Samsung Galaxy M35 Review: Great Phone, Cheap Feel

Samsung Galaxy M35 Review: TechLekh Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy M35 is a great phone. It has a colorful display, impressive front and rear cameras, amazing performance, and excellent battery life. It is also cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy A35, although both are very similar.

Having said that, there is one very disappointing aspect: its design. The phone is heavy and bulky, and the build is all plastic, which makes it feel cheap. Additionally, the bezels on the front are large for a mid-range phone.

So, if design and hand feel are not important to you, the Samsung Galaxy M35 is a good choice. But if they are, you might want to add some money and go for the Galaxy A35.

Another great alternative is the Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus. If you can spend a bit more, I suggest going for it. That phone actually feels like a premium phone with its glass back, curved display, and IP68 rating. Moreover, the Note 13 Pro Plus has better performance, good haptic feedback, and 120W fast charging. The display and camera are good too.

Xiaomi’s HyperOS is also good, but if your heart is set on the Samsung One UI, you can opt for the Galaxy A35. As I said, it’s identical to the Galaxy M35 but has a better design — though with a smaller battery.

The Samsung Galaxy M35 is almost identical to the Samsung Galaxy A35. The only changes are that the design is inferior with a plastic back and because it has a larger 6000mAh battery, the phone is heavier. For these compromises, you get the M35 at a cheaper price.

The Samsung Galaxy A35 costs Rs. 46,999 for the 8/128GB model, while the 8/256GB model costs Rs. 51,999. Meanwhile, the M35 price is Rs. 44,999 (8/256GB).

The Samsung Galaxy M35 was launched in Nepal in June 2024, three months after the A35. In this review, I will share my experience with the Samsung Galaxy M35 and if it is worth buying. I’m Pranish Khadgi, and this is my Samsung Galaxy M35 review.

ALSO READ: Samsung Mobile Price in Nepal (September 2024 Updated)

Samsung Galaxy M35 Review

Design

• 162.3 x 78.6 x 9.1 mm
• 222 g
• Hybrid SIM slot (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

The one obvious place where Samsung wants to differentiate the Galaxy M series from the Galaxy A series is the design. If you look at any latest Samsung smartphones, all of them look the same at a glance with three vertically arranged cameras.

But upon closer look, you will notice that Samsung has compromised the design of the Galaxy M35. The back material is plastic, unlike the A35’s glass back. And it’s not like they have tried to make the back feel premium. It feels very cheap. It’s also bulky and heavy, weighing 222 g. It’s clear that the design does not justify the price the Galaxy M35 demands.

The front as well — Samsung is notorious for doing this; the bezels are relatively large, making the phone look ugly. I am saying this compared to other phones found at similar prices, such as the Redmi Note 13 Pro+ and Nothing Phone 2a.

The screen is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is good to see, but sadly, it has no ingress protection rating. It means you need to be careful around water.

As for the ports and buttons, the power button is on the right side. By the way, it does not have an in-display fingerprint sensor. It is integrated into the power button and it works well.

The left side has a SIM card slot for two nano SIMs and a microSD card, but only two can be put at one time. Similarly, the top side has a mic only, while the bottom has another mic, a USB-C port, and a speaker.

The earpiece acts as a secondary speaker for the stereo speaker setup. The speaker quality is satisfactory. If you’re wondering, the phone does not have a headphone jack.

The phone’s vibration motor is also bad. It does not offer good haptic feedback and feels cheap.

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Display

• 6.6-inch Super AMOLED
• 1080 x 2340 pixels
• 120Hz refresh rate
• 1000 nits (HBM)

The Samsung Galaxy M35 has a 6.6-inch Full HD+ display. It’s Samsung’s Super AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The refresh rate is well-optimized and feels smooth. The colors look punchy and saturated, which is loved by the majority. If you prefer a more natural look, Samsung lets you set the display mode from vivid to natural.

On paper, the Samsung Galaxy A35 and the M35 both have the same display. Surprisingly, when comparing side by side I prefer the M35’s display.

For some reason, I felt the A35’s display looked a bit washed out than the M35. I should say that the notices were very minimal and there is a chance that this could be because we received review units.

When it comes to brightness, Samsung claims 1000 nits of brightness when under bright light. In my experience, the display brightness is enough for outdoor use.

Performance

• Exynos 1380 (5 nm)
• Octa-core (4x 2.4 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55)
• Mali-G68 MP5
• 256GB 8GB RAM

The Samsung Galaxy M35 is powered by the Exynos 1380 which is based on 5nm process technology. It’s the same processor used in the Galaxy A35 and last year’s Galaxy A54.

The chip has four 2.4GHz Cortex-A78 and four 2.0GHz Cortex-A55 CPU cores, and a 950MHz Mali G68 GPU. It is a 5G chipset and features Bluetooth 5.3 and dual-band Wi-Fi 6.

The model available in Nepal comes with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, but the review unit I got has 6GB RAM and 128GB storage.

The Exynos 1380 is a powerful SoC and it easily handles all the basic tasks and is also good for gaming. However, it’s not the best-performing chipset in this price range because the Dimensity 7200 Ultra on the Redmi Note 13 Pro Plus is much more powerful.

Still, the performance of the Exynos 1380 is more than enough for the majority of people.

Gaming

When we first tested the Samsung Galaxy A35, our main complaint was that the chipset was not well-optimized for gaming. That seems to have been fixed now. Previously, the PUBG Mobile game could only be set up to High frame rate even when the graphics was set to Smooth. Now, even with HDR graphics, it lets you set the frame rate to Ultra.

When you set the graphics to Smooth, you can play at the Extreme frame rate, which is 60fps. The gameplay was very smooth and the average frame rate was also around 60fps. So, the gaming experience of the Exynos 1380 is now good.

Another game I tried was the Genshin Impact. It is quite a demanding game. I set the graphics to Low and changed the fps to 60 for testing. I played for over an hour. There were a few frame drops, but the overall game was enjoyable. However, the phone gets hot, especially the upper portion. Using an IR thermometer, I measured 44 degrees Celsius.

Camera

• Rear Camera: 50 MP, f/1.8, (wide), PDAF, OIS
  • 8 MP, f/2.2, (ultrawide)
  • 2MP, f/2.4, (macro)

• Front Camera: 13 MP, f/2.2

The set of cameras of the Samsung Galaxy M35 is also identical to the Galaxy A35. They both have a 50MP main camera with OIS, an 8MP ultrawide camera, 5MP macro camera, and a 13MP selfie camera. Both the front and main cameras can shoot up to 4K videos at 30fps, which is good.

Main Camera

The Galaxy M35 shoots at 12MP photos by default. The photos are great. They have pleasing colors, a wide dynamic range, and a good amount of detail. The white balance is also nice.

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Ultrawide Camera

The ultrawide camera has a cooler look than the main camera. The detail is soft, plus the dynamic range is weaker. But considering it’s an ultrawide camera, the colors and details are decent for a mid-range device.

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Selfie

The selfies too are impressive. The faces are exposed properly and appear natural. The HDR also works well. Overall, the front camera of the Samsung Galaxy M35 is good.

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Videos

The Samsung Galaxy M35 can shoot 4K videos with both front and back cameras, which is good. The footage is stable and smooth. The video quality is also good with decent detail. The sharpness appears natural.

The front also captures decent video. The exposure is good and the footage is sharp.

Battery

• 6000mAh
• 25W wired charging

The Samsung Galaxy M35 has a large 6,000 mAh battery. This is one of the reasons the phone is so heavy. But it also means that the battery life of it is great.

Even if you’re a heavy user, the phone should easily last a whole day on a single charge. If you’re a light user, it will last up to two days.

Even after 4 hours of screen-on-time, the phone had 55 percent battery. A 90 percent battery usage would result in around 8 hours of screen-on time. My usage mostly included watching short-form videos on social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

The charging is decently fast but not the fastest. It supports 25W charging. There are plenty of phones in this price range that offer faster charging than this. Anyway, with a supported charger, the phone takes approximately 1.5 hours to charge fully.

Software

• Android 14
• One UI 6.1

Out of the box, the Samsung Galaxy M35 comes with Android 14 with One UI 6. As we all know, the One UI is pretty stable and very smooth. The UI feels very responsive.

The software support Samsung provides is also great. Samsung promises to provide 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security patches for the Samsung Galaxy M35.

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So, this is my Samsung Galaxy M35 review. What do you think about the phone? If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments!