Samsung Galaxy M34 5G: Well-balanced mid-range phone

Recently, Samsung launched the new Galaxy M34 5G series in India.

The company is offering the Galaxy M34 in two variants0--6GB RAM  + 128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage-- for Rs 18,999, and Rs 20,999, respectively.

It comes with a moderate upgrade over the predecessor. I have been using the device for a little over a week and here are my thoughts on the new Galaxy M34.

Design, build quality, and display
Like all the latest Galaxy A and F series phones, Samsung is bringing uniformity in terms of design language among all ranges of its devices. The Galaxy M34 too, takes inspiration from the Galaxy S series.

It has the familiar camera islands on the back, which is kind of unique to Samsung phones. 

Also, it sports a glass-like glossy finish with a minimalistic design. It exudes a premium hand feel, but the only qualm is that the device's back cover tends to easily get stained with sweat and this leads to the accumulation of dust, and have to clean the phone quite often. 

On the bright side, the midnight blue does a fine job hiding the stains to an extent, as the latter is visible when looked closely. Not sure of other two models-- prism silver and waterfall blue.

On the front, it has a 6.5-inch full HD+ (1080×2340p) super AMOLED screen with an Infinity-U display design and is protected by Corning's  Gorilla Glass 5 shield. So far, the device has remained scratch-free and I intend to keep it this way until I return the review unit back to Samsung.

It supports a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness. The display on the Galaxy M34 is one of the best among the peers in its class.

Watching TV series and vlogs on OTT apps is such a delightful experience and you won't realise how time goes by with the new Samsung phone. 

Last week, I was binging on a food vlog on YouTube on this very device while traveling back to home from the office via bus and if the conductor didn't notify the name of the stop, I would have missed it.

It should be noted that this device supports Vision Booster, which was introduced with the premium Galaxy S and later to the Galaxy A series. It does a good job of increasing the brightness whenever the device senses it is outdoors and ensures a pleasant full viewing experience. 

Another interesting aspect is that the Galaxy M34 comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, which has become a rarity in modern-day phones. It also has a side-mounted fingerprint, which works flawlessly and is way more efficient than those optical in-display fingerprint sensors and the fancy facial recognition system.

It should be noted the device comes with hybrid dual-SIM slots and users have to choose between the secondary SIM and the microSD for extra storage.

Performance
Inside, Samsung's new phone houses a 5nm class Exynos 1280 processor, and Mali-G68 GPU, the same as the one used in the previous generation model M33. And, as noted earlier, the company is offering the device in configurations--- 6GB  + 128GB storage and another with 8GB RAM + 128GB storage. Both the variants support microSD and users can extend the storage up to 1TB.

The device works smoothly without any issues and even while playing the games like Asphalt 9: Legends, though it did warm up a bit, but did not beyond my comfort level.

It runs Android 13-based One UI OS. The user interface is clean, but the device has several duplicate apps. Fortunately, thanks to the big storage capacity, there is enough space for users to install their favourite third-party apps and also store thousands of photos and videos too.

Also, Samsung's new phone is guaranteed to get four years of Android OS (up to 2027 and another additional year of software security support.

With a  6,000mAh capacity, the device really does a good delivering a long battery life. Even with streaming of multimedia content on social media apps and vlogs on YouTube around an average of two and half hours (that's my daily average time spent traveling between the office and the home, to and fro) and I never felt any anxiety of device dying out before I could reach my house in the night.

It supports a 25W charger, but the company doesn't offer the adaptor with the retail box. I usually leave the device to charge overnight.

The Galaxy M34 supports 5G cellular service offered by both Reliance Jio and Airtel in India.

Photography
The new Galaxy M34 5G features a triple camera module-- main 50MP (with OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation) backed by 8MP ultra-wide lens (f/2.2) and a 2MP (f/2.2) macro camera with LED flash on the back.

The phone takes fantastic pictures in the daylight. As you can see in the sample photos, the colours on the subject, in this case, flowers and insects look vibrant on the screen.

The subjects in the photos are actually a tad brighter than they look through our eyes, but they are really good and that is exactly what the consumer wants in the photo.

Even with selfies, the camera does a fine job of making them photogenic and even if the user is not satisfied, the name camera app offers a palette of filters and editing tools to enhance the photo quality.

In the night mode, the device does a decent job of balancing the light from the street lights and also keeps the darkness of the night.

On the front, it houses a 13MP sensor. It does a fine job with selfies in the sunlight and to a good extent indoors too.

With Fun mode, the device offers a creative filter to liven up the photos and is worth sharing on messenger apps and social media platforms.

It also supports Monster Shot 2.0 feature which makes use of the on-device Artificial Intelligence-power engine to allow users to simultaneously capture four photos and four videos in a single take. 

Final thoughts
The new mid-range phone from the house Samsung is well packaged. Barring the fact the glossy cover is fingerprint smudge-magnet, the build quality is pretty good.  The display is even better, the best among its peers in the market. 

With day-to-day activities such as streaming content, loading and switching of multiple apps, and even while playing games, the Galaxy M34 5G performed smoothly with no pressing issues to complain about. 

As far as photography is concerned, the device is good and on par with peers in the sub-Rs 21,000.

And, it delivers more than a day of battery life and this is a very option for those who consume a lot of multimedia content from social media platforms and OTT apps. 

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