Samsung Galaxy A71 Review: Is this premium Samsung smartphone with newer design and great cameras worth buying at Rs.29999?

Samsung Galaxy A71 with the Snapdragon 730 and a great set of cameras.

Samsung has been going good with the A series with the Galaxy A50 and Galaxy A70 in the mid-range and premium segment last year. Then it came with the Galaxy A50s and Galaxy A70s with some minor upgrades. This year Samsung came up with the newer series with the Lite and A series namely the Galaxy A51 and the Galaxy A71.

The Galaxy A71 comes with a huge screen and newer design which is the punch-hole display, then there is a newer chipset for gaming and performance and a newer set of cameras compared to its predecessor. It sits just under the newly launched Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite and the Note 10 Lite launched in January. The smartphone has been launched at Rs.29999 which seems good value so let us head to the complete review and see is it worth buying this smartphone for Rs.29999.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Design:

Samsung has packed the Galaxy A71 with a huge screen 6.7 inches with minimum bezels to the side. Just like the Galaxy S10 Lite and the Note 10 Lite, the Galaxy A71 has a punch-hole display on the front. 

The ambient light sensor sits behind the display and the earpiece is a very thin strip that sits on top of the front camera.

The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which is good and coming to the back, it is made of a combination of glass and plastic called Glastic which makes the smartphone feel premium while holding in hand. 

The edges around the smartphone are slightly curved which fits the hands easily. The back has a Prism effect of different colors.

Especially the Prism Crush Black model looks attractive and like all Samsung smartphones in 2020 you get a rectangular frame housing the four cameras with a LED flash. 

The sides of the smartphone feel tactile and in right, you get the volume controls with the power button and on the left, there is a SIM card slot with a dedicated microSD card slot.

At the bottom, lies a USB Type-C port that has support for fast charging with the loudspeaker vent, and thankfully Samsung has kept the 3.5mm headphone jack which most of the manufacturers do not provide in today's smartphones.

The Galaxy A71 has a P2i nano-coating at the back which means it is splash-proof. It does miss out on a LED notification light but the Always On Display does the job.
Overall this newer design of the Galaxy A71 looks and feels premium.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Display:

The newer display with the punch hole cut out looks excellent with very thin bezels to the side. The Galaxy A70 and the A70s had a Super AMOLED display but here the Galaxy A71 gets a Super AMOLED Plus display. 

The resolution is Full HD+ and has a screen to body ratio of 20:9 with that massive 6.7 inches screen. The Super AMOLED panel provides great viewing angles and with AMOLED you get punchier colors especially the level of blues and blacks look great in the display.

The screen is easily visible under direct sunlight and switching to the outdoor mode does increase some brightness a little bit. Coming at night, the screen can be viewed easily and the blue light filter cuts some light from the screen.

The smartphone doesn't have support for HDR10 certification which is a very sore feature considering the price point at which it is offered. However, there is support for Widevine L1 which means you can easily consume HD content from Amazon Prime, Hotstar, etc. 

The display has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is fast and accurate but still compared to other smartphones it is a bit slower. Face recognition works very well too.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Performance:

On the performance side, the Galaxy A71 packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 chipset which is found on the Xiaomi Redmi K20. The Snapdragon 730 is a good powerful chipset and there is another Snapdragon 730G which does duties on the Realme X2 and the newly launched POCO X2 is slightly powerful thus providing better GPU performance.

The change from the Snapdragon 675 on the Galaxy A70s to the Snapdragon 730 on the Galaxy A71 seems to be a good upgrade. The Snapdragon 730 has 2x2.2 GHz Kryo 470 Gold cores based on ARM Cortex A76 and another 6x1.8 GHz Kryo 470 Silver cores based on ARM Cortex A55 and is coupled with an Adreno 618 GPU. 

It is either paired with a 6/8GB RAM with 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage. The chipset handles all small to heavy tasks with ease. Whether it is multitasking or heavy gaming, the chipset handles all of them.

Coming to gaming, all heavy games like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty ran smoothly but switching to Ultra graphics settings in PUBG, there were minor frame drops noticed but didn't affect the whole gaming experience. All other games ran fine and the smartphone didn't feel warm.

Running synthetic benchmarks like Antutu 8, the Galaxy A71 scored 264579 which is good for a Snapdragon 730 chipset, and in Geekbench 5, the single-core score was 542 and the multi-core score was 1733 thus providing good results.

Since the chipset is built on an 8nm process which helps in achieving good power efficiency thus providing good battery life which will be discussed in the later section.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Software:

All the newer Samsung smartphones in 2020 run OneUI 2.0 built on top of Android 10. It is similar to the Galaxy A71. OneUI 2.0 brings many improvements to the table which includes the system-wide dark mode, with Android 10 there are new navigation gestures and it also brings improvements to the camera modes like Pro and Night.

The notification toggle is much more convenient to use than before. Then like other high-end Galaxy smartphones, there is edge lighting and some of the applications can be accessed by swiping from the right edge of the display. 

Plus the Samsung Pay is present with full MST where you can just carry all information of your credit/debit cards and use it in public places for payment.

The overall software feels smooth and is a major upgrade over the previous OneUI and TouchWiz from the past. OneUI is also providing faster security updates some of which we haven't expected from Samsung in the past.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Camera:

The Samsung Galaxy A70s came with a 64MP main camera with an 8MP ultrawide camera and 5MP depth sensor. This year with the Galaxy A71 you get an additional 5MP macro sensor. So total there are four cameras to the back: 64MP f/1.8 Samsung ISOCELL Bright GW1 main camera, 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera instead of 8MP on the Galaxy A70s, a 5MP macro camera, and a 5MP depth sensor.

The camera application is quite intuitive to use and you get all the usual modes. Swiping vertically you can switch between the front and rear cameras. There is also a Pro mode that has many settings to tweak with it and by default, there is a Scene Optimizer that is turned on for various scene detections and can be turned off.

Coming to the main 64MP camera, the photos taken during daylight have good details with vibrant colors. The contrast and exposure work well for almost all photos. There is also a dedicated 64MP mode that uses the Quad-Bayer sensor resulting in 16MP photos using pixel binning. The photos come out well with each and every detail.

During the night, the lack of OIS does hurt but still, the camera takes good photos but the level of details in shadows seems to be washed out. Using HDR mode or the dedicated Night Mode does take good photos with plenty of detail and vibrant colors.

This time there is a 12MP ultrawide camera that has a wider field of view compared to the 8MP one on the Galaxy A70s. There is much better detail, wider dynamic range and the exposure in the background works well. The HDR mode also works really well and the photos come out more realistic.

There is also support for the Night Mode for the ultrawide camera and the photos taken to have good details with less noise in the background. The wider field of view helps capture more details and brings each detail into the picture.

The 5MP macro camera takes some very good photos and has a fixed focal length of 5cms. There is good color saturation but does lose some details compared to some 2MP macro cameras. However, the background blur is well maintained and the edge detection works well.

Coming to the 5MP depth camera, the portrait photos come out good with proper background blur and edge detection. However, you can adjust the background blur after clicking a photo which is a good feature.

On the front like the Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite, you get a 32MP f/2.2 camera which takes some very good selfies with good details and more natural-looking skin tones. There is some skin smoothening but is manageable. The contrast works well and you get a wider field of view.

Coming to portraits, Live focus mode returns which improve the background blur of the subject from the surroundings. The photos come out well with a wider dynamic range and good exposure in the background.

The Galaxy A71 can shoot 4k@30fps and the video footage isn't that good as it becomes shaky and the level of details isn't good but when switched to 1080p@60fps, the video footage comes out really good as the SuperSteady Mode kicks in and prevents shakiness in the videos. 

The dynamic range works well for 1080p videos and with the ultrawide camera, the videos come out good but lack in contrast. However, a software update in the future will fix this issue.

From the front, you can take 1080p videos which come out clear with good audio quality, and the portrait videos also work well.

With improvements in the camera, the Galaxy A71 has a very good camera setup and you can consider one under Rs.30000.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Battery Life:

Like its predecessor, the Galaxy A70s the Galaxy A71 gets the same 4500mAh battery and is bundled with a 25W fast charger. Here we can expect better battery life compared to the Galaxy A70s as the Galaxy A71 has a Snapdragon 730 which is built on the 8nm process which is more efficient compared to 11nm on the Galaxy A70s.

The smartphone can easily stretch for two days with normal to moderate usage. With heavy usage that includes 2-3 hours of PUBG gameplay, streaming HD videos from third party applications and browsing the internet the Galaxy A71 lasted for one day easily with 10 percent left.

The 25W fast charger charges the smartphone very fast. The smartphone was charged from 0 to 51 percent in the first 30 minutes and completely to 100 within 1hr 12mins which is good considering the size of the battery and the larger display.

Samsung Galaxy A71 Sound Quality:

The Galaxy A71 has a 3.5mm headphone jack which produces good sound output and the loudness level is also good. Coming to sound, it is a disappointing thing that the smartphone lacks support for stereo speakers at this price point. However, the sound output via the downwards facing loudspeaker vent is loud enough and clear. There is also support for Dolby Atmos which further enhances the sound quality.

Inside the box, you also get a pair of earphones that have good overall sound quality.

Verdict:

The Galaxy A71 is a good device to consider as like the flagship S and Note series it also gets a punch-hole display that looks stunning and as we all know Samsung AMOLED displays are worth it as you get viewing angles and color reproduction. The performance and gaming are also very good as the Snapdragon 730 handles most of the tasks easily.

The OneUI 2.0 with Android 10 onboard makes a great software experience. The battery life is also amazing on the smartphone and there is also a fast charger inside the box. The cameras are good as both the main and ultrawide cameras perform really well but the macro camera isn't so good.

Overall the package seems good for a Samsung smartphone but the only downside remains is being priced under Rs.30000 you miss out on stereo speakers which are provided on most of the mid-range smartphones. Then the display lacks support for HDR10 content.

Coming to performance, the Snapdragon 730 on the Galaxy A71 handles everything seamlessly but if you see smartphones like the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro, Realme X2 Pro which has Snapdragon 855/855+ perform better and since priced similarly are better and even outshine the Galaxy A71 in gaming. Since the Snapdragon 730 is seen in the mid-range segment with the likes of Realme and Xiaomi, the Galaxy A71 seems a little bit pricier.

If you want a premium Samsung smartphone then the Galaxy A71 will serve you better. So if you want a good display with good performance and gaming, good battery life, and smooth-running software then the Galaxy A71 is worth buying at Rs.29999 for the 8GB RAM and 128GB storage model. You can avail additional discounts through various debit and credit cards and is available in Amazon and Samsung store online.