what's going on guys my name is wade
with tech daily so
it might be hard to believe but the
samsung galaxy
a51 is nearly a full year old now it was
released in mid-december
2019 and basically by january it had
quickly become one of the most
popular mid-range devices and it's
remained that way
throughout the year in fact i personally
believe
this phone along with the a71 not only
helped
reshape the broader mid-range smartphone
space this year but these a series
devices
likely had a significant impact on the
direction samsung eventually took with
their smartphones
the a51 5g and a715g
after all are heavily promoted here in
the us
and the s20 fe a much cheaper
alternative to the flagship has sort of
made the higher-end devices
irrelevant more affordable but still
plenty capable
devices are what people want right now
and
the a51 is the quintessential example of
that
now i've had my regular a51 here for
nearly the full year
and in my time using this phone and
having compared it to countless other
devices now i still keep coming back to
it
simply because it's a solid well-rounded
smartphone that offers
just about everything you could ask for
and each time i look
the price gets better and better so in
this video
i'm not only going to talk about my
experience with this phone this year
but i'll also let you know my thoughts
on the newer a51 5g
as well and most importantly i'll share
my thoughts about getting this phone
right now and heading into 2021 and
whether or not we'll be seeing an a52
anytime soon so to start off i think
it's important that we understand the
couple variations of a51 devices that
are available now
this original a51 was released in
mid-december 2019
it's the international version but it's
also sold
in the us unlocked and through various
networks
i think it's what most people think of
when they reference this phone
and while it originally launched for
more than 300
and even close to 400 here in the us you
can get one
unlocked now from places like amazon for
closer to
260 dollars and let me just say
anything under 300 bucks for this phone
is a steal
no matter the configuration you might
get now in the summer
samsung also launched the a51 5g
both internationally and in the us and
for us folks
in particular samsung and the big
carrier networks
have been heavily promoting that phone
too you might be asking yourself
okay besides 5g support what's the real
difference
and really the a515g gets a slightly
larger battery a bump up in processor
and ram
and that's kind of it the whole rest of
the phone is the same
you wouldn't be able to tell them apart
just by looking at them and there
weren't
any other additional features or new
things offered with the a51
5g obviously the a515g
is the newer slightly more powerful
device
but the problem in my opinion really is
the price
samsung sells the a51 5g for
499 a lot of the us carriers have it
priced there to
400 to 500 verizon even has it higher
than that and sure
samsung has some holiday deals and
trade-in offers
that might bring the price down and the
networks have sign-up bonuses for new
customers but here's the bottom line
between the regular a51 that i have here
and the a51
5g you get in my opinion minuscule
upgrades really but for literally
hundreds of dollars more
i've said in multiple videos now that i
personally do not think the a51
5g and by extension the a715g are worth
the extra money
especially here in the us when the s20
fe 5g exists and when this
original a51 is just way way cheaper and
i think the whole point of this phone is
affordability anyway so to sum things up
with the pricing and availability
i think the regular year old original
a51 is still the one to get
especially now that it's even cheaper
and i think if you have
more money to spend it just makes way
more sense to jump up to the s20 fe 5g
over the a51 and a71 5gs since you're
actually getting
a way better phone from top to bottom
and if you guys are interested
in doing some comparison shopping of
your own i'll leave some links down
below
in the video description to all the
various samsung phones that i'm talking
about so you can see for yourself what's
available what kind of deals are offered
so
check down there so you don't miss out
physically i thought the a51 looked
great when it first came out
and now a year later i still think it
holds up well
to anything released in 2020. in fact i
don't expect smartphones to change
that much next year either you've got a
small hole punch camera cut out at the
top which goes
nearly unnoticed slim minimal bezels all
around
and what i like most about this phone in
particular is how
thin it feels in the hand it has more of
a contoured back and edge
versus some other devices and that
allows
for some comfortable one-handed use if
it fits for you
now at six and a half inches it's
certainly not a small phone so it won't
necessarily
be right for everyone but it's shorter
and slimmer than both the a71 and s20 fe
and really for folks in the us this is i
guess the smallest mid-range
or higher tier smartphone samsung even
launched this year
europe and asia got the a41 which is
even smaller
the a01 is a budget device so if you
want
specifically a smaller samsung phone
that isn't the flagship s20
i think this is a lot of people's only
option that was released this year at
least
now back when this phone first came out
i may have been a little critical about
the plastic form factor
the shiny glossy rear housing is
supposed to mimic glass
though you can certainly tell it is a
cheaper material
i still think it looks nice the rainbow
effect is kind of cool and the polished
chrome
sides do a nice job of sort of faking a
flagship design
but with the note 20 having a plastic
rear cover this year and the s20 fe also
being covered in plastic
i guess i've just sort of stopped caring
about materials as much
it probably keeps costs down it's
certainly more durable than glass and
for the price
i don't think you can expect much more
than this most importantly
unlike previous a-series phones that
tended to get really scratched up pretty
easily
this plastic has held up way better so
that i think is worthy of some praise
you might notice that the front display
on this phone looks a bit beat up but
don't worry that's just the cheap screen
protector that came
pre-installed on this phone actually
it's not the physical screen
i kept the screen protector on just out
of sheer laziness more than anything
it's pretty crappy and it got scratched
up almost immediately but
it's done the job it's supposed to i
guess namely protect the screen
and that's really what matters the rest
of the sort of
physical aspects of this phone are kind
of hit or miss
on the one hand you've got a headphone
jack which is nice some people still
value that
and there's sd card expansion so two
positives but there's no water
resistance rating no wireless charging
support
a maximum 15 watt usbc charging standard
and a single speaker setup which don't
get me wrong
still sounds pretty good but it's no
match for dual stereo sound
all in all those physical attributes may
or may not be something
you value in a smartphone i can
certainly look past
some of them but they are an indication
of this device not only being sort of a
cheaper mid-range phone but
also perhaps being a little behind the
times now
after a year one thing i think that
really holds up with this phone though
is
the display the six and a half inch
screen is samsung's
super amoled panel it comes in at a
resolution of 2400 by 1080 packing in
405 pixels per inch and this i think is
probably what most people will
appreciate on a phone like this
this display has been great it offers a
fantastic viewing experience
colors really pop it's plenty bright
and for the price especially you have
nothing to complain about
this is what samsung does best on their
more affordable devices
especially their a series but looking
ahead
i think 90hz and 120hz displays will be
the theme
of 2021 and while some manufacturers are
already putting at least 90hz panels in
their 300 to 400
phones i don't think samsung will do
that with their a series unfortunately
samsung hasn't released a 90 hertz phone
120 hertz did reach the s20 fe but
i doubt it'll trickle down any lower
than that
i hope i'm wrong but i just don't really
see it happening and
if that's the case this 1080 resolution
amoled setup is
probably what we'll get again on an a52
so more reason still to just consider
this phone
something i kind of wish samsung would
ditch on their a series phones next year
is
actually the in-display fingerprint
reader this for me
on the a51 has just not been great it
hasn't gotten that much better through
software updates and compared to what
shipped on the s20fe
it feels like night and day this one is
just so slow and inconsistent
i'm grateful to have it given what 2020
has been all about but
a physical button sensor like on the m51
would be way better in this case
fortunately face unlock
when you can utilize it is great the
phone unlocks basically
right away when i look at it now if you
remember at the start of the video i
explained
that the main difference between the
various a51 models
is with the internal specs so let me go
over all of that
and i'll try to offer up my thoughts on
it all this
regular a51 is powered by the exynos
9611 chipset
and either four six or eight gigs of ram
you can get any configuration depending
on where you live
the international a51 5g gets the newer
exynos 980 in either 6 or 8 gigs of ram
and the us variants the a51 5g uw
or ultra wideband ships with the
snapdragon 765g
chipset and 6 gigabytes of ram no other
configuration options to choose from
for me this regular a51 has been great
for anything i've needed it to do i do
have four gigs of ram
and i kind of wish i had more at times
certainly load times with games are a
little
slower than i would have liked and app
management suffers from time to time too
but would i pay 500 for the 5g version
of this phone
absolutely not the overall user
experience even with the
lower level specs has been totally fine
it's
great even in most cases and when you
push it a little hard with
graphics heavy games it can handle it
all just fine
for well under 300 i have no issues with
this set of specs for well over 400 or
500
i definitely have some issues with what
you're paying for
on the 851 5g models if i had
one recommendation it would probably be
to get this
regular a51 with six gigs of ram instead
that i think is the right balance and
the only thing i'd change if i could but
everything else about this phone has
been great
and even like six months from now i
don't see it having any issues
it also will likely be one of the first
phones to get new samsung software
updates too
it got the 1ui 2.5 update pretty quickly
and android 11 with one ui
3 is coming soon to this device so
that's great i think this phone has
another two years of solid life left in
it at least and likely more so
the overall investment to me even still
is
really solid and battery life on this
phone for me has been pretty great too
yes you do get a 4500 million battery
with the 5g
versions of the a51 well this version of
the phone has a 4 000 milliamp battery
inside
but the 5g versions have a more powerful
processor to manage
and the whole 5g thing too so it may end
up
evening out in the end throughout the
year there hasn't been an
instance where this phone hasn't lasted
me a full day no matter what i was doing
and i've been really happy with how it's
been able to perform
one aspect of this phone that i think
sort of paved the way for mid-range
phones to follow this year
has actually been the camera setup i've
said this before but
most of the early 2019 a series phones
just had
really mediocre cameras but this year
samsung i think put a majority of their
effort into camera tech and it really
paid off the quad lens setup here
is plenty capable the 48 megapixel main
lens takes great standard shots
the wide angle is super useful the macro
lens for super close-up photography
it's not something i ever use i'd rather
have a telephoto lens i guess
and the depth sensor i suppose is still
necessary for this phone
but i've taken some fantastic pictures
and videos with the phone this year
you've probably seen them all at this
point in a bunch of different camera
comparisons and if maybe
you've had and used a mid-range device
in the past or even one of samsung's own
a series devices and weren't too
impressed by the camera maybe you even
thought it was pretty terrible like i
used to
i'd recommend giving this phone another
look because it's just much much
improved now yes
camera tech in general has come a long
way especially in 2020 and especially on
flagship phones but i don't think
samsung is doing anything too crazy
next year with the new a series phones
either they'll likely just refine
this setup again maybe you'll have some
better zoom capabilities or improved
video stabilization but
what you have here right now is likely
going to be the basis for next year too
and what is offered now is still really
good so looking ahead
let's think about what the a52 might
look like
and to be honest i suspect it'll look
very
similar to this phone i guess more
appropriately it'll be closer to the a51
5g and i think it'll be a very minor
upgrade
i don't see the a52 getting a high
refresh rate display or
qhd resolution i think the a52's camera
setup will be nearly identical
maybe you'll get a 64 megapixel main
lens from the a71 but most everything
else
should be the same the specs will change
for sure
six or eight gigs of ram as the minimum
probably
it should get the snapdragon 750g
chipset with
5g support obviously but if you're
looking for some
crazy new device with lots of new
features
at an even more affordable price with
the a52
i just don't really see it happening the
big question really is
should you even wait for that phone and
in my mind i don't think so
if you want the a51 get it now and enjoy
it because
i don't think you'll be missing much
more from the a52
the same goes for the 5g even more so i
think if you can get a good deal
on that phone sure go for it the a52
5g will probably be the same price you
likely
won't be able to get any good holiday
deals on that phone and i just don't
think it'll be a huge upgrade
anyway i fully suspect this a51 to be a
great buy
well into 2021 and beyond and i don't
think there's any reason
not to consider it right now or even a
few months from now
so there you go those are my updated
thoughts on the a51
after a year what do you guys think
about this phone i know some of you
likely have it so i'd love to hear your
thoughts of course from your own
personal experience but hopefully you
guys
did enjoy this video be sure to follow
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and i'll see you guys later