It is one of Samsung’s cheaper entry points into the sought-after Super AMOLED display tech, giving it a neck up ahead of siblings like the Galaxy A11 and A21s. The confusion starts to settle in once you look further up the Galaxy A device lineup, though. Particularly the Galaxy A41, which the A31 manages to outpace with a longer 6.4-inch screen diagonal and a larger 5,000 mAh battery. An odd choice, for sure, especially since the A41 is a bit more expensive in stores than the A31.
Things get weirder still when the Galaxy M family comes into play. The Galaxy M21 offers the same 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, paired with a bigger 6,000 mAh battery and a slightly different chipset. The in-house Exynos 9611 might be lacking behind the A31’s MediaTek P65 in raw performance, but it is made on a more-efficient 10nm manufacturing node and impressively manages to squeeze 4K video recording and gyro-based EIS from a nearly identical main camera setup. To get the same kind of video capture versatility from a Galaxy A series device, you have to look at the more expensive Galaxy A51, which relies on the Exynos 9611 chipset, just like the Galaxy M21 and has a smaller 4,000 mAh battery.