Samsung Galaxy F13 Review – Pros and cons, Verdict

Samsung Galaxy F13 is the newest addition to the company’s F-series lineup. It’s a sub-Rs 12,000 phone, which, per Samsung, caters to the evolving needs of Gen Z and millennials. The highlights of the Samsung Galaxy F13 include an FHD+ screen, an octa-core chipset, a 50MP triple rear camera setup, a 6,000mAh battery, and auto-data switching. Do these features/ specifications translate into a surreal real-world experience? Let’s find out in this quick review:

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy F13 may not be the most powerful smartphone out there, but it is definitely among the most good-looking ones in the budget segment. The handset also comes with a monstrous battery and decent cameras.

The Lowdown

• The Samsung Galaxy F13 comes in a plastic frame and features a subtle texture at the back, which looks quite appealing. A fringe benefit of the same is that buyers opting for the set will get a good grip over the phone without attracting fingerprints or smudges. The edges of the Samsung Galaxy F13 are nicely curved/ rounded and the frame houses a power button with an integrated fingerprint scanner. The latter is placed on the right edge alongside the volume rocker, while the USB Type-C charging port, 3.5mm headphone jack and speaker grille are at the bottom edge. The SIM-ejector tray, which has a dedicated slot for a microSD card, is on the left spine of the phone. What’s more, the phone has a triple camera setup at the back, and the module is moulded into the back panel. More notably, the camera array doesn’t protrude from the frame much which ensures the Galaxy F13 doesn’t wobble when kept flat on the surface.
  

• The Samsung Galaxy F13 display stands 6.6-inch tall and the panel sports a V-shaped notch atop. The screen is bordered by narrow bezels towards the sides, paving the way for an immersive media consumption experience. The display is of LCD variety and bears Full-HD+ resolution as well as 60Hz refresh rate and 480 nits of brightness. The latter makes the content visible even under direct sunlight. The screen is also Widevine L1 certified, which means it can stream HD content from services like Netflix. As for the quality, the panel doesn’t exhibit overtly saturated hues and the screen even offers minimal colour shift when viewed at an angle.
  

• Coming to the performance, the Samsung Galaxy F13 is powered by the Exynos 850 SoC. For the uninitiated, the SoC comprises eight cores clocked up to 2GHz that work alongside a Mali-G52 MP1 GPU. Now, truth be told, Exynos 850 isn’t the snappiest processor in its segment and the device does get bogged down whilst multi-tasking or playing graphically-demanding games on the fly. That said, the chipset is more than adept at handling everyday tasks such as calling, messaging and browsing various social media apps. On the storage front, the Galaxy F13 is available in a couple of options including a 64GB and a 128GB SKU. Both of them are expandable up to 1TB using a microSD card. As for the memory, the handset comes with 4GB of built-in RAM and up to 4GB of virtual RAM.

• The Samsung Galaxy F13 ships with triple rear cameras comprising a 50MP primary sensor, a 5MP ultra-wide sensor, and a 2MP depth unit. Up front, the phone packs an 8MP snapper for selfies and video calling. Overall, the camera array snaps decent photos that are on par with the competition. That is to say, in ideal lighting conditions or when the sun is out, the primary sensor clicks decent images with good colour accuracy and details. The dynamic range in the stills did leave me wanting more, but that’s passable given the price of the device. The same can be said for the 8MP selfie camera too.

• The 5MP ultra-wide sensor catches everything within a 123-degree field of view (FOV) but fails to retain the sharpness of subjects positioned around the periphery of the frame. The 2MP depth sensor could also do with some tweaks and the unit’s edge detection wasn’t up to the mark. That being said, you can adjust the amount of bokeh in the images, which is a good thing. The low light performance of the device is nothing to write home about. To wit, in slightly challenging lighting conditions, the sensors were slow to focus, took time to process, and more often than not produced grainy results. It looks like Samsung may have missed a trick here by not offering a dedicated Night mode with the phone. 

• The handset is driven by a 6,000mAh battery, which easily lasted for a day for me between charges. On the PCMark test, the Galaxy F13 returned with an impressive score of around 16 hours. That said, the phone only supports 15W fast charging, and as such, can take approximately two and a half hours to juice up completely from 0-100 percent. Software-wise, the Galaxy F13 runs Android 12-based OneUI 4.1 skin out of the box. The unit ships with some bloatware, but the good thing is that most, if not all of the third-party apps can be uninstalled. I should also add that the interface is quite user-friendly, intuitive, and offers tons of customisations. 

• The side-mounted fingerprint scanner of the phone is fast and reliable and unlocks the device at once. Lastly, the phone’s single bottom-firing speaker gets loud but lacks clarity, while the 4G LTE offered decent speed on Faridabad’s Airtel network. Samsung is also offering an ‘Auto Data Switching’ feature on the device that switches the data to the secondary SIM when there is no network on the primary SIM.

Final verdict

The Samsung Galaxy F13 is selling in India at a starting price of Rs 11,999. From where I stand, the company’s latest budget-friendly smartphone will appeal to those who value a good design and an excellent battery life over anything else. That said, the Galaxy F13’s performance is not its strongest suit, so if that is something you are after, you will have to look elsewhere. All things considered, Samsung’s latest has a lot going for it and the device makes for a decent option to consider in the space. 

Expert’s rating: 3.5/5

Pros

• Good design and build quality
• Decent screen
• Excellent battery life

Cons

• Performance needs improvement
• Camera could have been better