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In the world of affordable 5G smartphones, Samsung's Galaxy M14 5G makes an impressive entry. It combines a powerful battery, a capable camera setup, and a high-quality display into a package that, although not without its flaws, offers good value for its price.
Display & Design
The Galaxy M14 5G sports a minimalistic design with a glossy finish that feels smooth and slippery. Like its predecessor, it’s also a magnet for dust and fingerprints.
We got both colour variants of the phone: Blue and Dark Blue. I preferred the Blue, which is a light aqua-blue shade that looks metallic and premium.
Samsung is also unifying its camera module design across the board, so the Galaxy M14 5G comes with the floating cameras design that is also seen on the Galaxy S23 Series. However, with its rounded edges, it would be hard to mistake this budget phone for the flagship.
On the front, the 6.6-inch display offers FHD+ resolution and a 90Hz refresh rate, with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection—a rarity in this price range. One thing it could improve in this regard is the brightness. The screen is just barely readable under direct sunlight, and highly reflective.
Performance
Powered by Samsung’s in-house Exynos 1330, the Galaxy M14 5G can easily handle casual use and light multitasking. It comes in only one storage configuration: 6GB RAM + 128GB internal storage, which is more than enough to get on for regular use, especially with the option of converting up to 6GB of internal storage into virtual RAM.
The Exynos 1330 chipset, while not a powerhouse, handles daily tasks such as web browsing, social media scrolling, and video watching seamlessly, without hitches. However, the Galaxy M14 5G isn’t really designed for heavy-duty gaming. The occasional Candy Crush or Clash of Clans will run smoothly, but you may find significant lagging if you’re trying to power graphically demanding games like COD or Genshin Impact.
The Samsung Galaxy M14 5G supports 5G, which is pretty good for a phone in its price range. Plus, the phone runs Android 13-based OneUI 5.1 out of the box, and Samsung has promised two major Android OS updates and four years of security updates, making this phone a future-proof investment.
Camera
The Galaxy M14 features a triple camera setup, which includes a 50MP primary sensor and two 2MP sensors for macro and portrait shots. As far as photo quality is concerned, Samsung comes through with decent and clear photos in perfect lighting, but less so in low light.
The primary 50MP sensor truly shines in optimal daylight conditions. Photos are clear and balanced, but as with many budget smartphones, the Galaxy M14 5G's low-light performance is less than stellar.
In low light, the photos tend to lose detail and display noticeable noise. While the phone does offer a dedicated Night Mode, it doesn't significantly improve low-light photo quality.
The 13MP selfie camera is quite good, especially in good lighting conditions. The selfies captured are vibrant and detailed. Edge detection is a minor issue, but it's a common drawback in this price range.
Battery
One of the standout features of the Galaxy M14 5G is its 6,000mAh battery, which offers impressive longevity even for heavy users. We managed to clock a good day and a half of battery life on regular usage.
The Galaxy M14 5G also supports 25W fast charging, though like all of Samsung’s smartphones, the charger does not come in the box and needs to be bought separately.
