Samsung Galaxy M40 Review:

Samsung Galaxy M40 Review: Best Smartphone To Buy Under Rs. 20,000?

Samsung India’s senior vice president of mobile business Asim Warsi recently stated in an interview that the world’s largest smartphone marker isn’t a part of the number one rat race and is more focused on delivering value to customers. With the same objective, Samsung has been flooding the affordable and mid-tier segment with interesting options. The latest entrant is Samsung Galaxy M40 which is the fourth installment in the company’s online exclusive M-series. 

It’s also the first M-series phone to include a competent Qualcomm chipset and Samsung’s striking One UI software. But does it offer enough value in light of the stiff competition? Now that we have spent a couple of weeks with the phone, in this Samsung Galaxy M40 review we will explain if it’s a good buy or if you should look for something else. Let’s get started:

Samsung Galaxy M40 specifications

Model	Samsung Galaxy M40
Display	6.3 inches, 1080 x 2340 px, Infinity-O Display
Processor	2.0 GHz, Octa Core, Snapdragon 675 chipset
RAM	6GB; LPDDR4x RAM
Internal Storage	128GB(expandable up to 512GB), Hybrid card slot
Software	Android 9 Pie, One UI
Primary Camera	32MP (F1.7) + 8MP (f/2.2, 12mm ultrawide sensor) + 5MP (f/2.2, depth sensor)
Front Camera	16MP (F2.0)
Fingerprint sensor	Yes, rear-mounted
Battery	3500mAh with 15W fast charging

Samsung Galaxy M40 Review: Design and Build

At a time when the affordable segment is replete with flashy gradients, Samsung still manages to stand out with a few pleasant color options for Galaxy M40 – Sea Water Green and Midnight Blue. And if you ask us, the Sea Water Green variant just looks awesome!

This Seawater Blue color is so pleasing to eye.

The outer casing is all plastic, but with a glass-like finish – which is similar to what Samsung termed ‘glasstic’ design on the recent crop of A-series phones, including the Galaxy A50 (review). The phone certainly has a premium look and feel to it.

The front of the M40 is dominated by an Infinity-O display, where the ‘O’ represents a punch hole. Samsung has managed a 91-percent screen to body ratio, and that makes Galaxy M40 quite manageable and handy.

Flip the phone and you will notice the triple cameras stacked vertically at the top left corner and bulging out a fair bit. The bulge makes top glass susceptible to scratches, and there’s no protective case in the box that could even out the hump.

Talking about the scratches, the display has a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on top which isn’t the best there is but heck it is still good enough to get the job done. There is no earpiece in the M40 as Samsung uses screen audio casting technology.

Not all is hunky dory, though. The Galaxy M40 will notoriously go down in history as the first Samsung phone to banish the 3.5mm audio jack. But I guess, the writing has been on the wall for a long time now.

Samsung Galaxy M40 Review: Display

Samsung has for the first time introduced its infinity-O display under ₹20,000. The Galaxy M40 has a 6.3-inch screen which has FHD+ resolution amounting to 409 PPI.

Samsung has resorted to a more affordable TFT panel which clearly can’t really match the deep blacks of OLED screens it offers on affordable A-series phones.

Another drawback is that Samsung doesn’t offer color adjustment for its TFT displays and you’d be stuck with a cool (bluish) white point. Color presets are still reserved for the company’s AMOLED display phones.

Having said that, the Galaxy M40 display can’t be termed bad. It shows punchy colors, can achieve a maximum brightness of up to 480 nits, and we quite liked the default calibration.

The One UI also has a dark mode and option to download high contrast theme which certainly brings the best out of the display here.

Samsung Galaxy M40 Review: Performance and Software

If you look at the Galaxy M40 innards you will find it to be a lot similar to the Galaxy A70. The Galaxy M40 is driven by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 675 chipset which has already proven its brawn in the more costlier Samsung Galaxy A70 and Vivo V15 Pro.

Samsung hasn’t really compromised on memory front either as it has paired the 675SoC with 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB internal storage. Users will also have the option to swap secondary SIM with microSD card up to 512GB.

With such a competent control unit, the Galaxy M40 doesn’t leave much reason for complaint when it comes to performance (which isn’t something we can say for most affordable Samsung phones). For this review, I switched to the Galaxy M40 as my primary device and used lots of apps and played several high-end games. All through, it manages to offer sustainable performance without any stutters or lag.

The multitasking was smooth and so was the PUGB mobile experience on the phone. We tested PUGB on the Galaxy M40 with ultra graphics at HD settings, it did get slightly warm. For best PUBG experience in an extended session, we recommend you to use medium settings for best results.

As for the software, Samsung’s One UI based on Android Pie 9.0 is available on the Galaxy M40 right out of the box. Samsung has trimmed certain features of One UI, but it is still feature-rich and intuitive, and a step ahead of the experience UI available on other Samsung M-series phones. The feature set includes navigation gestures, Always On Display, one hand mode, lift to wake gesture and many others.

If you are switching from the Galaxy J7 Pro or any other last generation A-series phone you are likely to miss the Samsung Pay feature.

The M40 comes with Widewine L1 certification and supports HD content streaming. The Dolby Atmos support is also on offer here. Call quality is excellent in our area. The usual set of connectivity options including dual-band Wi-Fi and Dual VoLTE are supported.

Samsung Galaxy M40 Camera Review

Once again the Galaxy A70 is from where the M40 draws inspiration. You will find a similar 32MP (f/1.7) sensor as a primary rear camera. The primary sensor gets the assistance of 5MP (f/2.2) depth sensor in portrait mode ( live focus in Samsung’s terminology). There is another 8MP sensor on the back that can capture ultra wide-angle shots (123-degree field of view).

Apart from these rear cameras, there is a 16MP (f/2.0) sensor for a selfie on the front of the phone. Here are some shots that we took with the Galaxy M40 cameras.

For this shot, we used the Galaxy M40 wide angle camera. Details are good, highlights haven’t really blown. Colors tones also seem natural.

Once again, the Galaxy M40 wide angle camera has covered a good area. There is some fish-eye distortion in the image but it looks pleasing to the eye. The image isn’t very crisp, though and you will notice missing details when you zoom in.

Photo mode vs Live focus: the image shot in regular photo mode has better details. The Live Focus mode does a good job in proper lighting.

Often affordable phones fail to capture neon sign like the one on this cart. The Galaxy M40 camera managed this really well.

Under adequate artificial lighting, the M40 camera managed to capture the creative artwork well enough for Instagram.

Well, all these megapixel’s do not count if the phone doesn’t manage to capture good images in different conditions. The M40 camera is versatile and decent till you keep your expectations in check.

Most of the regular clicks turn out to be balanced, saturated, and social media ready. However, the details aren’t the best compared to other phones in its class, especially with the fading light. The Live Focus (portrait mode) consistently manages to detect edges and blur out the background better than the competition. In tricky condition, the Galaxy M40 doesn’t show the same maturity and struggles like most sub 20K phones.

The selfie camera by default has the beautify turned on which mops up most of the details. Turn it off and you will find the M40 selfies camera slightly more useful.

Samsung Galaxy M40 Review: Biometrics and Battery

For the biometric authentication, Samsung has once again fallen back to the rear-mounted scanner, which is fast and consistent. For lazier folks, there is face unlock too.

The 3,500mAh battery isn’t as massive as the one we saw on the Galaxy M20 and Galaxy M30. The battery backup falls short of what we get on phones like Redmi Note 7 Pro (review) and Galaxy A50, but moderate users will still manage a comfortable one-day mileage. With gaming and video streaming the battery starts to deplete quickly. Samsung bundles a moderately fast 15W charger in the box. As for charging speeds, the bundled charger takes about an hour and a half to go zero to a hundred.

Samsung Galaxy M40 Review Verdict: Should You Buy It?

The Galaxy M40 fixes what has traditionally been a limitation of affordable Samsung phones. This time, Samsung particularly focuses on the performance hardware and uses a popular, tried and tested Qualcomm chipset instead of a value Exynos SoC.

The Snapdragon 675 may or may not be the best chipset available in its class, but it will ensure that power users and gaming enthusiasts won’t have to give up on the Samsung phone for want of more aggressive performance.

Samsung also adds a sizeable RAM and storage, even if it means cutting back a bit on the screen technology and audio. This gives assurance of durable performance in the long run. The design, software and brand value remain key advantages too. At a competitive price of Rs 19,999 (6GB, 128GB), the Galaxy M40 is a good addition to Samsung’s online only portfolio