Hey Guys welcome back to Unbox DotCom. In a market that's slowly adapting to hardware-centric decision
making for smartphone purchases, Samsung still believes that user experience
isn't directly propositional to on-paper specifications. Afterall Samsung is a hard-hit brand. To
prove their point, the company has released the Galaxy A6 Plus alongside the A6
in India recently. The phone is aimed at 'millennials', who are more into
multimedia and social media. Meaning, a good display, camera, support for
latest apps and features. But if you question me, if I'll shed Rs 26,000 (okay-okay Rs 25,990/-) for this phone, I'll
have to take a few more days to answer that. So, looking at the fierce
competition right now, I can safely say it's priced slightly over the average
mark.
DESIGNED TO IMPRESS
The biggest change introduced on the
Galaxy A-series this time is the elongated 'Infinity display' (The most hyped feature of the smartphone making giant) with an incredible 18.5:9
aspect ratio. It covers the front. That means removal of that home button, the extra
bezels from the top and bottom, and a narrow but tall display. It is similar to
what is already seen on the more powerful Galaxy A8 Plus and the recent Galaxy J6.
Surprisingly, Samsung has used metal in place of glass. Glass
undoubtedly adds more class to the design, but metal has its own advantages.
It's more durable and doesn't catch fingerprints like glass. The back is flush, the quality of finish is premium and it also
has rounded sides and corners. Cool right? I call it a football field design, as Samsung
has found a new pattern to fit the antennae bands. Both the bands form a D-like
shape at each end. And then there's Samsung's standard soda can tab-style camera
module with two lenses and right below that a fingerprint sensor. Though it's turning old still it add on the looks to the handset.
There's nothing on the top of the phone, while the left looks
too busy residing the volume keys and two separate slots for SIM cards and
micro SD card. Power and lock key is on the right, with a smartly placed
loudspeaker grill that doesn't muffle while holding the phone in landscape. Don't look at the bottom of the
phone, it may upset you. It's difficult to understand why there's a microUSB port
on a Rs 25,990 phone. Yes a microUSB port. I was also shocked thesame way as are you guys right now. Small elements like these make a major difference.
Expecting a USB Type-C port on a phone of this price is fair, and Samsung must
do something about it. That was my personal request by the way.
UNLIMIT YOUR VIEW
The trend is about 18:9 aspect ratio, and being among the first
ones to adapt the change, Samsung has done it in the Galaxy A6 Plus as well.
But in this case, it's 18.5:9 similar to other recent Galaxy launches.
The display has a full HD+ resolution which nowadays every smartphone maker offers but here it's undoubtedly the
highlight of the phone. It's bright, immersive and crisp. Samsung's
AMOLED panels have always impressed and as far as I have noticed this one makes sure it has the best
screen in its league too.
PERFORMANCE TAKES A LEAP
Although the phone sports an
entry-level Snapdragon 450 chipset, I didn't find the Galaxy A6 Plus
struggling for power until now. To be honest, I haven't put a lot of stress on
the phone either. The chipset is found on Xiaomi Redmi 5, which starts at Rs
8,999 and it does well for a phone for that price. But for Rs 25k? We need some
more time to give a word on that. Yes just a little more. The Galaxy A6 Plus runs on the Android
Oreo 8.0 with company's custom UI on top. I must say Samsung has hugely
improvised their software in terms of looks, transitions and optimizations. It
looks lot cleaner and easy to use.
There are a couple of India-centric
features that Samsung has baked-in this time. First and the most interesting
one is the 'Chat over video' that allows users to reply to text on WhatsApp and
messages app without interrupting the video. The most hyped feature of the latest releases by the technology giant. A Facebook Messenger like circular
pop-up appears, which can be moved or dragged around the screen. It offers a
see-through chat drop down and keyboard, which doesn't block the video in the
background. Alongside all this features, You also get Samsung Mall and Samsung Pay Mini. But frankly speaking when I tried to check out for a ladies tee the mall showed me a couch instead. That means still the Samsung Mall is on it's way of development and has not yet reached the milestone that it should have reached a nice time ago. As of now, there are a few selected apps supported with this feature, but Samsung will be adding more in the future.
Further, Unlike most featured phones, it has
advanced memory management that automatically trashes duplicate images, moves
media from messenger apps to microSD, zip unused files to save space, and
deletes unused APKs. So, software-wise, it's quite packed with skills. Bixby has also
made it to the A-series phone, but it's also more or less a dummy as of now.
THE CAMERA THAT DOES MORE
There's a dual camera setup having a
16MP primary and 5MP secondary sensor. On the front, there's a whopping 24MP
sensor. The quick shots I clicked looked quite convincing in day light.
Especially, the front camera shots are actually praiseworthy. The pictures
looked well-defined with ample of details and punchy colours.
One sure thing about the phone I can confirm right now, is that
selfie-lovers are likely to find it interesting. The camera app is very straightforward. It has some really
useful features like expanding and shrinking viewfinder, stickers, live
focus/selfie focus for bokeh mode, Bixby vision and a lot more.
THE FINAL CONCLUSION
First impressions of the phone won't take you so long to judge
it. It is solid from the very moment you grip it, but on paper, things aren't
so hunky dory.
Kaafi din pehle launch ho gaya tha ye phone
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