The combination of Exynos 9825 and 7000mAh battery is amazing.
Samsung F series smartphone feels confusing to the market where we have the M-series for the budget and the mid-range segment and the A-series for the premium mid-range segment. The mid-range segment has been heating up with every new launch now and then.
The Samsung Galaxy M51 and the M31s are some of the best smartphones by Samsung in the mid-range segment to date and have been there for quite some time. The Galaxy F41 is the first smartphone in the F-series that was launched last year and was sort of confusing as the similar-looking Samsung Galaxy M31 has all the similar features and an extra camera.
The Galaxy M51 is a very good smartphone in the mid-range segment as it came with a good AMOLED display, Snapdragon 730G chipset, a good set of cameras, and a larger 7000mAh battery with support for 25W fast charging.
Now the Galaxy F62 has come to provide stiff competition where we have the OnePlus Nord (Review) and Xiaomi Mi 10i (Review) as it is a similar Galaxy M51 but with a newer design and has the 2019’s flagship Exynos 9825 chipset seen on the Galaxy Note 10+ (Review). So how does this chipset make a difference on the smartphone and is it worth buying or should the Galaxy M51 worry?
Let’s find out in the full review.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Design:
In terms of design, the Galaxy F62 has a unique design at the back. The back of the smartphone has vertical lines and at the bottom, there is a mirror finish that is reflective. The body used is a combination of plastic and glass what Samsung likes to call “Glastic” which is the same found on the Galaxy M51.
However, here the camera module is squared shape housing quad cameras with the LED flash sitting outside the square module giving it a unique look and looks better compared to the rectangular module on the Galaxy M51. The back is smoother and easier to hold but does feel heavy due to the 218 grams weight.
The gradient color finish looks premium and the three color options – Laser Blue, Laser Green, and Laser Black all having a reflective finish at the bottom. Another smartphone which is the Xiaomi Mi 10i especially in the Pacific Sunrise variant has a dual-tone color. The back of the Galaxy F62 does catch a lot of fingerprints and here Samsung has not provided a case inside the box.
The weight is 218grams which makes it slightly on the heavier side as it packs a massive 7000mAh battery underneath. To the sides, there is a plastic frame running where on the right, there are the power button and the volume buttons and to the left, there is a triple card slot that houses two dual SIM card slots and another slot for microSD card expansion.
The bottom has the USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grill, a primary microphone, and a 3.5mm headphone jack and on the top, there is only a secondary noise-canceling microphone. On the front, there is a single punch hole camera on the top center which Samsung likes to call the Infinity-O display.
To the back, Samsung has given P2i coating making it splash resistant against water but an IP53 rating would have been better. Overall, the build feels good but not so premium as some of the glass backs, and here a frosted design could have done a better job.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Display:
The Galaxy F62 has a larger 6.7 inches Full HD+ (1080×2400 pixels) Super AMOLED Plus display with a screen to body ratio of 20:9. This is one of the best AMOLED displays as has been made by Samsung itself and is similar to that of the Galaxy M51. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
This is a slight of a letdown as the competition offers Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and the back, but still, it is good. So since this is an AMOLED panel, the color reproduction is excellent and the blues and blacks look much deeper, and the viewing angles are great. You can also change the screen temperature from warmer to cooler or set it as default.
There is an Always-On display that can be customized and provides all the necessary information. Coming to brightness, the display is quite bright under direct sunlight and using the outdoor mode, can really brighten up the display as it can go as high as 480nits which is not the highest but still there is no sort of reflection and even in dark, the brightness can go very low.
The biggest disappointment of this display is there is no higher refresh rate, so you are getting a standard 60Hz refresh rate. A higher refresh rate display could have been better since the competitors like the OnePlus Nord, Xiaomi Mi 10i provide 90/120Hz displays. Though you have Widevine L1 and HDR support, so streaming HD videos on OTT platforms will not be an issue.
The face unlock works faster and since this is an AMOLED display, there could have been an in-display fingerprint scanner but just like the Galaxy M51, Samsung has provided a side-mounted fingerprint scanner mounted on the power button on the Galaxy F62 which is much faster than in-display ones.
Overall the display feels excellent for media consumption and playing games but a higher refresh rate could have done a better job.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Performance:
This is the biggest area of improvement on the Galaxy F62 over the Galaxy M51 as you are getting the 2019 flagship Exynos 9825 chipset on the Galaxy F62 which is present on the Galaxy Note 10 and the Note 10+. The Exynos 9825 has a highly powered 2×2.73 GHz Mongoose M4 with 2×2.24 GHz Cortex -A75 cores and a lower-powered 4×1.95 GHz Cortex-A55 cores.
It is coupled with a Mali-G76 MC12 GPU and is built on a 7nm EUV process. All day-to-day activities like scrolling through webpages, multitasking between applications, and streaming videos felt smoother on the smartphone. Even games like Call of Duty, Gensian Impact played smoothly without any stutter or lag as such.
We played Call of Duty for three-four hours continuously at the highest graphics settings and at the maximum frame rate and there was no sign of lag. The touch response could have been better and since you do miss on a high refresh rate, the gameplay feels good but not extra-ordinary though you are getting a flagship chipset from 2019.
GPU intensive games like Gensian Impact showed some frame drops at the highest graphics settings but it was barely noticeable. It is also seen that after a long time of gaming, the back of the Galaxy F62 does heat up which does result in frame drops and stutters during the gameplay.
This heating issue is found on the Galaxy Note 10 and the Note 10+ and after that, there are some stutters on the smartphone. Sadly, there is no liquid cooling tech as such. Keeping thermals aside, the benchmarks are the best when compared to all of its competitors like the Xiaomi Mi 10i, OnePlus Nord that have a Snapdragon 750G/765G chipset underneath.
In Geekbench 5.1, the Galaxy F62 scored 810 and 2074 in single and multi-core tests, and in GPU-intensive benchmarks such as Antutu v8, the smartphone scored 445176. These scores are the highest for any smartphone in the mid-range segment but benchmarks do not always tell the real performance.
But after consistent benchmarks, the scores came lower down due to the heat generated.
In terms of storage, the Galaxy F62 is available in two variants – 6/8GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128GB UFS 3.0 storage. There is also an extra slot for a microSD card for storage expansion. A 256GB storage variant would have been a better deal but still, UFS 3.0 makes it much faster in terms of reads and writes compared to UFS 2.1.
However, it does lack support for 5G like the Galaxy M51 which could have done a better job as many other smartphones like OnePlus Nord, Xiaomi Mi 10i support 5G.
To sum it up, the performance is good on the Galaxy F62 and in terms of benchmarks, it is a clear winner but the lack of a high refresh rate display and some overheating issues after long hours of gaming do make it feel short of that flagship performance as expected from this smartphone.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Software:
The Galaxy F62 runs on the latest OneUI 3.1 based on Android 11. This is one of the few smartphones in the mid-range segment to have Android 11 by default out of the box whereas competitors like the OnePlus Nord and the Xiaomi Mi 10i have still Android 10 running. The OneUI 3.1 is much better than the OneUI 2.1 core on the Galaxy M51.
The OneUI 3.1 brings a host of improvements over the OneUI 3.0 as it brings some very good features like a Google Discover Feed which you get while swiping left from the home screen, since there is Android 11, the Device Control feature lets you add smart home devices from Google Home, the caller app is integrated with Google Duo.
Samsung Pay is present with NFC for payments, the privacy features like removing the data of the location where you are before sending an image and there are a couple of camera enhancements like a Vlogger’s view and Single Take 2.0. There are a lot of themes present and you can change different backgrounds with different color effects such as Blur, Color, and Image during audio and video calls.
But there are some Samsung-specific applications pre-installed and also very few third-party applications pre-installed. There are some constant notifications from Samsung apps that annoy you but can be turned off if you do not sign with your Samsung account.
As usual, there is the system-wide dark mode, navigation gestures, Digital Wellbeing, one-handed mode, app cloner, and also the Always-On display is present which is customizable. There is a high refresh rate missing but the overall software experience feels much better on the Galaxy F62.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Cameras:
The Galaxy F62 has the same set of cameras as on the Galaxy M51 and the M31s. The quad cameras include a 64MP f/1.8 Sony IMX682 sensor for the main camera, a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, a 5MP f/2.4 macro camera, and a 5MP depth sensor. On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.4 camera.
The images from the main camera have good details with punchier colors and a good dynamic range. There is a slight oversaturation in the background and the camera handles the contrast and white balance much better. The images from the 64MP come out with sharper details but there is some oversaturation and the image does crop in for better results.
At night, the images from the main camera come out with good details and the dynamic range is also quite good. There is some amount of noise present and the lack of OIS does affect here as the details in shadows come out to be average and when turning on the dedicated Night Mode does result in better dynamic range and restore highlights in shadows.
The noise is reduced by a larger extent and overall the color saturation looks much better balanced. The long exposure shots are handled well with improved focus and still, this camera is better than the 64MP Samsung sensor on the Realme X7 (Review) but the 108MP camera here does a better job on the Xiaomi Mi 10i compared to the Galaxy F62 in low-light.
The images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details and the dynamic range here is above average as there is quite some noise present but the 123-degree field of view ensures all the subjects are present in the image. The colors look well saturated and there was no oversharpening that we usually see in 8MP ultrawide cameras used by manufacturers.
The images during the night come out with good details but there is a lot of noise present. The colors are unbalanced though and the dynamic range is average. The dedicated Night Mode does restore colors thus improving dynamic range and reduces noise considerably. With OneUI 3.1, Samsung seems to have put in effort in night photography for both the main and the ultrawide cameras.
The 5MP f/2.4 macro camera does a decent job in terms of close-up images as it can go as close as 4cm. The dynamic range is good though but the colors do look washed out and there is a lot of noise present when you zoom into that image. The focus does not work well most of the time though.
The 5MP depth camera does a very good job in terms of portraits. The images come out with good details and a dynamic range. There is some amount of noise present if you look around the edges and the edge detection is much better compared to other smartphones.
The background blur could have been still better but still, you can play with the portraits by using different effects and also adjust the background blur. When you zoom into the portraits, the colors look well saturated but there is some amount of noise present in the background.
On the front, the 32MP f/2.4 camera does a good job in terms of selfies which come out with natural skin tones and the dynamic range is also good. There is some oversaturation seen with a slight amount of noise. The same is the case with portraits that do result in better edge detection and good dynamic range. The background blur could have been slightly better.
In terms of videos, there are a lot of modes to shoot and the Galaxy F62 can shoot 4K videos at 30fps. However, since this is a mid-range smartphone, Samsung has removed support for 60fps though the Exynos 9825 chipset has support for it. Maybe Samsung could fix this issue in the future software update.
The videos come out with good color reproduction though there is some oversaturation the dynamic range and contrast are much better. There is some amount of noise and the videos have a lot of distortion as there is no OIS. However, switching to 1080p at 60fps with much better stable footage and the dynamic range is also better.
The 1080p videos come out with good color saturation and the presence of EIS does help in stabilization and reduce noise in the videos. The videos at night have good dynamic range and the colors look oversaturated but turning on the Night Mode does result in better dynamic range and less noise.
The ultrawide camera can also record 4K videos at 30fps but they do have average details with slightly washed-out colors and dynamic range. There is a lot of distortion but enabling the Super Stable Mode at 1080p results in better dynamic range and details also. The 5MP macro camera can also record 1080p videos with average details.
The 64MP main camera takes portrait videos with proper edge detection and good dynamic range. The background blur also works well with good contrast. On the front, you can record videos at 4K at 30fps which is a good addition and here the skin tones look natural with a good dynamic range from the 32MP camera.
The videos have a good dynamic range but there is a lot of noise present. The portrait videos come out with good background blur but do crop in more and the skin oversharpening is noticed most of the time.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Battery Life:
The Galaxy F62 has a massive 7000mAh battery which remains unchanged from the Galaxy M51. The battery could easily last for one single day with normal usage and it can also for an extra day or half. Since there is no high refresh rate, the battery life is better as the chipset is also built on the efficient 7nm process.
With heavy usage, the Galaxy F62 lasts for one single day with some charge left. However, the battery life is not as good as the Galaxy M51 which can give you three days of battery backup with normal usage which is due to the overheating of the Exynos 9825 chipset during longer usage and also while gaming.
The standard screen on time was around 7-8 hours which quite less compared to the Galaxy M51 that provided 8-9 hours of the screen on time. The Galaxy F62 though having the Exynos 9825 chipset does not do well when compared to the Galaxy M51 that has the Snapdragon 730G chipset.
Like the Galaxy M51, there is a 25W fast charger provided inside the box which feels a bit of a let down as many competitors are providing 50W or 65W fast chargers inside the box. This supplied charger takes the Galaxy F62 from 0 to 100 percent in 2 hours and 30 minutes which is much more time taking.
You can also use reverse charging using which you can charge other smartphones using the Galaxy F62 using the USB Type-C to Type-C cable inside the box. Overall, the battery life seems good but still with such a larger battery, could have been better.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Audio Quality:
The Galaxy F62 comes with only a single firing speaker which is adequately loud and clear. The sound output does feel distorted at higher levels and the bass level is not as good as the Xiaomi Mi 10i or the OnePlus Nord. The sound is slightly muffled but call quality remains good.
Still, the presence of 3.5mm headphone jack gives it a good form factor and the sound output through it is very good. There is also Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound effect for all the different modes.
Verdict:
Overall, the Galaxy F62 is a very good smartphone as it one of the best internals like a large AMOLED display, a powerful Exynos 9825 chipset, a smooth and feature packed software experience and a good set of cameras with decent battery life considering the size of the battery.
There are some hits as well as misses as we look closely like for example, the look and design looks really good which makes it stand apart and also better compared to the Galaxy M51. Then there is a good Super AMOLED Plus display which is great for media consumption. To power all these things, Samsung packed the Galaxy F62 with 2019’s flagship Exynos 9825 chipset.
This chipset provides excellent gaming performance and the benchmark scores are much better compared to many of its competitors. The cameras are one of the best especially the 64MP Sony IMX682 camera and the 12MP ultrawide camera. The battery capacity is 7000mAh which can last very well.
Then there is the beauty of OneUI 3.1 which provides a lot of features and is easy to use. But there are some bloatware like Samsung specific applications pre-installed which provides lot of notifications and then the camera performance in low-light is average and since the smartphone has a flagship chipset, the lack of 4K recording at 60fps is a big miss.
Though it has a good look with three different colors but the build is polycarbonate which is of a let down compared to other smartphones that have Gorilla Glass 5 both at the front as well as the back. The charging solution could have been faster as it has a massive 7000mAh battery.
Though it has a flagship chipset, there are signs of overheating and the battery life is not as good as the Galaxy M51 which has the same battery capacity though. The miss of a higher refresh rate does feel a short on this AMOLED display which could have the perfect combination.
It does also miss support for 5G. So if you want a gaming smartphone with a good display and battery life combined with good cameras and software experience and if 5G is not your necessity, the Galaxy F62 is the perfect one to be considered.