Samsung Galaxy A71 review: Reliable mid-range phone

Samsung Galaxy A71 review 

Samsung Galaxy A71 price in Bangladesh BDT. ৳42,000 and in India RS. 32,999.

Highlighted features of Samsung Galaxy A71

●6.7 inch Super AMOLED display

●64MP Camera

●4500 mAh Battery, 25W Fast Charger

●Snapdragon 730

Samsung continues to renew its series of mid-range devices and after checking out the improvements brought by the Galaxy A51 now it's time to see everything the A71 has to offer. It is the improved version of the A70, which leaves the notch aside and adopts the hole in the screen. The hardware is more powerful. The cameras have been upgraded in number and resolution, but the screen and battery remain the same. Is the A71 a better deal than Brother A70? That's what you can see in this complete review.

■ Display and Design

Samsung Galaxy A71 features 6.7inch super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display. In terms of the screen - size, resolution, technology and even the level of protection it's the same Gorilla Glass 3, nothing has changed compared to the A70. We expected to see HDR 10 support this time, but it looks like Samsung wants to leave the technology reserved for their flagships. The brightness level is good for an intermediary, ensuring good visibility even on the sunniest days, as long as you leave automatic brightness on. The colors are very vivid, as expected from a Super AMOLED panel, and have good calibration, especially in the natural profile. The speaker performs similarly to the A70. It is mono and does not distort when the volume is at maximum. It may be enough to watch videos on Youtube, but if you intend to listen to music it’s good to plug in a headset for a better experience. The phone that comes with the cell phone is the same as the previous model. It is comfortable and delivers decent sound quality. The galaxy A71 is a good device for music, so it is recommended to invest in a better quality headset.

The actual design of this phone is not much different than the A51. In this price segment, you expect a phone with a more neat finish, but here we have the same plastic-looking glass body that Samsung calls Glastic. The quality appears to be better than the cheaper plastic models. And that's thanks to the pattern of the rear design. The iridescent hue of the A70 is still present here, but now there is a mixture of vertical lines with holographic squares that make the design very flashy. It initially came in three color options: black, blue and silver. The cameras, which were previously grouped vertically in the upper left corner, they are now arranged in an "L" pattern, in the same style as the A series and even the Galaxy S20. In the front part the drop notch came out and the hole in the screen entered, which is bigger than in the A51 however, it is closer to the edge. The A71 is slightly smaller and thinner, even though it has kept the same screen and battery. Samsung has always been trying to reduce the edges of its phones with each generation, which is always welcome. The biometric reader remains on the screen and has made no progress. It is still a little slow compared to common biometric solutions.

■ Camera

Now, speaking to probably what is my favorite thing about this phone, the cameras on the phone. It’s got a quad core camera setup on the back which does a fantastic job. I mean, I have seen flagship cameras not do as well as the cameras on the Samsung galaxy A71 does.The Galaxy A71 features a new camera with a macro lens to record objects more closely. The other sensors have also evolved. The main now has 64 MP resolution and the ultra-wide camera went to 12 MP. The sensor for depth measurement was maintained.

The main camera records cool photos, although it does not stand out in any specific area. There are enough details recorded, but they are compromised when the HDR kicks in to compensate for the limited dynamic range. The color balance and contrast is good, without anything too exaggerated, as well as noise control, which tries to minimize the graininess of photos without compromising details. It’s good to remember that the A71 compresses four pixels into one to ensure higher quality with 16 MP final photos. You can give that up and use all 64 MP, but you’ll have to sacrifice automatic HDR and scenario optimizer. The truth is that artificial intelligence doesn't even make a difference here.

Using the full potential of the sensor can be good for those who will crop the image and work with editing but just to publish on Instagram is not worth the sacrifice, since the photos occupy three times the space in memory. The ultra-wide lens has made a nice breakthrough, in addition to the higher resolution. The secondary camera records more details than before, has superior sharpness, HDR works better and even noise control is more accurate, even in the darkest places. Of course, at night it delivers darker photos with less detail than the main lens, but night mode is available. The macro camera is as good as the A51 because it is the same hardware. It is capable of taking great close-up photos, as long as you keep a distance of 3 to 5 cm from the object. Less or more than that will result in blurry photos. Shooting at night with the A71 can be a little disappointing in standard mode with very dark photos. You can activate night mode that solves part of the problem. It recovers lost details in the shadows and even in the sky, but in return, it ends up cutting the image to just 12 MP. The feature works best indoors and is really worth using. The front is the same camera that we saw on the Galaxy A51e, as expected, the quality is similar.

Despite taking good pictures, we expected more from the A71 as it is a more expensive phone. There are two zoom modes and the one that brings you closer ends up cropping the image to just 8 MP. The portrait mode works decently. Sometimes he takes some of the hair and the tips of the ears, but the separation with the background and the blur level is within the acceptable range. The A71 records videos in 4K resolution with the main, ultra-wide and front camera. The quality of the footage is very good and should not be for rivals. The highlight is the Super Steady technology, which greatly reduces shaking but is limited to Full HD resolution. The wide-angle camera has inferior quality in the filming and the colors are more washed. The frontal one does its job, despite shaking more. The audio capture is very good.

Is it worth exchanging the A70 for the A71? Both share the same build quality, screen and sound - despite the more powerful hardware, the new is not faster but at least it’s better for games. The biggest evolution is for the cameras but paying extra money for that is not worth it for now. Even more with the Galaxy S10 costing almost the same and having much more to offer. You can expect the price of the A71 to drop or look for more affordable alternatives like the Mi 9T from Xiaomi, which has similar hardware and delivers the same performance, greater autonomy and even slightly better cameras. But you will have to give up the macro camera and also the micro SD slot. If the camera is so important to you, there is the Mi Note 10 that can be found today at the same price as the A71. It has a 108 MP sensor that records more details and its battery lasts much longer than the Samsung model. Although it also has Snapdragon 730, it ends up being slower due to the lack of MIUI optimization but this can be fixed if Xiaomi wants to.

■ OS and Hardware

Galaxy A71 comes out of the box with Android 10 and the new version of the Samsung interface that does not bring so many changes compared to what we saw in the first generation. Samsung replaced the Snapdragon 675 with the Snapdragon 730 to ensure greater performance for the A71. Despite being stronger hardware, in our speed test, it performed the same as before Which may indicate that One UI 2.0 still needs minor adjustments to take advantage of the potential of the ensemble. This is clear especially in benchmarks, where we saw a considerable difference in scores. In AnTuTu, it even gave 70 thousand more points for the latest model. One point that the A70 disappointed a little was in the fluidity of some games and that didn't happen with the A71. All the titles we tested ran as expected, staying on the same level as others with Snapdragon 730. Only PUBG with graphics quality below the A51.

In addition to the improvements in navigation gestures, an interesting feature present is the Edge Screen, which is also available on the Galaxy A51. It's the same feature that's been around for years in Samsung's flagships what it does is allow and create shortcuts for applications, perform actions, access tools among others, by just sliding on the edge. You can choose what to add in these shortcuts and how far on the screen they will be. This helps a lot to have a better multitasking experience with the A71.

Other features are the same as others in the A series, such as dark theme support which reduces eye strain when using your phone at night and also helps save battery thanks to the AMOLED screen that turns off the pixels in black. Background tasks are running fantastic, everything is working great, I absolutely love this phone. I don’t know if you can tell but if I am judging based on the performance alone you should absolutely buy this device.

■ Battery

The 4500 mAh battery was maintained but as we now have more powerful hardware it ends up lasting a little less than before. It is a small difference and this does not impact the optimal autonomy of the A71. If you unplug your phone when you wake up, you only need to recharge it at noon the next day this in moderate use. Even if you abuse the brightness of the screen, watch many videos or play a lot, it will still pay off until the end of the day. The curious thing is that although we have the same charger as before to fill the same battery size the recharge time ended up dropping by almost 20 minutes. It seems that Samsung has optimized the software to make better use of the 25-Watt charger.

■Gaming Performance

Let's briefly touch on gaming performance of galaxy A71, this is where I was super impressed with the A71 because even after playing a lot of games for several hours the back panel barely got warm even after two consecutive games of PUBG, the back panel remained fairly cool. All types of high graphics game like PUBG mobile, Call of Duty runs on this device smoothly.

■ Our Verdict

The Galaxy A71 is a good phone with an inflated price. As is typical of Samsung launches, its value will drop dramatically in the coming months. But for the price that is now at launch, it is better to go to some older flagship of the brand, like the Galaxy S10, for example. Anyway, we expected a greater advance from one generation to the next as a screen with HDR support, stereo speaker, higher performance and battery. But what you're going to get is just a better set of cameras.

If you already have the Galaxy A70 then you can skip the A71, but if you're looking for a new device and are interested in it, it's worth waiting for a better price. And of course, we help you find the best deals! Just comment below what you thought of the evolution of the A71 in relation to the A70.

Samsung Galaxy A71 full Specifications

● Network
2G bands	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 - SIM 1 & SIM 2
3G bands	HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
4G bands	LTE band 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 28, 38, 40, 41, 66
Speed	HSPA 42.2/5.76 Mbps
GPRS	Yes
EDGE	Yes
● OS & Hardware
OS	Android 10 Samsung One UI 2.0
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 (8nm)
Chipset	Octa-core (2x2.2 GHz  & 6x1.8 GHz)
GPU	Adreno 618
● Design
Dimensions	163.6×76×7.7 mm (6.44×2.99×0.30 in)
Weight	179 g (6.31 oz)
Build	Glass front (Gorilla Glass 3),Plastic back,Plastic frame
Colors	Prism Crush Blue, Black, Silver
● Display
Type	Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Screen Size	6.7"inch FHD+ sAMOLED Display
Resolution	1080 x 2400 pixels (~393 ppi pixel density)
Multitouch	Yes
Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Sensors	Accelerometer, Proximity, Fingerprint (under display, optical), Gyro, Compass
● Memory
Card slot	microSD (dedicated slot), up to 512 GB
Internal	128 GB
RAM	6GB / 8GB
● Camera
Rear	64MP, f/1.8, (wide) 12MP, f/2.2, (ultrawide) 5 MP, f/2.4, (macro) 5 MP, f/2.2, (depth)
Front	32MP (f/2.2)
Features	LED flash, panorama, HDR
Video	4K@30fps, 1080p@30/240fps, 1080p@960fps;gyro-EIS
● Multimedia
Music play	Yes
Radio	FM Radio
Games	Yes
Alert types	Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
Loudspeaker	Yes
3.5mm jack	Yes
● Battery & Power
Type	Non-removable Li-Ion 4500 mAh battery
Charging	25W Fast charging USB Type C
Fast Charge	Yes
● Expected Price
US Dollor	$368.88
Bangladeshi Taka	BDT 42,000 (For 8/128 GB varient)
Indian Rs.	Rs. 32,999 (For 6/128 GB varient, Prism Crush Blue, Black), Rs. 34,999 (For 8/128 GB varient, Prism Crush Silver)