Samsung Galaxy A6+: Immersive 'Infinity Display' in a budget (Tech Review)

Aiming to take on its mid-range smartphone rivals in India, South Korean tech major Samsung has introduced its contender, the Galaxy A6+, at a price of Rs 25,990 for 4GB RAM and 64GB on-board storage which can be further expanded up to 256GB via a MicroSD card slot.

The smartphone features Samsung's famed "Infinity Display", which came into existence with its flagship Galaxy S8 and S8+ in 2017.

The Galaxy A8+, launched earlier this year, was the first non-Samsung Galaxy S or Note series smartphone to sport the "Infinity Display" with an unusual aspect ratio of 18.5:9. The tech giant is now bringing the "Infinity Displays" to lower-end devices to give a more holistic screen experience to users at lower price points.

Here is how the smartphone fared during our review.

The touch and feel of the device was great with the feel of a more premium Galaxy S9+, thanks to the centre-aligned, vertically stacked, dual-primary cameras with a fingerprint scanner placed right below.

The Galaxy A6+ has a unimetal body which makes it sturdy and solid. There are two antenna bands running on either side of the phone (top and bottom) which enhanced the look of the device.

The left side of the device houses the volume keys and two trays. One of them one is solely to accommodate a nano-SIM card while the other can house a nano-SIM card and a MicroSD card. The right side houses the power button and the speaker grille.

A high point of the device is its 6-inch AMOLED "Infinity Display" which can compete with devices such as Honor 8 Pro despite not having a 2K screen.

Samsun'g proprietary Super AMOLED display made blacks look rich with good-viewing angles even under direct sunlight.

The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor which could handle day-to-day tasks with ease.

The Galaxy A6+ comes with dual rear cameras with one 16MP sensor and another 5MP lens for depth sensing and an LED flash.

The device stands out in taking portrait shots when compared with devices in the same price segment. All other shots also turned out quite well with accurate colours.

There is a 24MP front camera with LED flash that was capable of taking good selfies and also assist while biometric authentication for unlocking the phone.

The cameras also come equipped with with Bixby Vision -- a feature which lets users frame objects in their camera viewfinder or bring up a photo from Gallery or online and it helps them discover through relevant images.

The Galaxy A6+ is backed by 3,500mAh non-removable battery under the back panel that easily lasted us a day on heavy usage. We tested the battery by running several social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter multiple times a day and some amount of gaming.

The bundled charger in the package took a little over two hours to completely charge the battery.

What does not work?

Photos shot on the rear camera in low-lighting conditions lacked detail and looked grainy too.

The placement of the speaker grille is a bit disappointing as it was capable of muffling the sound.

A Snapdragon 450 chipset for this price is also a bit underwhelming.

Conclusion: Galaxy A6+ ticks most of the right boxes when it comes to features such as display and camera. Buy this device if you want to lay hands on a big and beautiful display phone.

(Krishna SinhaChaudhury can be contacted at krishna.s@ians.in)

--IANS

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