Samsung believes the M20 is the answer to the dominance of Chinese manufacturers. We put those claims to test.
There was a time when Samsung was the first name that would come to mind when one thought of a good smartphone that works well. Then came the Chinese onslaught. The likes of Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo, Vivo and the likes chiseled away market share from the Korean giant, especially in the affordable segment. The biggest ploy of the Chinese OEMs was offering a spec-sheet that went unmatched in that price range. But not Samsung. The Korean giant believed in offering a good experience, and not the best spec-sheet around. But then there was a major change in the way Samsung strategised. Over time, the company’s mid-range and high-end phones became the harbingers of latest tech. The Galaxy A7 and the Galaxy A9 introduced triple and quad camera setup to Samsung phones, while the Galaxy A8s (not released in India) became the first to offer a punch-hole display. That was more or less enough to generate the buzz Samsung needed to snatch back lost market share. Whether it worked or not is something that requires further investigation, but it certainly gave us an interesting time reviewing the phones.
Fast forward to the Galaxy M10 and the Galaxy M20, a new series that Samsung introduced to draw the millennials back to the brand. It’s supposed to reinvigorate the mid-range segment that Samsung had been flooding with average-performing, mediocre devices. The Galaxy M10 and the M20, as far as Samsung is concerned, is a radical new offering. It innovates on a new design, introduces a new chipset and brings an ultra-wide angle camera to the budget and mid-range segment. As a result, the list of features on the Galaxy M10 and especially the Galaxy M20, should ideally be enough to be considered worth a buy, but these days, you never can tell. To really see whether the Galaxy M20 is a considerable challenger to Chinese OEMs, we tested how the Galaxy M20 with the new Exynos 7904 octa-core chipset performs against the Snapdragon 660-powered Realme 2 Pro and Asus Zenfone Max Pro M2, and the Kirin 710 powered Honor 10 Lite.
While Samsung claims the Exynos 7904 SoC is a brand new chip, it’s a lot similar to the Exynos 7885 octa as it turns out.
