It’s common practice for smartphone manufacturers to eventually introduce their flagship features to mid-range and budget devices, Samsung being no exception. The company’s beautiful Infinity Edge displays debuted with its flagship Galaxy S8 duo and have now made their way to the mid-range Galaxy A6 and Galaxy A6 Plus, as well as the budget Galaxy J6 and Galaxy J8, all of which were launched in India just a week ago. Out of the lot, the Galaxy A6+ or A6 Plus is the most premium device and is priced at Rs. 25,990.

Before we get to the Galaxy A6 Plus’ design, performance, and our final verdict, let’s get the specifications out of the way. Here’s what Samsung has packed within this supposed “premium” mid-ranger:

What’s In the Box

Another thing we’d like to address before getting on with the review is the box contents. Samsung has packed in the usual paraphernalia within the sleek packaging, including:

Design and Build Quality

Display

Granted that Samsung’s UI has come a long way since the TouchWiz days, but the new Experience UI 9.0 still has a long way to go. The default animations on the Experience UI are quite sluggish and make the phone feel even slower than it already is, thanks to the Snapdragon 450 chipset.

While you’d be right to expect a device in this price range to at least deliver above average performance in daily use and gaming, Samsung seems to disagree. Which is why the company has included a Snapdragon 450 SoC in the Galaxy A6 Plus, instead of a Snapdragon 660 SoC which can be found on other devices in this price range.

Gaming performance is exactly what you’d expect with the particular chipset-GPU combo. Lighter titles run without any issues whatsoever, however, the loading times are considerably long. Heavier titles, like PUBG, on the other hand, can only run on low graphic settings and even then you’ll experience frame drops throughout the game. While the device might not get noticeably warm to touch, the performance does get affected if you’ve been playing for a considerable amount of time and you’ll notice it deteriorating with every successive match that you play.

These days, all smartphone manufacturers just seem to care about jumping onto the most popular trend, without thinking about the overall consequences. In this case, Samsung has also jumped onto the dual-camera trend with its mid-ranger, but the dual-camera setup on the device isn’t able to justify its price.

Performance wise, the camera is ‘OK’ at best. In my usage, the rear camera had a hard time focusing at times, so a significant number of pictures came out out of focus and blurred. However, when the camera was able to focus on the subject, the images showed good dynamic range and taking shots in favorable lighting resulted in decent images, with accurate colors and a decent amount of detail. It’s nowhere close to a Pixel 2, but I wasn’t expecting to perform any better anyway. Portrait mode on the Galaxy A6 Plus is a hit-or-miss, the device sometimes performs well and is able to cleanly detect the subject’s edge, but it sometimes fails miserably. Check out the camera samples and see for yourself:

Images clicked in low light, in my opinion, are what reveal the true colors of any smartphone camera. And as you’d expect, the Galaxy A6 Plus’ primary camera struggles in low-light conditions. The images turn out pretty dark with a considerable amount of noise, making the camera, quite frankly, unusable in low light. Here are a few samples of images clicked in unfavorable lighting:

The selfie camera, with its big megapixel numbers, might lead you to believe that the Galaxy A6 Plus will deliver stunning selfies. But you’d be disappointed. Images clicked with the 24MP front camera in decently light are rather soft and the device tends to smooth out details even when the beauty mode is turned off. Just like the rear camera setup, the front camera struggles in low light situations, delivering noisy and grainy images. While Samsung would want you to think that the front facing flash would help you click better pictures in low light, we all know that clicking pictures with a smartphone flash is never a good experience. Here are some images clicked with the front facing camera on the Galaxy A6 Plus:

Overall, the cameras on the Galaxy A6 Plus are average at best and I believe the Nokia 7 Plus performs way better in the camera department, despite receiving criticism from my colleagues.

Port selection on the Galaxy A6 Plus is another major disappointment. For a 2018 device in this price range, the Galaxy A6 Plus still packs in a micro-USB port, instead of a USB Type-C port which has become the norm these days. It also includes a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is great if you’re a fan of wired earphones like me.

The Galaxy A6 Plus packs in a 3,500mAh battery which, coupled with the power-efficient AMOLED display and Snapdragon 450 SoC, delivers great battery life. The device goes on-and-on-and-on without requiring you to top it up every single night. Even with heavy use, including gaming, you’ll still end up with at least 30 percent battery by the end of the day.

However, when you do get to charging the device, you’ll be quite disappointed. The 5V/1.55A charger included with the Galaxy A6 Plus charges the device slowly, taking an hour to charge to 60% with the device turned off. With the device turned on, it takes even longer.

Coming to the final verdict. Should you spend Rs. 25,990 on the Galaxy A6 Plus? Well sadly, no. There’s no way Samsung can justify the price tag on this device. Granted that it has an “Infinity Display” which, in itself, can turn quite a few heads, but the overall package is definitely worth passing.

Pros:

Cons:

SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy J6 Review: Surprising Performance With Camera on a Diet

The Samsung Galaxy A6 Plus can be a great purchase, if and only if, Samsung slashes down the price by Rs. 10,000. Otherwise, the smartphone is definitely not worth your money and you’d be better off getting the Nokia 7 Plus, if you’re looking for a smartphone in this price range. In case you’re looking for a smartphone with similar specifications, you can go for the Redmi Note 5 Pro and the Nokia 6.1, which will not only save you a lot of money, but also offer an arguably better user experience.