Announced in Dec 2019, the Samsung A51 is an update to the older A50 – that was itself only released in Mar 2019. Like its predecessor, it has a Gorilla glass front coupled with a plastic back and frame.
While this does not give the same premium feel as an all glass and metal design, the overall effect feels quite solid and the back does not look plasticky at all. In fact, if you put a transparent cover on it, you cannot even tell the back is plastic. Available in Prism, Crush Black, white, blue and pink, it is expected to start shipping in Feb 2020.
Slim 6.5” AMOLED display
The screen itself is a 6.5” AMOLED display with 405 ppi and 87% screen to body ratio. It has very thin bezels and a 20:9 ratio makes it look slim and keeps the overall size down. This display is bright and colorful and has the very small pinhole camera for the selfie camera, which is expected to be common on all Samsung phones in 2020. There is also a fingerprint scanner embedded under the display at the bottom of the screen.
The Samsung A51 is driven by the Snapdragon 730 processor and comes with 128GB of memory (expandable via a MicroSD card) and either 6 or 8GB of RAM. All this is powered by a 4500 mAH battery, that supports 25W fast charging.
Quad Prism camera array
Let’s have a look at the back now. This has the new Prism camera array layout in the top left. This is the same look that the new S20 flagship phone has. In the A71 it is a quad array. The main camera is a 64MP f/1.8 wide lens, this is supported by a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide, a 5MP f/2.4 wide and a 5MP f/2.2 depth sensor. This setup produces pretty good pictures in most conditions.
Switching to the front, this a 32MP f/2.2 wide lens that sits centrally through a small pinhole.
Android 10
The Samsung A51 ships with Android 10, a headphone jack and single speaker. It costs just North of £300 for the 4G version (the 5G one costs around £100 more) in the Summer of 2020. With regard to negative points, the main ones are no wireless charging capability and the fact that it is not water resistant.
To most people, these omissions won’t be a problem. So, if you are looking for a good looking, well specified medium range phone, the A51 is well worth a look.
