Samsung Galaxy M14 5G Review: Is It Worth Buying?
Samsung has always been at the forefront of introducing high-quality mobile phones at reasonable rates. Even on low-cost phones, they provide excellent functionality.
In India, Samsung’s M-series phones are quite popular. The Galaxy M14 5G is the latest smartphone in the M series released by Samsung.
This phone is available in two RAM and storage configurations: 4GB RAM with 128GB storage and 6GB RAM with 128GB storage.
Let’s see how the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G compares to other smartphones priced at around Rs 15,000 in India.
Let’s examine if the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G is a good buy, and if so, who should get it. To discover more, read our Samsung Galaxy M14 5G review.
Are You In Hurry?
If you’re in a hurry and want to know if the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G is a good buy for you, we’ll summarize our findings below. If you want a Samsung 5G phone with strong after-sales service and good performance for daily use, this is the phone for you. Don’t expect it to deliver an extraordinary performance.
Design and Build
In terms of design, the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G has a clean and basic appearance with no textured finish or glass layer on the rear panel.
The rear of the Galaxy M14 5G is made of plastic. Despite its all-plastic body, the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G has a substantial feel to it.
The phone we received for review has a highly glossy coating that conceals fingerprints and smudges but makes the phone a little slippery.
The huge battery makes the phone appear bulky. Another issue is that the camera portion is rather small.
It weighs more than 200 grams yet is easy to grasp due to the curved edge design. However, using this device for hours of streaming and gaming may give you a wrist workout.
A volume rocker and power button are located on the right side. The power button incorporates a fingerprint sensor. A dual SIM card slot and a separate microSD card slot are located on the left side.
The 3.5mm audio port, main microphone, USB Type-C charging slot, and speaker grill are all located underneath. A noise-cancelling microphone with a particular capability to remove background noise is located at the top.
The phone is available in three colours: Berry Blue, Smoky Teal, and Icy Silver. For this review, I received the Icy Silver model which changes color somewhat when light strikes it at an angle.
Furthermore, the device boasts a seamless body with rounded corners on the rear panel.
Samsung’s latest design concept of adopting the same design language for all smartphones provides even the low-cost Galaxy M14 5G with a luxurious and attractive appearance.
Of course, there will be some slight differences, with a handful of features or elements eliminated in the more affordable devices. These features are usually reserved for more costly models.
Overall, this device has a simple and attractive appearance, but the lack of an IP certification is a disadvantage to the design and build quality.
Display
The Galaxy M14 5G is equipped with a 6.6-inch PLS LCD with Full-HD (2408 x 1080 pixel) resolution and a 20:9 aspect ratio.
The adjustable refresh rate of the display is up to 90 Hz, and it can be set to 60 Hz. The company hasn’t indicated peak brightness, but it doesn’t provide the best viewing experience in direct sunlight.
The screen may seem somewhat washed out in direct sunlight. Gorilla Glass 5 protects the waterdrop-notch display. Those who dislike waterdrop notch displays can cover the camera cutout area with a black bar when using a certain app.
Having said that, the phone has an Infinity-V notch, large bezels, and a noticeable chin, all of which are relatively typical in the sector.
The Galaxy M14’s display performs admirably in most indoor circumstances, such as casual gaming, content watching, and social network surfing.
On the plus side, the display is rather good for the price. Furthermore, the device is Widevine L1 certified, allowing users to stream FHD web series and movies from services like Netflix.
The colours of the images on the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G display are vibrant and bright, making for a pleasurable viewing experience. However, for those who want a more natural tone, the ability to modify colour presets in settings is missing.
Eye Comfort Shield is another handy feature that minimizes the quantity of blue light emitted by a screen, which is especially useful at night.
It greatly decreases eye strain and encourages faster and better sleep, particularly if you have a habit of scrolling through social media right before bed.
Although it is an LCD screen, the display is enough for the majority of users. The screen is crisp and colourful, as with previous Samsung smartphones, and unless you’re experienced with AMOLED screens, you won’t notice a substantial contrast ratio or black level difference.
Users familiar with LCD screens on older phones will love the refinement and saturation of the display on the Galaxy M14 5G.
Processor
The newest 5nm Exynos 1330 CPU powers the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G. It also has LPDDR4X RAM and USF (Universal Flash Storage) 4.0 compatibility.
The RAM Plus option allows you to expand the RAM up to 12 GB. It is capable of handling light usage such as checking social media accounts, browsing the internet, and streaming videos.
I’m not usually a fan of Samsung’s Exynos processor. However, the chipset of the Galaxy M14 is reasonably well-tuned and produces adequate results for a phone in this price range.
This chip is capable of handling all of your everyday tasks with ease. The gadget can also handle some light multitasking.
When you consider the processor’s performance, you will never regret your purchase of this phone. Even though this phone is not designed for gaming, we found it to be excellent for playing light video games.
However, it has been discovered that the phone becomes heated when used for an extended period. The handset’s base edition has 4 GB of RAM, but strong multitaskers can upgrade to the top-end 6GB RAM variant.
The device only comes with one storage type, 128GB; however, there is a dedicated slot for a microSD card to boost storage up to 1TB.
Camera
The triple-back camera arrangement on the Galaxy M14 5G has a 50-megapixel primary sensor with a 1.8 aperture lens, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and a 2-megapixel macro lens.
Similar to the top Galaxy S23 series, these triple rear cameras are vertically arranged.
The device in the M series sports a 13-megapixel selfie camera. However, unlike its predecessor, the Galaxy M13 5G, it lacks an ultra-wide sensor.
Instead, it has two MP cameras for macro and portrait pictures. The phone can capture high-quality photographs in the daytime, with plenty of details and brilliant, vivid colours.
The interior and lowlight images aren’t great, but they’ll do. The phone includes a night mode that eliminates grains and noise in photos to make them more attractive.
While the portrait mode may have some edge recognition concerns, the blurry background effect appears to be pretty natural.
Furthermore, the macro images are unimpressive at best, while the 13 MP front-facing camera delivers great selfies with correct skin tones and facial features in well-lit conditions.
Furthermore, the device’s primary camera includes PDAF (Phase Detection Auto Focus) and takes amazing photos, especially in well-lit circumstances.
The photographs are vivid and crisp, with lots of details. However, in some lighting conditions, the images may seem overprocessed.
While the dynamic range is adequate, we feel Samsung can improve it with an improved camera upgrade.
In low-light situations, the camera suffers, and the photos are grainier but still acceptable. The night mode improves image quality slightly, but the photographs are very clearly overprocessed.
In addition, when shooting in night mode, the camera’s operation is slower than when shooting normally. However, this is a frequent problem with most smartphones in this price range.
For those who prefer playing with their photos, the camera also has a variety of filters. Keep in mind that the main 50 MP camera captures its shots at 12 MP by default.
When it comes to video recording, both the 50MP primary sensor and the front camera on the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G can shoot 1080p videos at 30 frames per second.
We observed that the electronic image stabilization (EIS) system, on the other hand, is ineffective.
Battery
The battery is an important element of the M14 5G. It has a capacity of 6,000 mAh. The phone has a 25-watt quick charging capability. A decent charger takes 90 to 120 minutes to charge from zero to 100 per cent.
A fully charged battery may last up to two days (depending on use), which is rather outstanding. The device scored a respectable 15 hours and 37 minutes on the PC Mark 3.0 battery evaluation.
The fast charger, however, must be purchased separately because the manufacturer only includes a Type-C to Type-C charging cable with the smartphone.
While the Galaxy M14 supports 25W wired charging, it does not include a charging brick and instead comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable.
This is unexpected at this price range, given that other low-cost smartphones allow far quicker charging periods and include a charging brick.
Samsung could have at the very least included a USB-A to USB-C connection so that we could utilize the existing fast charger that the majority of consumers may have.
Having said that, we must mention that the battery life was consistently good during our testing, and we generally had approximately 30–35% battery remaining at the end of the day.
Connectivity and Ports
In terms of connectivity, the Galaxy M14 5G has a USB Type-C connector and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom edge, next to the speaker grille.
The handset also has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that quickly unlocks the device. A USB Type-C connector is used for charging. It is also said that the phone has a voice focus feature that helps remove background noise during calls.
It includes a fingerprint scanner on the side power button. 5G, 4G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and GPS are the primary connection options.
Except for the high-frequency n77 band, the Samsung Galaxy M14 supports 5G, which works across all major Jio and Airtel bands.
With a total of 13 5G bands spanning the most common 5G frequencies, the Samsung Galaxy M14 supports both SA and NSA bands.
450 Mbps was readily achieved during our 5G tests at a distance of 500 meters from a tower.
OS
Out of the box, the device runs Android 13-based OneUI 5.1. Samsung has guaranteed two major Android OS updates for the smartphone as well as four years of security patches, which is fairly amazing.
The Galaxy M14 comes with a slew of pre-installed Samsung applications; however, most of them are uninstallable.
Furthermore, the software is feature-rich and well-optimized for smooth operation.
The device’s OS performance is also fairly good, and most users will have no problems unless they are pro gamers or heavy users.
However, some users may be disappointed by the device’s single speaker at the bottom and the absence of speakers at the top when viewing content or gaming without headphones.
Pros & Cons of Samsung Galaxy M14 5G
What We Like:
What We Don’t Like:
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy M14 5G’s huge battery will sustain most users all day without needing to be charged.
Given its pricing, the handset’s performance, cameras, and display quality are all decent. The device’s wide bezels and rather weighty build, though, make it a little bulky.
The look of the Samsung smartphone is repetitive, and the audio quality should have been better.
Having said that, the Samsung Galaxy M14 5G is a fantastic choice for anyone looking for a Samsung smartphone with 5G capabilities, a long-lasting battery, adequate performance, and a competent camera system for less than Rs 15,000 in India.
Despite its low price of less than Rs. 15,000, the smartphone has several features that make it a decent buy.
Other manufacturers may provide more features and slightly better hardware at this price point, but they have been impacted by quality difficulties and frequently provide terrible after-sales service.
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy M14 is a dependable and reasonably priced smartphone that we enthusiastically recommend to anybody searching for a reputable brand that has been around for decades.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Samsung Galaxy M14 5G is a great option for anybody searching for a Samsung smartphone in India that has 5G capabilities, a long-lasting battery, decent performance, and a good camera system for less than Rs 15,000.
Even though it is water resistant, it is not waterproof.
Yes. It has a fast charging capacity.
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