The Samsung Galaxy F62 brings to the mid-range segment a flagship SoC and a kind of battery life that is only been seen in the M-series. We note that the Samsung Galaxy F62 has decent performance, going toe-to-toe with the best in the segment like the OnePlus Nord, with the battery life of almost two days giving it an edge over the existing competition. Where the Samsung Galaxy F62 skims out on segment-standard features is a high refresh rate display and the lack of HDR certification. It also comes with only a mono speaker, so using earphones or headphones while consuming content on the phone is highly recommended.
The ink has barely dried on the reviews for the Samsung Galaxy S21 series of devices and the company has already launched a new phone. The Samsung Galaxy F62 is he second smartphone from the company in the F-series and is squarely a mid-ranger. Its claim to fame is the Exynos 9825 SoC which powered the Galaxy Note 10, so Samsung is pegging this is as a mid-range smartphone with a flagship SoC, only the flagship is from two years ago. While things on paper can be misleading, our test process for smartphone really separates the fluff from reality.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Performance
The review unit we’ve received is powered by the Exynos 9825 SoC that utilizes the 4-2-2 core design instead of the usual 6-2. That’s four efficiency Cortex A55 cores clocked at 1.95GHz, two Cortex A75 cores at 2.4GHz and two Samsung’s own M4 cores clocked at 2.73GHz. That’s a lot of performance packed into a 7nm chip and Samsung claims it can outdo even the most robust mid-rangers, even the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 powered ones like the OnePlus Nord (Review).
Synthetic benchmarks testing the CPU and GPU do lend credibility to Samsung’s claim. AnTuTu scores for the Samsung Galaxy F62 come out to 392374 while the Nord’s score sits at 319717. We see the F62 outperform the Nord in Geekbench5’s single core test, but get left behind in the multi-core test by a tiny margin.
While the CPU performance might be on point, Exynos chips tend to get flack due to their use of the underpowered Mali GPUs in comparison to the Adreno GPUs on Qualcomm’s chips. On our GPU syntethic tests, the F62 once again pulls ahead, but the real-world usage pegs a slightly different story. When profiling CoD Mobile and Asphalt 9 using Gamebench, we clock a median framerate of 58fps running at 89 percent stability while Asphalt 9 did run at 30fps, but at 91 percent stability. The OnePlus Nord, on the other hand, outperforms the F62 on both those counts. While the numbers might be slightly lower, there was no visible stutter or frame drops while gaming and we are pretty pleased with this. The Mi 10i (Review) has been added for reference, to show how the Samsung Galaxy F62 stacks up against recently launched devices in this segment. We have not included the Realme X7 Pro (Review) due to the fact that the Dimensity 1000+ chipset on this particular phone was found to be artificially boosting benchmark scores.
On a day-to-day experience, the Samsun Galaxy F62 leaves little room for complaints. There were a few moments of stutter while switching apps, but it’s a minor and very infrequent occurrence.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Battery
The second USP of the Samsung Galaxy F62 happens to be its mammoth 7000mAh battery. There is no other smartphone in the mid-range segment with a battery this size, and Samsung is hoping to really capitalize on that. Watch an hour of Netflix on this phone and you lose only 8 percent battery. Navigating for an hour on Google Maps with the display on drains only 7 percent battery. In my use, the phone lasted nearly two days consistently, which is pretty great. On one occasion, the F62 also let me charge my iPhone 12 when it started to run low on battery while out and about. While the phone does last a really long time, where it sort of falters is charging time. The gargantuan 7000mAh battery supports a maximum of 25W fast charging, which means, this phone takes nearly three hours to charge fully. Thankfully, you do get a 25W fast charger in the box, so that’s a good thing.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Camera Performance
While there are four cameras on the back of the Samsung Galaxy F62, only three of them are actually usable. The primary 64 megapixel camera definitely delivers good results when you shoot in the binned mode. The colours are typical Samsung; in that they are nice and saturated, the dynamic range is good and best of all, the photos are adequately sharp. While you can see some samples below, there are far more in our Flickr Gallery.
When you switch over to the 64MP mode, you get better details, yes, but you end up clipping some highlights, and find slightly lower contrast in the photos. A little time in Snapseed should fix these photos right up, but it won’t bring back the clipped highlights. Interestingly, the AF works splendid in photo mode, but switch over to video and it can go into a frenzy. This feels like a bug more than anything else, that’s triggered only when you try to track a subject across the frame, and one we hope Samsung can fix with a future update. The 12-megapixel ultrawide camera is average at best, producing photos with decent dynamic range, but notable distortion. There is also a notable drop in sharpness as you go from the center to the edge of the frame. When shooting in strong lighting, don’t’ be surprised if you end up seeing some purple fringing too. Lastly, we have the 5-megapixel macro camera, which you’re better off not using. This is because there’s no AF, no focus peaking and no image stabilization. When you’re 3cm from the subject, the very act of breathing will shift your focus, resulting in an out of focus shot. It took nearly 15 tries to get one shot right and of those 15, only 1 was passable.
When we move into low light situations, the primary camera delivers decent results, but only if you shoot in night mode. The default camera mode delivers decent photos but switch over to night mode and watch the scene come alive. Unfortunately, the ultra-wide camera doesn’t deliver in the same way, despite having its own night mode available.
Overall, the camera experience on the Samsung Galaxy F62 is satisfactory, but not exceptional. It’s not a camera stack that jumps out with exceptional quality or features, but is one that just about gets the job done.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Display
The Samsung Galaxy F62 rocks a 6.7-inch sAMOLED display with a resolution of 2400×1080. If you’re expecting high refresh rate, you’re not getting that here. The resolution and refresh rate limits are what perhaps help this smartphone achieve the better battery life. The display by itself has a peak brightness of 560nits as measured by us, which is pretty impressive. Outdoor usage is pretty reliable as the super bright display manages to curb the reflections to a great degree, making the contents on the screen clearly legible. However, the phone does not support HDR playback, which is a bummer.
Samsung Galaxy F62 Build and Design
The Samsung Galaxy F62 comes in a trio of colours and ours is the “Laser Blue” variant. The back is “glasstic” but scratches easily. Just a few days of being in the pocket and the back is already pretty roughed up, adding to the hurt the fact that Samsung does not include a case in the box anymore. The right side of the frame houses the volume rocker and most importantly, the fingerprint scanner that doubles up as the power button. This is a feature that’s worked very well for us in our usage. It would be nice to see this make it to more premium devices as well to be honest. The SIM tray is housed on the left frame and while you do get two SIM slots and a microSD card slot. Do note that there is no rubber ring around the SIM tray, so water resistance is out of the question. The bottom side has the USB-C port and the singular speaker. In terms of design, the best thing the Samsung Galaxy F62 has going for it is the new colour treatment, which is a refreshing change, but may not be to everyone’s liking.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy F62 is a smartphone that’s designed for people who want reliable performance, but more importantly, excellent battery life. The Exynos 9825 surprisingly still holds up, despite being from two years ago. The design is going to be a polarising point for this smartphone, but the side-mounted fingerprint sensor is definitely a huge draw. You also get dedicated SIM slots along with a separate MicroSD Card slot which is great. The cameras are useable for social media and such, but the only camera that works reliably in tricky conditions is the primary 64megapixel camera. If you need a smartphone with reliable performance, but segment-leading battery life, the Samsung Galaxy F62 makes perfect sense for you.
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Swapnil Mathur
Swapnil was Digit's resident camera nerd, (un)official product photographer and the Reviews Editor. Swapnil has moved-on to newer challenges. For any communication related to his stories, please mail us using the email id given here. View Full Profile
