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Samsung gives in to the notch with the new M-series, Galaxy M20 touts a 5000 mAh battery

By Daniel Petrov

Updated: Jan 28, 2019, 8:52 AM

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Samsung gives in to the notch with the new M-series, Galaxy M20 touts a 5000 mAh battery

Back at its Developer Conference in the fall, Samsung hinted that it might finally pop its notch-y cherry with the so-called Infinity-V display concept that could be used in its future phones. Well, with the announcement of the first phones in the new M-series today,

Samsung is no longer a holy and pure maker of handsets without top bezel protrusions. That's not even the most interesting new feature of the just-unveiled Galaxy M10 and M20, though, so check out what new features they bring to Samsung's 2019 Android stable.

Design

Notch you, Samsung!

As mentioned, the Galaxy M10 and M20 sport the Infinity-V design that Samsung promised to deliver at some point. The reason it's called "V" is that it's not a huge unsightly notch that is uncalled for if you don't also use it for Face ID-style options, but rather a small "waterdrop" invasion of the top bezel into the screen space that houses the front camera, and that's that. Samsung's own teaser of the new M-series emphasizes with one funky little animation that you actually gain screen space (where the top bezel used to reside), instead of losing real estate to the dewdrop-y V-shaped notch.

Samsung has placed the earpiece right above the selfie camera, achieving a very slender top bezel in the process, and this elegance extends to the side ones, too, with only a somewhat chin-y bottom bezel, as usual, since the display connector has to be housed somewhere, after all.

A rear fingerprint scanner is thankfully large, vertical, and placed away from the dual camera in the top left corner of the back - all these design choices are something that the flagship Galaxy S-series couldn't boast with for the last two years or so. With the fingerprint reader moved to the back, and the unobtrusive V-shaped notch, Samsung has had a carte blanche to use almost all of the front for a huge uninterrupted screen panel, and it delivered.

Galaxy M20

Displays

The M20 sports a large, 6.3" FHD+ resolution screen that occupies most of the front. The M10 carries a 6.22" screen with a more modest HD+ resolution that will undoubtedly help prolong the battery life out of the 3400 mAh pack.

Processor and memory

Samsung's brand spanking new octa-core Exynos 7 Series 7904 processor is what the new M20 runs on. It is built on a 14-nanometer (nm) process and has two Cortex-A73 cores that run at 1.8 GHz for the heavier lifting, and six Cortex-A53 ones at 1.6 GHz for the everyday tasks, thus saving on the battery draw. An embedded LTE modem can support Cat.12 speeds of up to 600 Mbps if your carrier can deliver those, of course. The Galaxy M10 is powered by an Exynos 7870 octa-core processor.

Cameras

4K and multi-camera kits invade Samsung's low-end

The Exynos 7904’s image signal processor (ISP) supports camera resolutions of up to 32MP but only in a single-camera setup, while the new M-series sport dual cameras on the back, with a 13MP main sensor and lens with f/1.9 aperture plus a 5MP wide-angle camera capturing 120 degrees.

Samsung incorporated support for advanced triple-camera kits in the Exynos 7904 including wide-angle cams for panoramic pictures or depth sensors to add aesthetic bokeh blur to photos' background. Theoretically, the chipset also allows for 4K video recording at 30fps, and swift 1080p video definition at 120 frames per second.

As far as the selfie cameras that are housed in that waterdrop notch at the front, they sport 8MP resolution and offer fast face unlock which is a rare treat as far as front-facing shooters go at that budget range.

Battery life and charging speeds

The Galaxy M20 is Samsung's first handset with a whopping 5000 mAh battery capacity, and, together with the FHD+ screen resolution and frugal processing power should really make the M20 a "two-day" phone. To top it all off, Samsung included a 15W fast charger in the box to pump that giant battery pack full of electrons before you have finished breakfast, ready to spend a weekend away from the charger. The M10 has no such ambitions, with its still-decent 3400 mAh battery but Samsung also equipped it with fast charging abilities albeit not the extent of the M20.

Samsung Galaxy M10 and M20 price, release date, and availability

For now, Samsung is aiming to stop the low-end to midrange onslaught of Chinese phone makers in India with the new M-series, as it just released unveiled them on the hush-hush at rock bottom prices, but the new line that will replace the J-series is also going to be rolled out globally at a later date.

The M10 and M20 will first be available to buy on Amazon India on February 5th, but we'd peg the global release for after the spring, as the Android Pie update for the handsets is said to appear in the summer, perhaps coinciding with a more geographically diverse release.

As for pricing, the Galaxy M10 will go for just a $115 equivalent in the 2GB RAM and 16GB variant, while the 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage variant of the M10 is priced at $125.

The souped-up M20 is still a budget handset, with the 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage variant tagged at just $155, while the top-end 4GB RAM/64GB model is $180, and that sub-$200 pricing for a new Samsung midranger with 5000mAh battery will certainly earn it a lot of loyal followers. The phones are available in Ocean Blue and Charcoal Black. Any takers?

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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.