Samsung Galaxy A71 5G review: Affordable 5G that doesn’t feel cheap

About this Samsung Galaxy A71 5G review: We spent a workweek using the A71 5G on T-Mobile ’ sulfur net. It was running Android 10 with One UI 2.1 and the May 2020 security system eyepatch. Samsung supplied the review unit to Android Authority.

What’s the Galaxy A71 5G like?

Eric Zeman / Android Authority

• Aluminum frame
• Plastic rear
• 162.3 x 71 x 9mm
• 184.8g

• 6.7-in Super AMOLED Plus
• 2,400 x 1,080 FHD+
• 20:9 aspect ratio
• Infinity-O

The Galaxy A production line has evolved over the years to develop a look and feel that ’ s distinct from the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. The Galaxy A71 looks a bite like a brick and feels like one excessively — but in a adept means. The phone is bombastic, with squared-off shoulders and feet. It boldly owns the orthogonal obsidian slab that it is. It ’ randomness about the same size as the Galaxy Note 20, believe it or not . Eric Zeman / Android Authority Curved glass covers the front of the expose and it slides into the alloy frame expertly. The frame wraps all the way around the knocked out edges of the telephone. A fictile panel covers the binding of the telephone. It has a glass-like paint speculate. Samsung gave it a two-tone search that changes as you move the earphone about. It ’ second kind of neat. Shame the slick blue coating is so prone to collecting fingerprints and dust .
See also: The best Samsung phones A large television camera faculty adorns the amphetamine left corner of the rear, where you ’ ll touch four lenses and a flaunt. It mimics the count of the camera modules of the Galaxy S20 series, but is not closely as brassy or oversized . Eric Zeman / Android Authority Samsung positioned the screen lock button and volume toggle on the right edge of the call. These buttons worked well. The SIM tray is tucked into the top border, and you ’ ll find a USB-C port, earphone jack, and speaker grille on the bed border. estimable, simpleton stuff here from Samsung. The 6.7-inch Super AMOLED Plus display looks quite good. The solution is more than adequate to flesh out the content you ’ ll consume on the screen. Everything looked bright, astute, and color-rich. You can tone things down a sting via the settings if you wish. Viewing angles were good . Eric Zeman / Android Authority It ’ randomness no 120Hz, Quad HD beast, but it doesn ’ t need to be. It ’ s all the blind most people will ever need. An optical fingerprint scanner is hidden under the methamphetamine. I found it was slowly to train, but it was a bit hit or miss when it came to unlocking the telephone .

Is it fast? Is battery life any good?

• Snapdragon 765G
• 6GB RAM
• 128GB storage
• microSD to 1TB

• 4,500mAh lithium ion
• 18W charging
• No wireless charging

The Samsung Galaxy A71 5G may not have a top-of-the-line chip aboard, but it has the following best thing. The Snapdragon 765G is no slouch and serves the device well. We ran the usual benchmark and found it to systematically run better than about two-thirds of the catalog of devices in the AnTuTu and GeekBench 4 databases. In the real worldly concern, the telephone felt dapper and agile. not once did the call ever feel bogged down or slow, and I saw no bumble or lagging within apps or screen transitions. I tried several games, including Fortnite, and they all ran well, though not at the highest settings. Bottom line, the Snapdragon 765G is more than enough processor for this call .
Related: The best Samsung Galaxy A72 cases On the battery front man, the 4,500mAh might cell does a admirably occupation pushing the phone through more than a full day. Under typical function, the phone easily lasted me 1.5 days. even on days that I cranked up the brightness or play lots of games, it managed to have 20 % or more left in the tank at the end of the day. Screen-on clock generally measured good under seven hours. The telephone supports 18W charge, which is adequate in this monetary value range. In our tests, the earphone charged to 43 % in 30 minutes, 78 % in 60 minutes, and took about 90 minutes to reach 100 %. Those are competitive numbers, all things considered .

How’s the camera?

Eric Zeman / Android Authority

• Main: 64MP
• Ultra-wide: 12MP
• Macro: 5MP

• Depth: 5MP
• Selfie: 32MP
• Video: 4K at 30fps

It ’ s great to see a quad-camera array on a $ 550 telephone, though I ’ five hundred have preferred to see Samsung skip the macro and go with a telephotograph alternatively. otherwise, it ’ s a pretty standard frame-up .
Read more: The best budget television camera phones you can buy Out of the box, the phone shoots binned-down 16MP images. You have to manually select the full 64MP resolution if you want to use it. otherwise, you can shoot in several unlike aspect ratios, including the full 21:9 blind for that cinema-like telescope. The app offers the usual sets of shooting modes, including pro, panorama, food, night, macro, super slow-mo, boring gesture, and hyperlapse .
The main camera does a fine problem snagging decent-looking photos. I was pleased with pungency and focus, though results showed the distinctive Samsung coloring material profile — which is to say a touch oversaturated. You ’ ll see a bite more noise when shooting in 64MP modality, but it ’ s not crying. HDR performance was solid, but could do better to brighten up those colored spots .
The ultra-wide lens fires off shots at 123 degrees. There ’ s a short ocular distortion visible in the photograph, but it lone adds to the ultra-wide effect. I like the drama possible with ultra-wide shots. At 12MP, the detector does a sanely full job. There ’ mho a act more sharpen visible in the concluding results than the independent television camera, and the image is reasonably noisy. last, dark regions are underexpose . Eric Zeman / Android Authority I ’ m hush confused as to why telephone makers think people want macro cameras, but the A71 has one however. I found that getting the focus you want could be a bit long-winded when shooting stuff such as flowers, but at least the results are colorful .
Samsung did well to include a depth television camera to assist those all-important portraits. Shooting portraits of others was satisfying, though edge detection wasn ’ t quite perfective. The bokeh fall off looked quite good .
exchangeable to the main camera, the 32MP selfie camera bins down to 8MP for regular shoot. You have to manually select the higher pixel count if you want it. Either way, the shots are fine. I found results to be in concentrate, with reasonably beneficial color, and minimal noise or sharpen. The majority of people will be pleased with their shots. last, video recording. The A71 shoots at several unlike resolutions, with the utmost adjust at 4K at 30fps. The footage I shot was average in terms of quality. You can opt for Full HD at 60fps, which looks smooth, adenine well as 21:9 film manner. Bottom production line, adenine long as you ’ re in good ignite you should be pleased with what you see. Full-resolution samples are available here .

Things I like about the A71

Eric Zeman / Android Authority

• 5G: The phone supports T-Mobile’s 5G network and we saw excellent performance there. While speeds were not as wholly impressive over the sub-6GHz network as we’ve seen on mmWave 5G, the A71 5G delivered download speeds that were consistently above 50Mbps just about everywhere we took it.
• Headphone jack: Most flagships eschew the headphone jack, but this mid-ranger has one!
• Build quality: The phone is solid and tougher than an all-glass device.
• Expandable storage: The A71 supports microSD cards up to 1TB.

Things I don’t like

• The size: It is a bit big, almost as big as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.
• The weight: Though plastic rear panels are typically lighter than glass, this phone weighs a ton.
• Macro: Why the macro camera and not a telephoto camera, Samsung? Why?
• Bloatware: The phone is loaded with T-Mobile bloatware. While it runs One UI 2.1 out of the box, this can now be updated to One UI 3.

Samsung Galaxy A71 5G specs

Galaxy A01Galaxy A11Galaxy A21Galaxy A51Galaxy A51 5GGalaxy A71 5GDisplay
Galaxy A01 :5.7-inch TFT
1,560 x 720
Infinity-V
Galaxy A11 :6.4-inch TFT
1,560 x 720
Infinity-O
Galaxy A21 :6.5-inch OLED
HD+
Infinity-O
Galaxy A51 :6.5-inch OLED
2,400 x 1,080
Infinity-O
Galaxy A51 5G :6.5-inch OLED
2,400 x 1,080
Infinity-O
Galaxy A71 5G :6.7-inch OLED
2,400 x 1,080
Infinity-O
ROM
Galaxy A01 :16GB
Galaxy A11 :32GB
Galaxy A21 :32GB
Galaxy A51 :128GB
Galaxy A51 5G :128GB
Galaxy A71 5G :128GB
RAM
Galaxy A01 :2GB
Galaxy A11 :2GB
Galaxy A21 :3GB
Galaxy A51 :4GB
Galaxy A51 5G :

6GB
Galaxy A71 5G :6GB
Battery
Galaxy A01 :3,000mAh
7.75W
Galaxy A11 :4,000mAh
15W
Galaxy A21 :4,000mAh
15W
Galaxy A51 :4,000mAh
15W
Galaxy A51 5G :4,500mAh
15W
Galaxy A71 5G :4,500mAh
25W
Rear Cameras
Galaxy A01 :13MP
2MP
Galaxy A11 :13MP
5MP
2MP
Galaxy A21 :16MP
8MP
2MP
2MP
Galaxy A51 :48MP
12MP
5MP
5MP
Galaxy A51 5G :48MP
12MP
5MP
5MP
Galaxy A71 5G :64MP
12MP
5MP
5MP
Front Camera
Galaxy A01 :5MP
Galaxy A11 :8MP
Galaxy A21 :13MP
Galaxy A51 :32MP
Galaxy A51 5G :32MP
Galaxy A71 5G :32MP
Fingerprint
Galaxy A01 :None
Galaxy A11 :Rear
Galaxy A21 :Rear
Galaxy A51 :In-Display
Galaxy A51 5G :In-Display
Galaxy A71 5G :In-Display
Connection
Galaxy A01 :4G
Galaxy A11 :4G
Galaxy A21 :4G
Galaxy A51 :4G
Galaxy A51 5G :5G
Galaxy A71 5G :5G
Price
Galaxy A01 :$109.99
Galaxy A11 :$179.99
Galaxy A21 :$249.99
Galaxy A51 :$399.99
Galaxy A51 5G :$499.99
Galaxy A71 5G :$599.99
Available
Galaxy A01 :April 9
Galaxy A11 :Summer
Galaxy A21 :Summer
Galaxy A51 :April 9
Galaxy A51 5G :Summer
Galaxy A71 5G :Summer

Value and competition

Eric Zeman / Android Authority

• Samsung Galaxy A71 5G (6GB RAM, 128GB storage): — $599.99

The master price of this earphone was $ 599.99, and right now it is still selling for broad price. It offers a big, attractive display, bouncing operation, solid television camera, and excellent battery liveliness in an attractive and well-built slab. The competition in this monetary value stove, however, is ferocious. For $ 200 less, you can score the Google Pixel 4a, which is decidedly smaller, but it has a similar chipset and operation. then there ’ s the OnePlus Nord, which has shaken things up in the mid-range in Europe. death, there ’ s the Apple iPhone SE ( 2020 ) if you ’ d rather go with io. You can ’ metric ton go amiss with any of these devices, though each has pros and cons. If you want 5G or a big filmdom, the Pixel 4a 5G is a fantastic alternative for a similar price. Looking for something smaller and cheaper ? Try the Pixel 4a. Looking for something that ’ s a draw better for a fiddling more money ? Go with the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE .

Samsung Galaxy A71 5G review: Should you buy it?

Eric Zeman / Android Authority Samsung did a bang-up job crafting an appealing musical composition of hardware that covers the basics and then some. That said, we think the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is a better phone tied if it ’ second more expensive .
Samsung Galaxy A71 5G Samsung ‘s most low-cost 5G call. Looking for a 5G earphone but do n’t want to break the $ 1,000 barrier ? The Galaxy A71 5G offers the focal ratio you need at a price you love without feeling bum. $ 599.00 at Samsung $ 599.00 at T-Mobile $ 599.00 at AT & T