Samsung Galaxy M31 Mobile Phone; Sim Free Smartphone - Blue [Amazon Exclusive], (UK Version) – United Kingdom

I have had this phone for 2 years and think it is great value with great battery life, still going strong after 2 years, usually lasts a couple of days before needing a charge with light to moderate use. It is a good size. Dual SIM is great e.g. for travel - dual SIM allows you to use two numbers and you can speciy which number you want to used for calls, messages or data. Fingerprint sensor works very well. Camera is decent. Phone has a radio and headphone jack. NFC. 64GB is good.Why spend 700 or 800 pounds on a new phone when you can just get this? :) Benefit of an unlocked phone is no need for a contract and usually better rate - I am on EE pay as you go phone plan only paying GBP15/month which includes 100 international callin minutes, 450 UK minutes and 3GB mobile data.Sept. 2024 update:Stilll have this phone. 3.5 years after purchasing the battery is still working great, a bit slower but to be fair do have quite a few apps installed. I usually only need to charge every couple of days or so with light to moderate use.

This is a seriously impressive phone. I debated a while over what my upgrade would be (last phone did me 3.5 years), with my three key priorities being battery life, camera, and price. Well on all three of those and more, the Galaxy M31 excels.To start with appearance and feel, it's got a nice big screen with a cutout for the camera at the top which I find unobtrusive. There are very small bezels which means it's comfy and manageable in the hand despite the larger screen. The buttons have a solid press to them, and the back is plastic but I don't mind this - it's comfy to hold and the blue looks great, without being too much of a fingerprint magnet. Headphone jack and USB-C on the bottom. Dual SIM and micro SD slot on the left.The screen is something else - an AMOLED display means blacks are truly black - the pixels turn off - with vibrant but accurate colours, extremely sharp details and excellent touch responsiveness. It gets very bright if necessary allowing outside viewing too. One significant plus of this type of screen is that the pixels can turn off individually. Not only does this save battery life when using a dark mode, but it allows for an 'always on' display when the phone is locked, meaning I can check the time and for any notifications without constantly turning on the phone screen!The M31 has 4 cameras on the back. The main lens is 64MP although in normal shooting it fires at 16. It takes really detailed, well balanced shots and I rather like Samsung's subtle post processing on the shots. The other lenses are a macro lens (this is fixed focus), a wide angle lens, which really does take very cool pictures, and a focus lens which allows 'portrait' style photos where the background is blurred. The front camera is 32MP and, once you turn down some of the beautifying additions, takes good selfies with the option of a wide angle shot for including any friends you might have... overall I'm extremely impressed with the cameras - easily the best I've ever used on a phone!It runs android 10 with a Samsung skin over the top, although actually this seems rather subtle. The OS is smooth and extremely responsive and hugely better than my previous phone which was running stock android 10. It's full of useful features like built in blue light filter, dark mode, always on display, NFC, and a host of other handy things, too many to list in fact. If you're worried (like I was) about Samsung's software, don't be. It's leaps and bounds over what I remember from years ago and I think it's brilliant. And not much bloatware either!Finally, the battery is just incredible. After a full day of getting things set up, transferring data, using the camera, watching videos etc., it was down to 55%. I think you'd be hard pressed to actually get below 50% battery in one day. It also charges quite quickly via the included plug, although as I mainly charge the phone overnight I've disabled fast charging through settings to preserve the battery a little longer. Once you have a large battery you won't want to go back. It doesn't matter how fancy or expensive your phone is if you're worried about how much battery all those features are going to use. Here there are no worries about running with NFC, bluetooth permanently on, max screen brightness, watching videos and still having enough to do it all again the next day!What else? I'm sure there are some small bits I've forgotten to mention. But overall, for the price, I don't believe you can find a better phone out now. This ticks every box: camera, battery, screen, software, performance and build. Somehow it manages to do this at an extremely reasonable price. If you're unsure, buy it; I honestly don't think you'll regret it.Update 1 (12/08/2020):Still really impressed. The battery life is such a game changer. I love the camera and it's a real upgrade over my last phone. The wide angle lens is great fun and the selfie cam is good too. I've also noticed a few small extra features which are useful - e.g. if you get sent a text with a verification code (for two-factor authentication), there's an option to automatically copy just the code without having to open messages and find it. When you turn on bluetooth, there's an overlay at the bottom of the screen for setting up your connection. NFC works very well, bluetooth is very reliable. I've inserted a microSD card and loaded all my photos and spotify songs onto that.Update 2 (06/02/2021):Still just as impressed! A couple of days ago the phone got a bit update for Android 11 which comes with some aesthetic changes and functional ones too. The camera focuses faster and there are some improvements to the already impressive snapiness of opening apps etc. Battery life still just as good, still loving the screen and all the features etc. Would I buy this again? Yes, in a heartbeat.

(I used to own a Blackview 10000+ Pro because I wanted a very long battery life. That thing lasted for 5 days on one charge and was amazing but had a lower grade microphone, speaker and display - kinda important lol!)The Samsung M31 is a revelation! It is the usual AMOLED, rich vibrant display that walks over most phones. It is much thinner than the Blackview and much lighter. But battery life is still around 4 days without the need for charging - i.e 80% of what I was getting on the huge Blackview (11,000mah battery). This must be down to more efficient power management. Note I don't use video or gaming a great deal. The whole feel of the phone is fast, spritely and brilliantly featured. The fingerprint reader is spot on and the camera(s) quality is fantastic for a phone camera. Nice distance blur effects and a great macro! Microphone quality is important to me so I can record voice and music ideas. Likewise, speaker quality is important because I listen to a lot of podcasts. Audio in all aspects on this phone is excellent, clear and noise free - albeit mono as usual. Stereo is achievable with earbuds/headphones of course.The phone sits in your pocket nicely and is really quite light. My partner thinks the screen is too big for her so that's saved me buying a second one as a present hehe! ;)I love this phone and thank you Amazon for the Black Friday price which was around £30 - 40 less at the time.