Samsung Galaxy A6+ Review: Compelling yet not competitive enough

Samsung AMOLED Infinity display, that was first introduced with its Galaxy S8 and S8+ devices, is now trickling down the order. Recently, the firm rolled out its budget-oriented Galaxy J-series and A-series phones that largely depend on Infinity AMOLED screen to stand out.

The Galaxy A6+ isn’t like other A-series phones that we are used to seeing from Samsung. In fact, it tries to find a sweet spot between the affordable J-series and mid-range A-series. What should work in its favor is that it lies in a price bracket where we don’t see much competition.

Does Samsung make the right tradeoffs this time? We got hold of the device and have been using it as our daily driver for the last few weeks. Here’s our assessment of the Galaxy A6+:

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Specifications

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Box Content

• Samsung Galaxy A6+ handset
• Earphones
• Charger (Output: 5V/1.5A)
• Standard micro USB(Type-A) cable
• Sim-ejector pin
• Warranty card and other documentation

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Review: Design and Build

The Galaxy A6+ is a sturdy phone that feels solid in hands. The reason being its full metal unibody design and Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Since we are used to seeing glass construction for A-series phones, the A6+ feels a bit unusual. Although we reviewed the Gold color variant of the Galaxy A6+, you can choose between Blue and Black hues as well.

The Galaxy A6+ design isn’t cheap or unergonomic, though. Despite being a tad bigger for single-handed use, and heavy (191g), it’s reasonably comfortable to wield.

On the flip side, the Galaxy A6+ flaunts dual-rear camera setup, fingerprint sensor and antenna bands that are reminiscent of Galaxy J7 Pro. We will talk about the camera performance in detail later, but its worth mentioning that the fingerprint sensor didn’t please us during our usage. It’s a bit inaccessible (too close to the top), and also a bit unresponsive.

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The top edge of the phone is a clean slate whereas the bottom edge has room for micro USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack. The volume rockers are on the left edge, and the power button is placed on the right edge alongside the loudspeaker.

The loudspeaker on Galaxy A6+ is loud and clear, but you need to be careful while playing games or watching videos as you might end up covering it.

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Review: Display

The Galaxy A6+ sports a 6-inch Full HD+ (2560X1440p) 18.5:9 aspect ratio display. The A6+ has a great quality Super AMOLED panel. It offers vivid colors, excellent contrast ratio, deep blacks, and high brightness levels.

True to its promise, the Galaxy A6+ full vision display offers an immersive experience for gaming, reading, or consuming multi-media content. It also has the always-on mode – a handy feature to see time, date, battery level, and notifications alert for missed calls and alarms without waking the device up.

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Review: Performance and Software

The major let down of the Samsung Galaxy A6+ is its SoC. The phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 450, which you can find on budget phones like Redmi 5 and Oppo A71 (2018).

Anyways, if you are a general user who likes to swirl around the phone just for browsing, chatting or other regular random stuff, you aren’t likely to run into performance hiccups with Galaxy A6+. It even has a dedicated microSD card that you can use to add up to 256GB secondary storage.

However, push the device a little with multi-tasking or heavy gaming, and performance gaps began showing up. You will notice apps freezing, drop in the refresh rate of the display, and stutters while moving from one screen to another.

As for the software, the Galaxy A6+ runs on Samsung’s Experience UI 9.0 with Android Oreo (8.0) as the base software. The custom skin brings with it some nifty features such as single-handed mode, ultra data saving mode, or chat over video mode that allows users to text and watch video simultaneously.

You even get to taste Samsung proprietary applications like Samsung Pay Mini for e-payments, and Samsung Mall to search for products in the e-market with image recognition. All this on top of Google and few Microsoft Apps that you can’t uninstall.

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Review: Camera and Battery

The Galaxy A6+ camera performance is boosted by dual-rear cameras. It has a 16-megapixel primary sensor with f/1.7 aperture lens and a 5-megapixel secondary sensor with f/1.9 aperture lens. The additional sensor is for the depth effect, which is further helped by “Live Focus” mode to preview and adjust the intensity of the blur effect.

For selfies, the handset features a 24-megapixel shooter with f/1.9 aperture lens and LED flash. The camera app is easy to navigate and loaded with features like Night, Sports, and Panorama mode, as well as AR stickers both on the front and back camera.

The camera results of Galaxy A6+ are satisfactory. It can shoot decent images with color accuracy and wide dynamic range in good lighting condition but takes a beating in low-light, when shots get grainy and noisy. The presence of LED flash does makes it easier to capture details but it kind of over-exposes the pictures.

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The Galaxy A6+ is capable of capturing bokeh images with both front and back cameras. It is relatively easy for the back camera to capture eye-pleasing portrait images with blurred background and good-edge detection – thanks to the extra sensor – compared to the front camera, which solely relies on software algorithms.

The battery life on the Galaxy A6+ is as good as it gets. With 3500mAh battery, we managed to hit bedtime with 20-25% juice still remaining on the phone. There is no fast charging support on the phone and the bundled charger takes approx. 2 to 2:30 hrs to fully charge the phone from 0-100%.

Samsung Galaxy A6+ Review: Conclusion

Kudos to the Galaxy A6+ for doing well on the display, battery and the camera front. The AMOLED display offers enticing results with good contrast ratio and viewing angles whereas its battery can easily last up to a day or more, and the camera results in favorable lighting won’t disappoint you either.

However, all these factors can’t cover up the fact that the Galaxy A6+ employs a mediocre chipset, unreliable fingerprint sensor, and an average loudspeaker – flaws that are a bit hard to look past at a price tag of Rs. 25,990.

As for alternatives, there aren’t many options available at this price. You could go with Nokia 7 Plus if you are a heavy user gunning for better performance. In comparison, the Galaxy A6+ has a better display and slightly better design. Apart from Samsung branding, of course.