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Samsung Galaxy A70 vs A71 – Huge Camera Upgrade // Galaxy A71 Review

by Henry O

March 29, 2020 2

The Samsung Galaxy A70 was a great value smartphone from Samsung in 2019 and it really took off as its sales were huge for Samsung. Samsung knew they had something going on here and decided to top the Galaxy A70 with the A71 and top it up they did.

The A71 is a beautiful, classy looking smartphone that follows the design language of the Samsung Galaxy S20 family. It boasts a Snapdragon 730 processors, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, a 6.7Inch Super AMOLED Plus display, a 4300 mah battery and it comes running Android 10 with Samsungs OneUI 2.0 out of the box.

The A71 is upgraded in every way over the Galaxy A70. it’s a pleasure to hold and use. Despite the 6.7-inch display and 4,500 mAh battery, the A71 is sleek and light. There’s plastic on the back, but the phone feels premium while not being slippery as a phone with a glass back. It also looks striking – the rear panel has thin stripes running from the top to bottom and a couple of lines running across diagonally. When the light hits the back panel, it creates a beautiful rainbowish pattern across those stripes.

The display is beautiful as well. You’ve got vivid colors (with the option to switch to a more natural look), deep blacks, wide viewing angles, and excellent brightness levels. Thanks to the Infinity-O screen, the bezels have been reduced, and the punch hole for the front camera looks better than the U-shaped camera cutout we saw on the Galaxy A70’s display. A smaller punch hole would have been nice, though.

Camera

The Galaxy A71’s 64MP primary camera takes 16MP photos using pixel binning, and when the lighting is right, you get really beautiful pictures. Compared with photos from the A70 you can tell that the A71 has been given a really hugh upgrade in its cameras. There’s a lot of detail in daylight shots and good dynamic range. Color reproduction is also faithful to real life in most cases. Nighttime shots come out noisy/grainy, though, and the dedicated Night mode tends to focus on increasing the detail in dark objects rather than controlling noise levels. That said, with good artificial lighting, the photos are pleasing and look pretty good, at least on the phone’s display. Bokeh shots using the Live Focus feature also look excellent thanks to the high-resolution sensor.

The Galaxy A71 has all the fancy Android 10 and One UI 2.0 features that you find on Samsung’s flagship phones. The built-in screen recorder let you record on-screen content with a single tap, Bixby Routines lets you automate various tasks on your phone, and Edge screen lets you quickly access apps and other functionality by swiping in from the edge of the display. You also get full Samsung Pay support.

Other features, like Link to Windows for one-touch connection to Microsoft’s Your Phone Companion app on a PC, side key customization to select what the power key does on a double or long press, and Game Booster for various in-game functionality (such as changing whether the phone focuses on performance or power saving) are also present. Standard Galaxy features like Dual Messenger, themes support, and Always On Display are included as well.

A71 Verdict

I loved the Galaxy A70, and the Galaxy A71 brings some sweet upgrades. Its performance is notably better thanks to the newer Snapdragon chip, the display has been upgraded to an Infinity-O panel, there’s a higher-resolution main camera and a macro camera at the back, and you get Android 10 and One UI 2.0 out of the box. The A71’s design is excellent, and there’s not a lot it doesn’t do well.

A dual louder speaker would have been nice to see, and the low-light camera performance leaves something to be desired as far as noise levels are concerned, but these aren’t deal-breakers. A beautiful display, fast performance, mostly good cameras, crazy long battery life and equally fast charging, and the latest software make the Galaxy A71 a well rounded upper mid-range smartphone that you can’t go wrong with.