In the last 60 days, Samsung has launched
three phones in India that cost under INR 10,000. The last of which is the new
Galaxy M01 Core, an Android 10 Go edition phone and the cheapest Samsung in the
country – it starts at INR 5,500. However, it’s quite a bit different from the
Galaxy M01 and even M01s.
For starters, it’s smaller – the Core has
a 5.3” screen compared to 5.7” on the vanilla M01 and 6.2” on the M01s. The
screen has 720p+ resolution, which is alright in this case as it works out to
277 ppi pixel density. Also, previous Core models had sub-HD screens, so again,
not bad for the cheapest phone of the family.
The other major difference from the M01
and M01s is the chipset – a MediaTek MT6739 with a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU and
Mali-T760 MP2 GPU. That’s not a lot of power, even compared to its siblings,
which at least got octa-core processors.
Even more limiting is the single gig of
RAM, which is paired with 16 GB storage. Even Android Go Edition works better
with more memory, so there’s a second version of the phone with 2 GB RAM and 32
GB storage. Both versions triple card slots housing two nanoSIMs and a microSD.
The smaller size also means there’s less
room for the battery, but it isn’t small – 3,000 mAh sounds quite decent for
the size (both of its siblings have 4,000 mAh batteries). However, Maximum
Power Saving Mode can stretch the remaining battery life by running only
critical apps.
Also, there’s no teardrop notch, instead
the phone has classic bezels. The selfie camera has a 5 MP sensor while the cam
on the back shoots 8 MP photos and 1080p videos. The Intelligent Photos feature
detects similar shots and suggests which one is the best to keep while removing
the rest to free up space.
This is an LTE phone, it also supports 2.4
GHz Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth 5.0. GPS and GLONASS are supported for
positioning, NFC is not available. Wired connections are available through the
microUSB port and the 3.5 mm headphone jack. The Samsung Galaxy M01 Core will
be available online, at the Samsung Opera House and Samsung retail stores from
July 29. The 1/16 GB version is INR 5,500, the 2/32 GB one is INR 6,500. The
phone will be available in Black, Blue and Red.
