Friends+Design
- Crushingly beautiful 'Prism' design, as soon as the light hits the back, there is a captivating blast of colours - it's a stunning view for sure!
- It is a pleasure to hold, handle, and use as a daily driver - the frame provides just enough grip to make it secure in hand, while the slim profile helps in keeping it pocket and one-hand friendly
- It manages to stay quite slim and lightweight (by today's standards) - the Galaxy A71 is just 7mm thin and weighs 179g
- In-display fingerprint sensor is neither the fastest nor the more accurate
Display
- Absolutely gorgeous, 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display, with a tiny punch-hole camera and a near bezel-less design - you get vibrant colours and perfect inky blacks, as well as good sunlight legibility
- Video viewing and gaming experience on the giant display is an absolute delight - as far as media consumption goes, this is simply one of the best phones out there, period
Software
- Running the Galaxy A71 is Samsung's OneUI 2 on Android 10 - which, as far as Android UIs go, is one of the most refined, well thought-out experiences
- There are many useful add-ons on board - like gesture navigation, and a great 'dark' mode
- Samsung Pay makes the cut too, making this the cheapest phone to sport the full version of the payments app, which will be especially useful if your transactions largely rely on card payments
Performance
- Good performance backed by the powerful Snapdragon 730 SoC, 8 GB of RAM, and super fast UFS storage - everything from daily use to complex games like PUBG is fairly smooth (add that to the ridiculously wide display, and all gamers are in for a treat)
- Having said that, there are certainly even better performing competitors around, like the realme X2 Pro with it's top of the line Snapdragon 855 Plus CPU
Camera
- Good quad-camera setup on the back with a primary 64MP sensor, a secondary ultra-wide 12MP shooter, a 5MP Macro and a 5MP depth sensor
- The default 16MP photos from primary camera are good - detail is enough, dynamic range is very good, the colours are lively and saturated and the noise reduction works well
- The new 12MP ultra-wide camera is a notable upgrade over the old 8MP shooter in the Galaxy A70s in both resolution and picture quality - there is more detail, better sharpness, the colours are punchy, and, of course, you can fit a lot more in the frame
- The Galaxy A71 shoots good portraits, subject detection and separation are very good, and the blur looks just right
- Low light photos are decent from both primary and ultra-wide cameras and the night mode helps further in getting more light and reducing noise
- Good video recording performance with good detail levels, including some impressive slow-mo video recording with great stabilisation
- Good front camera - the 32-megapixel sensor does a good job with nice colours and wide dynamic range, the details are quite good as far as selfie cameras go
- The 5MP macro camera is average, it has fixed focus so getting the focus right is difficult and the final output isn't that great
- Overall, for the price bracket, the camera package on the Galaxy A71 is good, but not the best - you will find better camera phones in the competition
Audio
- The bundled in-ear earphones, when paired with Dolby Atmos, makes for a pretty good audio experience
- The loudspeaker is decent (though not exceptional)
Battery
- Very good battery life with a large 4500 mAh battery - it will comfortably last you a day or more, even with that large display
- There is also fast charging on-board, with the included 25W charger it takes 81 minutes for a full charge
Verdict
- The Galaxy A71 is a good all-rounder and a tangible upgrade over the A70s - the large, beautiful Super AMOLED display + the big battery + Dolby Atmos support - make for an excellent media consumption device
- Having said that, both realme and Xiaomi are bringing meaningful innovation to their phone, be it higher watt charging, smooth display or top of the line performance, things which are not seen in the Galaxy A71 - in their comparison, the Galaxy A71 get a little overshadowed
