Samsung Galaxy A71 review
The Galaxy A line from Samsung is known for the fine
relationship between hardware, features, and price. The A70 was well received
last year and now we have started working on the new A71. In this Samsung
Galaxy A71 review from Android Planet, you can read everything about the
smartphone.
Check the Samsung Galaxy A71 review
The Samsung Galaxy A71 was presented at the start of this
year with a suggested retail price of 523$. That is seven decades higher than
the suggested retail price of the Galaxy A70 last year. The Galaxy A51,
presented at the same time, has a suggested retail price of 369 euros and an
extensive review on Android Planet was published earlier on that device. You
can read about the plus and minus points of the A71 and our final assessment in
this review.
Nice design, but fingerprint sensitive
Samsung releases the A71 in various colors, including blue,
silver and black. We have tested the latter and what is immediately striking
about this device is the good screen. With a diagonal of 6.7 inches, that can
be called large, but the device has narrow screen edges. The small camera hole
in the screen does not detract from the design.
The back has a kind of pattern and that is a nice twist.
What is less, is the choice for a finish of the back, which is very fingerprint
sensitive. You quickly associate that with cheap and that is certainly not the
device. The bottom offers space for the single speaker, USB-C port and
headphone jack.
The device also has room for two SIM cards and a micro SD
memory card, which are nice extras. The on/off button and volume buttons can be
found on the right. The device may have a large screen, but due to the small
thickness of 7.7 millimeters, the device fits perfectly in the hand. You don't
see a fingerprint scanner, simply because it is processed on the screen. It
works pretty well, but it often happened that I still had to scan my thumb a
second time.
Almond screen as we are used to
The screen is 6.7 inches in size, has a resolution of 2400
by 1080 pixels and an AMOLED panel has been chosen. Samsung has been producing
those screens for years and it shows. The colors are very beautiful, the
contrast is high and the brightness is also fine. All in all, enjoying the
weather is blown during a movie or series. The screen is also fine for reading
articles, checking websites or viewing photos.
Just like with the new Samsung Galaxy S20 series, we see a
small hole in the screen, placed in the middle. That is one of the solutions
for the use of front cameras today and as far as I am concerned this is not a
problem. Personally, I prefer to see the placement in the upper left corner of
the screen. I regularly watch a movie and then turn my device to use it
horizontally. In that case, the camera hole would be at the bottom; just a bit
nicer.
Other hardware is fine, but not for this price
The processor is the Snapdragon 730, a great chip in terms
of performance. What bothers me is that it can also be found in some devices
that cost considerably less. You see the biggest difference with the Xiaomi Mi
9T whose current price is around 300 euros. The 6GB RAM and 128GB internal
storage are also not really groundbreaking. In practice, this combination
provides a device that can handle everything easily.
Multitasking is no problem and also having multiple tabs
open in Chrome is fine. Even a game of Asphalt or Call of Duty: Mobile does not
cause any problems, but you cannot play with the best graphic performance. If
you settle for all that and do not want the best of the best, then the
performances are good.
Android 10 and OneUI 2.0 shell
Samsung delivers the Galaxy A71 directly with Android 10,
which is nice. With the good update policy of the South Korean manufacturer in
mind, we expect that Android 11 and Android 12 will also come to this device.
We also see the OneUI 2.0 shell that has been laid over
Android. That layer has since been considerably abolished compared to previous
variants but remains not my personal favorite. I still find the settings menu a
bit too cluttered, there are several apps pre-installed and the whole feels a
bit childish, for example, because of the icons.
Fortunately, you can get started with themes or of course
icon packs and other launchers. In terms of speed, a clean Android version will
do even better, but the whole feels good and that was not always the case with
Samsung devices of previous generations.
Five cameras and great pictures
You take selfies from a maximum of 32 megapixels, a nice
high resolution to capture everything in detail. Compared to the Galaxy A70,
the A71 has an extra camera on the back, which you use for macro photography.
Let's start with the primary camera with a resolution of 64
megapixels. Pictures you shoot with that have a standard resolution of 16
megapixels. For this, four pixels are fused together into one, which should
ensure a better end result. Photos taken with the primary camera look good in
terms of details. The contrast is correct, as well as color reproduction.
Functions such as a panorama mode or time lapse are also present.
There is also a wide-angle 12-megapixel lens with which you
can capture more of the surroundings. Snapshots look great and we find this one
of the nicest additions to smartphones in recent years. In terms of colors, it
is noticeable that there is little to no difference with the primary camera,
and that is sometimes different. Below an example of a photo made with the
primary camera and one with a wide-angle lens.
There is also a camera available that stores in-depth
information, which is nice for the portrait photos. An addition to the A71 is
the macro camera, with which you can photograph objects up close.
That is a nice feature and makes the L-shaped camera set-up
complete, but the functionality is somewhat limited. The resolution is not too
high at 5 megapixels and the focus is also quite narrow. So you have to feel
just how far you have to keep the device from the object to be photographed, in
order to take a sharp photo.
Battery of a workhorse
The Galaxy A71 has the same battery capacity as last year's
A70: 4500 mAh. You can easily get through a day, even if you use the device
intensively. When we were walking around with the device, we never had to
recharge the device during the day, and that's a good idea. With less intensive
use, for example during the weekend, it was also sufficient to charge the
device every two days.
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