The Dark Knight

 In the 2008 Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight’, there is a dialogue, “Die a hero or live long enough to be a villain.” This perfectly sums up Samsung’s villainous role in the mid-range smartphone market.

When Xiaomi (popularly brand­ed as Mi) entered the market and redefined the budget smartphone as we know it, people started to turn away from (or against) Sam­sung. Mi smartphones were cheap yet could power through the heavi­est games while still having enough juice at the end of the day to scroll through your social media feed.

This niche quickly won over cus­tomers in India and Nepal. Sam­sung, a worldwide leading smart­phone company with unparalleled resource and technology, was sell­ing underperforming smartphones at a much higher price. Needless to say, Mi, which entered India in 2015, today controls 29 percent of all smartphones sales there.

Now this article isn’t about Mi. This is a story about Samsung: about Samsung backtracking on its precedents, it riding above its vision and about its most promis­ing entry yet into the budget smart­phone market: M series.

M10

Price: Rs 13,790

Status: Released

M10 is the entry level variant in the M series and probably the best looking smartphone in the market for this price.

Screen

The 6.22 inches screen with the water drop notch gives the phone a premi­um feel. While the biggest hit is its screen to body ratio the misses are its half HD screen and the TFT display.

Battery and backup

This base vari­ant comes with 2 GB RAM and 32 GB of storage, which should be enough for casual smartphone users. But it can be expanded to 512 GB so you can always upgrade to meet your needs.

The 3,400 mAH battery should last a day on normal use. The phone uses a USB C port, which shows that Samsung has been paying attention to customer feedback. It sadly lacks fast-charging so it should take well over two hours to get you from 0 percent to 100 per­cent juice.

Camera

It houses a 13 MP primary sensor with an f/1.9 aperture combined with a secondary 5MP ultra-wide sensor with f/2.2 aperture. The 5 MP front camera with f/2.0 should be good enough for selfies and vid­eo calls. The biggest hit here is the wide angle lens. Given that this is the base variant, picture and video quality should be average.

Power and security

The M10 is pow­ered by Samsung’s exynos 7870 pro­cessor. This is a fair­ly old processor but for all PUBG enthusiasts, YES you can fly into Miramar with this phone, though the graphics settings will be restricted to low.

Sadly, this phone doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor. However, it does pack in facial recognition so you will not be restricted to typing down your password every time.

M20

Price: Rs 18,500

Status: Released

M20 is the manifestation of what the M series always promised to be: power performance and stunning looks on a budget.

Screen

This phone has a 6.3 inch screen with the same water drop notch and the TFT panel as the M10. Unlike the M10, the M20 has a full HD 1080p display, which is a substantial upgrade. With the 409 ppi screen, vid­eos and games should look crisp and perform great visually.

Battery and backup

This is the where the M20 really shines. The M20 is packed with a humongous 5000 mAH battery, a 47 percent upgrade from the M10, impressive by every standard. This phone should last up to two days with casual usage, which is a lot to say about a modern-day smart­phone. What makes the M20 more exciting is that it’s been injected with adaptive fast charge technology (also has a USB C port) so the phone should charge the massive battery from 0 to 100 in around 2 hours. This base variant comes with 3GB RAM and 32 GB of storage, which should again be enough for casual smart­phone users. But like the M10 it can be expanded to 512 GB.

Camera

While the rear camera for the M20 is the same as the M10, the front camera gets an upgrade: from the 5 MP shooter of the M10 to an 8 MP camera. Looking at past Samsung phones, it is safe to say that the M20 camera will give you amazing results.

Power and security

The M20 is powered by Samsung’s exynos 7904 proces­sor, a brand new processor developed exclusively for this phone. This is an improvement from the 7870 series that Samsung has re-used for years. The phone goes up to HD settings while run­ning PUBG so that should answer your questions on its performance with video games.

It has a fingerprint scanner at the rear of the phone and face unlock at the front so you’ve got ample ways to secure your phone.