Samsung Galaxy M02 Review – Fairly Low Priced With Compromises

Samsung Galaxy M02 is the latest addition to Samsung’s budget range M-series devices. It brings along a beefy battery that M-series smartphones are well-known for among others. The device brings along a MediaTek MT6739W processor clubbed with 2/3GB RAM and 32GB storage. It houses a dual 13MP+2MP sensor at the back while the front has a 5MP sensor. There are abundant reviews on Samsung Galaxy M02 that you can find on the internet but not all are true.

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Here, we used the Samsung Galaxy M02 for a few weeks, and here’s what we have found out about the device. Here’s the complete review to read to decide whether to buy or not.

Samsung budget-category Galaxy M02 arrives at just Rs 6,999/- for its 2GB+32GB variant and maxes at Rs 7,499/- for its 3GB+32GB configuration available on Amazon India. Check out its various colour variants – Blue, Black, Red, and Gray that you can choose whilst purchase it. Amazon offers a tonne of offers on buying Galaxy M02 such as No Cost EMI, Exchange Offer up to Rs 6,000/- off, 5 per cent instant discount on HSBC Cashback Card, and others that you can check online.

Before we talk in detail about the Samsung Galaxy M02, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 16.64 cm (6.55 inch) HD+ Display
• Processor: MediaTek MT6739
• Storage: 2GB/3GB, 32GB
• Software: Android Pie 10
• Rear cameras: 13MP + 2MP Dual 
• Selfie camera: 2MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 206g
• Dimensions: 164 x 75.9 x 9.1 mm

When it comes to the design, Samsung Galaxy M02 surprisingly has a good-quality build. It isn’t aluminium or something else but the plastic frame and the plastic back do make the phone look a bit premium. Plus, the back panel has ridges on them that aid it a perfect grip no matter how you hold it. Plus, you don’t have to worry about fingerprint marks on the back panel for sure. The rear dual-camera setup sits on the top-left corner protruding just a bit above the panel.

Unlike Galaxy M51 which has a 7000mAh battery while M02 has a 5000mAh battery, the usual complaint is that the Galaxy M02 isn’t well-balanced when it comes to weight. You would feel that the phone is bulky on the top side or at the bottom at times which ruins the fun of using a smartphone.

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The front is, as usual, a wide display with bezels that are considerably sized on par with the price tag. There’s a teardrop-shaped notch on top. You can read more about the display mounted on the device in the “Display” section.

Talking about the hardware buttons and ports, you will find the power button on the right side along with the volume rockers. A 3.5mm, a mono loudspeaker, and a micro-USB port sit at the bottom. There’s a triple slot SD Card tray mounted on the top of the left side which has dual SIM cards and a dedicated microSD card slot for storage.  That’s pretty much it.

Overall, the build quality is good when you are holding the phone since you can actually feel it. Even though it’s plastic, Samsung Galaxy M02 looks pretty although with some of the caveats that come with a price tag as low as that of Galaxy M02.

Samsung Galaxy M02 spots a 6.5-inch PLS IPS panel with a resolution of 720×1600 pixels. It has a 270PPI density and has 81.9 per cent screen-to-body ratio. Finally, the display has an aspect ratio of 20:9.

For everything wrong or inconsistent with Galaxy M02, the display is simply impressive. It is vivid, vibrant and colours pop up naturally. The display is HD+ and does justify the price bracket the phone falls in. In fact, it is one of the strongest suites of M02 when compared to a weak processor, an average camera setup, and other specifications.

It is quite bright and when we tried it under broad sunlight, it was quite bright as well. In fact, this left us wondering how a Rs 6,999/- device has such good brightness even under direct sunlight when even many of the mid-range devices fail to be visible. Next up, the display doesn’t possess any colour shift when viewing from a different angle as even if you turn it almost sideways, you won’t see issues viewing the display and that’s quite impressive.

The phone is Widevine L3 certified that allows displaying content at 720p at max even on OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video among others although that’s just a bit of a letdown since Samsung could have shipped M02 with L1 certification.

Talking about the performance, Samsung Galaxy M02 is driven by an entry-level MediaTek MT6739W quad-core chipset manufactured on a 28nm node. The quad Cortex-A53 cores are clocked at 1.5GHz. The PowerVR GE8100 chipset handles the graphics processing of the device. The device has 2GB/3GB RAM along with 32GB eMMC 5.1 internal storage. There’s a dedicated microSD card slot that allows expanding memory further.

We used Galaxy M02 for a varied range of tests to check out how it actually fares when it comes to its performance. The device sports a MediaTek MT6739W which without any doubt, is a weak processor. We do have many concerns about the chipset with a simple solution, Samsung should have gone with a slightly powerful processor to ward off the inconsistencies in performance.

The device can perform daily tasks such as calling, watching videos, playing songs, and stuff although with a slight jitter. If you are switching between apps, you will see a notable time delay switching. Even if you uninstall an app where its icon must go off instantly, it takes a few seconds for Galaxy M02 to do that. You will see a bit of jitter in scrolling through apps be it system apps as well.

I tried playing games on Galaxy M02 and found out that light graphics games like Temple Run or Candy Crush or Subway Surfers work well. But you will certainly stress the processor if you play graphics-intensive games like PUBG Mobile or COD: Mobile or any other game although you can play it on the lowest settings available.

To summarize the situation, if you are an avid phone user who likes multi-tasking or if you are a power user, Galaxy M02 is not for you. If you are a light user, someone who wants to get a smartphone on a tight budget and doesn’t expect to do much can get it for themselves or someone else.

Plus, the device runs on Android 10-powered OneUI 2.0 which is a light user interface when compared to other custom UIs. It is light and yet, there are some shortcomings. The device is slow and seems like OneUI 3.0 isn’t optimized to work well with the device either.

Samsung’s Galaxy M02 budget-category smartphone sports a dual rear camera setup consisting of a 13MP wide-angle sensor with an aperture of f/1.9 with autofocus. It is paired with a 2MP macro sensor with an aperture of f/2.4. The front sports a 5MP with an f/2.0 aperture.

Samsung mounted a 13MP wide-angle and a 2MP macro sensor at the back arranged in a vertical stack. It does look good since Samsung didn’t follow the usual “mount many cameras on a smartphone” rule. Talking about daylight photography, it is on par as the details are good, the exposure is right and since the rear camera has autofocus, you wouldn’t have to worry about sliding out of exposure while recording a video.

The photos snapped from the rear primary camera are decent and so are the macro shots subjected that you have abundant light reflecting off the subject. Overall, the rear camera setup is average and you can’t expect a pro-grade camera with a price tag of Rs 6,999/- so it goes in line with the price mark.

You can also capture quality selfies in daylight although the shots came out to be a little dull. Assume capturing a photo in low light, that’s what M02 front camera produces even after capturing the shots in daylight. Though the selfies are average, they don’t contain many details like the rear camera. The nighttime selfies are usually unusable so don’t expect something great coming out of M02 when it’s nighttime. But hey, we aren’t saying it is the worst, it’s just some compromises that you had to make when buying a budget phone.

Samsung Galaxy M02 is supplied with a giant-sized 5,000 mAh battery non-removable battery. There’s a 7.75W charging here so you will have to resort to a standard charging speed via a micro USB 2.0 port. If you are looking for a budget phone with solid battery life, I don’t think there’s any other phone that matches your description than Samsung Galaxy M02 unless you aren’t looking for a Samsung smartphone. It takes around 3 hours and 20 mins to completely juice it up so it’s a lot of time, to be honest.

Samsung Galaxy M02 sports a mono loudspeaker mounted at the bottom. It is decent and on par with the price tag.

You get GPS support as well with navigation systems like Glonass and A-GPS. Finally, you get access to Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 5.0 with LE and A2DP. There’s no NFC on the device and it is stripped with minimal sensor load since only proximity and accelerometer are available onboard.

There’s no fingerprint reader mounted on Samsung Galaxy M02 so don’t expect it. There’s no facial recognition but you will have to resort to PIn and Pattern unlocking mechanisms to get around the device’s security.

Pros

• 6.5-inch HD+ display
• 13MP dual-rear camera
• Exciting pricing for beginners
• Android 10
• Huge 5000 mAh battery

Cons

• No Type-C charging port
• Entry-level meagre processor
• No dust and water resistance
• No Gorilla Glass protection