We have discussed previously how Samsung's 2020 Galaxy A series pushes the envelope on affordable phones. The Galaxy A21s, Galaxy A31, Galaxy A41 and the Galaxy A51 LTE/5G are going to see the most interest from customers. Granted, there are other handsets in this year's lineup, but these will cater to most customers.
Samsung is offering something for everyone with the 2020 Galaxy A series. These four devices are particularly well-rounded. They offer specs that are comparable, and in some cases, better than their direct competitors. Samsung has also competitively priced these devices to make them more attainable.
Mobile gaming has seen explosive growth in its popularity over the past decade. Now, most people are more interested in whether the device they're thinking about buying can play their favorite game than perhaps anything else. Mid-range smartphones have to walk a tightrope as they have to balance both the customers' expectations in this regard while also not burning a hole in their pocket.
Of these four devices, the Galaxy A51 5G is undoubtedly the best for gaming. Samsung has made some meaningful changes to this device that has improved its performance in this area compared to the LTE variant. First and foremost, the Exynos 980 processor is more capable than the Exynos 9611. There's also faster UFS2.1 storage which helps speed up things as well. The base variant has 6GB of RAM but you can get it with 8GB as well if you'd like things to be a bit more snappy.
There's no faulting the device's 6.5-inch Super AMOLED display which is excellent. The intelligent use of the Infinity-O display has enabled Samsung to trim the bezels, which allows for a more immersive gaming experience. The punch hole is much smaller than what we've seen on the very first iterations of the Infinity-O display so it's not an eyesore.
There is one issue, though, that's a bit of a nuisance. The single bottom-firing speaker is positioned in a way that you'll unknowingly cover it with your finger when playing a game in landscape mode. Most games worth playing require you to have your phone in landscape mode so this isn't an issue that you can avoid.
We liked playing games on the device when we were reviewing it, but this is one issue that constantly irked us. It required a conscious effort to not place the finger at that place, which by the way, is where you'd naturally rest your finger when holding the phone like that. The most obvious workaround is to either use headphones. Fortunately, the Galaxy A51 5G does have a 3.5mm headphone jack. But with the headphones plugged in, you'll also need to adjust how you rest your palm. Better yet, you could go completely wireless and use the Galaxy Buds+.
With that out of the way, there's little there that's not to like about the Galaxy A51 5G. You get support for the next-gen network standard so you can take full advantage of 5G networks with a phone that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. As we pointed out in our Galaxy A51 5G review, the device is fully capable of powering the countless hours you'll spend playing games like PUBG and Call of Duty and that too at their highest graphics settings.
The speaker position just causes an inconvenience that can be easily avoided. Hopefully, Samsung will address this issue in the Galaxy A51 5G's successor.
