Order the just-launched Galaxy Fold7, Flip7, or Watch8 Classic – New deal Galaxy S25 Ultra
Last updated: October 26th, 2020 at 19:40 UTC+01:00
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To that end, it announced a new mid-range phone called the OnePlus Nord N10 5G, and in typical OnePlus fashion, the company's latest device punches above its weight with its price-to-specs ratio. Two features in particular have caught my interest: The Nord N10 5G has a 90Hz refresh rate screen and comes with stereo speakers, features no mid-range phone from Samsung offers at the moment. But I think the company needs to fix that, and soon, or risk playing catch-up once again.
Samsung only made the move to high refresh rate displays on its flagship phones earlier this year with the Galaxy S20 series, so it's not exactly fair to expect the company to start putting high refresh rate displays on mid-range devices so soon. And some of its mid-range phones in the last year — particularly the Galaxy A51 and Galaxy A71 — are very solid devices, so it's not like Samsung doesn't have something to offer to customers who might be shopping for a new handset in the sub-€400 market.
But Samsung's mid-range phones are also quite boring. They have no glaring shortcomings when the asking price is taken into account, but they don't have anything you can get excited about, either. And for me, introducing a high refresh rate screen and stereo speakers would be just one of many ways to spice things up. Yes, they would contribute to higher manufacturing costs, but if the Galaxy S20 FE or the Galaxy M series are an indication, Samsung isn't too averse to taking a hit on its profit margins and equipping a phone with hardware that's better than the price tag would have you believe.
Samsung's spent the last couple of years increasing the number of cameras and things like processing power on its mid-range devices, and I hope it will now start focusing on fancier features – like stereo speakers and high refresh rate displays, as I have mentioned already. I also hope Samsung won't take too long to set the wheels in motion, though I have an inkling the company is in no hurry and will take its time as it always does, all while smaller manufacturers like OnePlus keep giving it crash courses on making not-expensive phones with spec sheets that don't bore you to sleep.
Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.
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