galaxy A6+ is its camera. The phone boasts a 16-megapixel primary rear camera, as well as a 5-megapixel secondary camera. The former comes with f/1.7 aperture and the latter has f/1.9 aperture and is primarily used for depth data. You won’t be disappointed by this device’s picture-taking capabilities. Images are well-saturated, have dynamic range and the colours are vivid. Samsung has really done its homework in the camera department as this mid-range device comes equipped with top flagship specs.

When taking portraits, the secondary depth-sensing camera reads the subjects and blurs out the borders effectively. Also, like in every other Samsung dual camera smartphone, this device has an adjustable blur feature that can be applied before and after pictures are taken.

When Samsung launched the Galaxy S9, many were disappointed with the company’s decision to not focus on the selfie camera. This has now been rectified. The Galaxy A6+ comes with a top quality 24-megapixel front facing camera that shoots photos with a lot of sharpness and detail. Now, you might still have some issues with grains and noise, but the selfie camera, overall, does a great job.

Design

Samsung is known for its well-built smartphones and this has not changed with the Galaxy A6+. The device is made of metal and even though it is slippery, you will really like the overall design of the phone. 

On the front is a display with minimal bezels on the top and bottom parts. There are volume buttons on the left side and a power button on the right. The speakers can be found right above the power button, which for me, is not the best placement for this feature. It tends to get covered easily when I am watching videos or playing games in landscape mode, and the sound, quality wise, is only average.

Display

The Samsung Galaxy A6+ features a tall 6-inch display with full HD+ resolution. Samsung has mentioned the term ‘Infinity’ in its advertising, but without the presence of a curved display, this seems to be a misnomer. Perhaps it is because the display ratio is 18.5:9? You can decide for yourself.

Samsung has also included a Super AMOLED panel on the device, which enhances the display quality. It is vivid and well-saturated, the colours are vibrant, sunlight visibility is quite decent and with the AMOLED display, you can expect deep blacks to still be visible in the image.

Performance and software

The area where the Samsung Galaxy A6+ has failed to live up to the price tag is on the performance front and this is mostly due to the chipset. This device is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor which has a 4 GB RAM. This chipset is usually seen on devices that sell for a much lower price. Thanks to the chipset, you can’t expect to run heavy games on this device and the overall performance isn’t that smooth either.

In the software department, the Experience UI running on top of Android v8.0 Oreo is quite fun to use; but if you are a stock Android user, you’ll probably still wish Samsung made its user interface minimal.

Security

Following the 2018 trend, Samsung has included the Face Unlock feature on the Galaxy A6+. Now it is certainly not as secure as the company’s Iris scanner, but hey, it’s something. The fingerprint scanner sits right below the dual cameras on the back, something we have seen on the Galaxy S9 and S9+. 

Hardware

Samsung has launched the 64 GB storage variant of the Galaxy A6+ which features a 4 GB RAM. There is support for expandable memory as the device packs a microSD card slot for memory expansion of up to 256 GB. There are also two SIM slots on the device.

Battery

The A6+ has a 3,500 mAh battery capacity. Samsung devices are well known for their long lasting battery life and this is true for this phone as well. The Galaxy A6+ easily lasts for a day under heavy usage. However, the device does take a long time to fully charge—about two hours.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy A6+ is Samsung’s answer to the growing number of Chinese smartphones that have come to dominate the mid-range market. With this device, Samsung falls slightly short on the performance front, but it does have plenty of other features to boast of. It has one of the best cameras at its price range, and the display and design is top notch. So, if you are not much of a performance geek, Galaxy A6+ has definitely added one more mobile to think about in the mid-range section!