Sing: “Awesome screen. Awesome camera. Long-lasting battery life.” Repeat. And repeat again. Because that’s what the new phone from Samsung offers. The successor to the very successful A70, Galaxy A71 is full of awesomeness straight out of the box, be it in way of looks, size or heft. Here’s what we thought about the phone after a week’s usage.
The design
Opening the box, the first thing one notices is the 6.7-inch FHD+ sAMOLED Plus Infinity-O display; straight off the bat, the user is reminded of the company’s flagship phones. Yes, there is plastic on the back but that doesn’t compromise the premium feel and neither is the phone slippery. The combination of curved-edge screen and the rainbow pattern that’s formed when light falls on the back panel, gives the phone a playful tone. The first improvement over the A70 is the fingerprint scanner, which is more accurate and faster. The second brownie point is the rectangular camera module on the back, which is becoming a feature on the latest Samsung phones. It makes the device standout.
The camera
Speaking of the camera module, the A71 comes with a quad camera set-up on the rear — 64MP (main camera) + 12MP (ultra-wide camera) + 5MP (depth camera) + 5MP (macro camera) while on the front is a 32MP shooter. That sure is big megapixel counts.
In the past, anything over 16MP on the main camera has been a problem because more megapixels mean they are tightly packed on the sensor, allowing less light to come in, resulting in more noise. Samsung uses pixel binning. This means four individual pixels are grouped together to form a bigger pixel. So the 64MP camera would give an output of 16MP. But the pictures come out clear, full of details and colour reproduction is just perfect.
Samsung is also doing a better job now with low-light photos. There is very little noise in night-time shots while artificial lighting is handled well. The bokeh or ‘live focus’-mode shots have also improved because of the high-resolution sensor. On a personal note, I keep the screen optimiser off while taking portraits because face-smoothing is not something I like. We have seen the dedicated macro camera on Samsung Galaxy phones lately. Here we have a 5MP shooter, which works very well when taking close-up shots, especially of flowers. Having said that, it’s not a feature one would use all the time. There is also super slow-mo and regular slow motion video recording, besides 4K video recording.
(The Telegraph)
Coming to the front, the 32MP shooter is among the best selfie cameras in the market. It captures all the details on one’s face and the night mode support has zero complaints. The company has also included some of its flagship phone features, like AR Doodle.
Performance
Powered by Snapdragon 730 (8nm) octa-core processor, it’s a chip that helps AI-powered processing and imagery. Not only that, it’s built to handle some of the most sophisticated on-device interactions while addressing battery life of which there is plenty on the A71 (4,500 mAh with 25W super-fast charging). With 8GB of RAM, there is zero lag and switching between tasks offers no problem. While playing games was not a hassle, the issue I have is with the selection of pre-loaded apps. Why Helo, Daily Hunt or even Candy Crush Saga?
Coming back to battery life, it’s stellar. On a single charge, we were able to use the phone a full day, which included music streaming, gaming and video editing. To pump the battery up from zero to 100, it took around 75 minutes. When it comes to audio, it’s loud enough to fill a room and there is zero distortion. And the 3.5mm headphone jack has been retained.
Verdict
What makes the phone standout is what it promises: Awesome screen. Awesome camera. Long-lasting battery life. It’s that simple. The Samsung Galaxy A71 does everything you need. It’s a versatile, rock-steady performer.
