Samsung Galaxy A51 in for review

The Samsung Galaxy A50 was Samsung's most popular phone in 2019 and sold in droves. That makes the task of replacing it as big as that of replacing any of Samsung's most expensive flagship phones. A quick glance at the Samsung Galaxy A51 tells us Samsung played it safe, but is that a bad thing?

No, it's not. Mid-rangers should be competent at what it does and bring good bang for yourbuck. Both are true of the Samsung Galaxy A51. It has moved the notched selfie camera into the display, which itself is a bit larger now and on the back there's a better camera array and an attractive prism-inspired design.

The Galaxy A51 is a smidge heavier than its predecessor but generally feels light when it sits in your hand. This is among the lightest 6.5-inchers around.

It comes in a variety of colors like Black, White, Blue, Prism and a nicely pastel Pink.

Some things haven't changed. The battery remains a 4,000mAh unit with only 18W of fast charging, which is now among the slower charging speeds, even in Samsung's camp.

When put side by side with the still-capable Galaxy A50, the Galaxy A51 brings two significant improvements - the new design and the new cameras. The new main camera is a 48MP f/2.0 unit in place of the old 25MP f/1.7, 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide module replaces the 8MP f/2.2 one, and a 5MP dedicated macro camera. On the front there's a new 32MP f/2.2 selfie snapper, upgrading a 25MP f/2.0 unit.

The chipset is also a slight improvement. The Exynos 9611 matches the 9610 almost spec for spec but does have support for higher-megapixel cameras (64MP).

Samsung Galaxy A51 - front and rear

The Galaxy A51 is also already on the mint-fresh Android 10 with One UI 2.0 - something the Galaxy A50 is in line to receive, but hasn't yet.

Luckily the price has remained as competitive as that of the Galaxy A50's when it released in March of last year - you can get a 128GB Galaxy A51 with 4GB of RAM for under €350.

Our review is way underway so keep an eye on our homepage!