Samsung Galaxy A71

[ian87w]

I am bidding adieu to my Honor View 10. It was a great phone. Great build quality, flagship chipset at that time (Kirin 970), awesome battery life, smooth performance. The only downside is the camera (not bad, but not great either, focus hunting is quite often especially in video mode). But since it probably won't get anymore updates, the issue with GMS, and the fact that Huawei no longer had the Honor brand in my country, I thought I better trade it in while it still have some value left. So I got myself a Samsung Galaxy A71. Add on to Samsung officially stating that they will support the A71 into their 3-year software update, imo it's an awesome deal for a mid-ranger.

Seems like most people only talk about flagships Android, that mother models like the Galaxy A lineup never get much discussions, despite them being the best seller in real life.

I'm in the middle of updating and setting it up.

Immediate first impression is, well, it's plastic. Definitely missing the aluminum feel of my Honor View 10. But cannot help it considering that Samsung even using plastic for the Note 20. The taller edge to edge screen does feel more futuristic. The View 10 is no slouch in design department with its super slim bezels and no notch, but the edge to edge screen look is definitely the way to go for 2020. Under display fingerprint sensor is not as fast as the View 10's capacitive sensor, but seems okay. Definitely fast enough and better than some older Samsung phones I tried. Performance seems alright.

Oh, and Samsung includes a USB-C charger with the A71. So I guess now I'm good if I ever want to upgrade to the iPhone 12... LOL.

Will be posting more stuff. Can't wait to try the single take feature after the update.

 

[Vegastouch]

IPhone doesn't use type C unless they are switching to it.
Yeah I like the A71. I was going to get that but it's too big and I was looking for alternatives and settled on the Pixel 4a. Not to mention it's alot cheaper than the US version A71.

 

[alex cochez]

My wife has an A80 (at the time the A71 wasn't out yet), great phone. Same CPU I believe, plenty fast.
I recommend to install GCAM (Google Camera), stable and consistent with strikingly beautiful photos.

My Note FE (a rebatched Note 7 with a different battery) is still going strong, while it got a security update only a couple of weeks ago. This is a 2016 phone.

 

[ian87w]

IPhone doesn't use type C unless they are switching to it.
Yeah I like the A71. I was going to get that but it's too big and I was looking for alternatives and settled on the Pixel 4a. Not to mention it's alot cheaper than the US version A71.

I was referring to the rumor that Apple won’t ship chargers with the iPhone 12, but will include a USB-C to lightning cable.

Since I was coming from a 6” phone (the View 10), the A71 size is not a huge difference for me. I got a decent deal with a trade in of my View 10.

And too bad Google doesn’t sell Pixel phones in my country.

 

[alex cochez]

And too bad Google doesn’t sell Pixel phones in my country.

Same here in Thailand, no Pixel phones, unfortunately. The 4a looks ideal.

 

[The_Interloper]

My wife has an A71. A lot of phone for very little money, especially combined with Samsung’s frequent promotions. They recently had 15% off phones via a code plus she traded in an old, worthless Android phone for £100. That brought the price down to a mind-boggling £256 for a brand new, AMOLED-screened phone with fast charging, a decent multi-camera setup and 3 years of updates. ?

She carries a bag and doesn’t use a tablet at all, so it’s her main casual computing device. I couldn’t live with carrying it in a pocket - 6.7” is too big to be practical, IMO - but it’s hard not to be impressed by the value on offer. Flagship prices are just looking nonsensical these days.

 

[Vegastouch]

My wife has an A71. A lot of phone for very little money, especially combined with Samsung’s frequent promotions. They recently had 15% off phones via a code plus she traded in an old, worthless Android phone for £100. That brought the price down to a mind-boggling £256 for a brand new, AMOLED-screened phone with fast charging, a decent multi-camera setup and 3 years of updates. ?

She carries a bag and doesn’t use a tablet at all, so it’s her main casual computing device. I couldn’t live with carrying it in a pocket - 6.7” is too big to be practical, IMO - but it’s hard not to be impressed by the value on offer. Flagship prices are just looking nonsensical these days.

You in the USA or elsewhere? In the US it is $600 before any discounts.

 

[MarkX]

You in the USA or elsewhere? In the US it is $600 before any discounts.

He’s in the UK.

Here without any discount or trade in the A71 is £399.

 

[The_Interloper]

Yup, UK. It was £419 on Samsung’s online store minus 15% promo code at the time. It was then another £100 trade-in for any ‘zero value’ Android phone. They even give £75 for a broken phone!!!

My father also got one for £325 with no trade-in but that via an offer on UK retailer Very. No-one should ever pay full price here for Samsung devices, they are constantly discounted somehow.

 

[Vegastouch]

Yes i can get a international A71 for around $370 but the US is $600 so im not interested in paying that much for a phone im not really that excited about because of its size. Just dont want to do a 6.7" phone. Crazy.
I hope they start making them a little smaller or at least have options for smaller ones by Samsung and others.

The Pixel 4a i ordered will still be the biggest phone ive ever had at 5.8" and there just arent many under 6" to choose from.

 

[The_Interloper]

Samsung A71 (and other A-series phones) currently have a 10% off code on Samsung's UK web site. If you can trade-in a worthless old Android phone (£100), that brings the cost of the A71 down to just over £287 inc free delivery (or £75 off for any broken phone).

You also get 6 months free Spotify Premium and a free set of AKG Y500 Bluetooth headphones. Insane value.

 

[Six0Four]

Had the A71, awesome phone for the money. The plastic back feels really solid and not hollow like some plastic phones do. That screen though is really what you're paying for and it's great, side by side with my s20+ i could't tell the difference.

 

[ian87w]

You in the USA or elsewhere? In the US it is $600 before any discounts.

I believe the US 5G version comes with a better chip than the standard LTE version that we have, so the higher price is somewhat expected. My A71 comes with SD730.

 

[ian87w]

Samsung A71 (and other A-series phones) currently have a 10% off code on Samsung's UK web site. If you can trade-in a worthless old Android phone (£100), that brings the cost of the A71 down to just over £287 inc free delivery (or £75 off for any broken phone).

You also get 6 months free Spotify Premium and a free set of AKG Y500 Bluetooth headphones. Insane value.
View attachment 947060

That’s an awesome deal. Wish Samsung threw in the AKG buds here as well

I got mine for around USD $320 after trade in and other discounts.

 

[Vegastouch]

I believe the US 5G version comes with a better chip than the standard LTE version that we have, so the higher price is somewhat expected. My A71 comes with SD730.

US version comes with the 765G...which is just the 5G chip. Not a big difference.

 

[ian87w]

Playing with the video modes for a bit today. I am finding an interesting issue.
Regular video mode on the regular lens, there is stabilization (electronic). It actually works quite well.

In the camera app, Samsung put an icon to enable "Super Steady" mode. Now one would think that in this mode, there will be more aggressive stabilization. But in reality, it's like zero stabilization. Super weird. It's already strange that in this mode, the device uses the ultra wide lens instead of the regular lens. So the resulting video is a lot worse than the regular mode. How is this "Super Steady"? I wonder if this is a bug.

 

[Sensamic]

I was about to create a thread about this phone, since I bought it 2 weeks ago and am thrilled about the choice I made.

As you guys know, I opened a thread a few weeks ago asking for advice, since I couldn't decide which new phone to get. My previous phone was a Huawei P20, which I've kept for 2 years. Got that for 400€, which I think was a great price back then, so I didn't want to pay much more this time around.

Phones getting more and more expensive every year has been a problem for me. I have my job and can buy an iPhone if I want, but man, I just can't get around a phone costing 1.000€ or more. It's nuts.

So 2 years have passed and now mid-range phones have great specs, some way better than my old P20. But still I looked at the flagships, wanting also the best of the best. But did I really need that much tech? I always knew I didn't.

So after looking a lot I decided to buy the A71, which I really liked when I tried in the store for the first time. I also looked at the Mi 10, Oppo Find series, POCO F2, S10, S10+, S20, S20+, etc.

The thing is, I don't need and don't think it's necessary to have 12GB RAM on a phone, for example. I wanted an OLED screen, that's for sure, and bigger than my 5.8 screen in the P20.

Also phones are getting too heavy, surpassing 200 grams in most cases. Too much. A71 has a great big screen and doesn't weight too much for long use.

Same quick charge as S20 series and better than S10 series, same big screen with almost same design as S20 lineup. Didn't want curve screen also.

Phone is VERY fluid. I'm impressed, seriously. I feel like I don't need 120hz, not at least until battery life doesn't suffer so much because of it. I wanted also good battery life. I'm getting 8 hours screen on time... with bad signal!!

Software is 90% same as rest of Samsung phones, and best of all, this phone will also get three big software updates!! I got it for 330€ brand new!!

Sound is good, vibration is strong (again surprised by this. Expected worst), fingerprint sensor is ok (expected much worse), brightness is amazing outdoors, etc. Haven't transferred pictures to PC yet to check quality, but I love having the ultra wide lenses for pictures and 4K.

Front camera also records in 4K. Great.

Bad part is plastic quality of the phone, which already shows some minor scratches. But I can live with it for the cost.

Overall I'm extremely pleased with the phone. I don't envy anything of flagship as of now. RAM management is also surprisingly good. Apps stay open long after using them.

With some nice silicone cases and tempered glass all I've paid is 380€. Awesome price! And I hope I can keep this phone for at least 3 years with the promised updates from Samsung

Maybe I'll buy a Galaxy Watch with the money I saved. I really don't see the need to pay double or triple just to get 2GB extra RAM, a lightly nicer screen (this one is just excellent), better camera, etc. For example, I don't need waterproofing or wireless and reverse wireless charging. I need all day battery life more, and this one delivers much more than that.

Anyway, great phone and highly recommended. As of now it's VERY smooth, and has SO SO many options! Dark mode is best in class, AOD, great gesture navigation, etc.

 

[Sensamic]

Oh, and automatic brightness is the best I've seen ever.

Never before worked this good for me on any previous phone.

 

[The_Interloper]

I agree with everything @Sensamic said above. Great phone for the price and with Samsung’s crazy discounts (as detailed above), all the phone most people need.

(By the way, Samsung’s own silicone case for the A71 is VERY nice - under £20 on Amazon.co.uk and just as well made as Apple’s equivalents costing over twice as much.)

 

[Sensamic]

I agree with everything @Sensamic said above. Great phone for the price and with Samsung’s crazy discounts (as detailed above), all the phone most people need.

(By the way, Samsung’s own silicone case for the A71 is VERY nice - under £20 on Amazon.co.uk and just as well made as Apple’s equivalents costing over twice as much.)

Does the official silicone case get dirty easy?

The one from my P20 official from Huawei was a disaster. Got super dirty very easy.

I bought a silicone case for the A71 from Cellularline and it's perfect, but I'd like to try the one from Samsung if it's more lightweight or thinner.

 

[Sensamic]

Yes i can get a international A71 for around $370 but the US is $600 so im not interested in paying that much for a phone im not really that excited about because of its size. Just dont want to do a 6.7" phone. Crazy.
I hope they start making them a little smaller or at least have options for smaller ones by Samsung and others.

The Pixel 4a i ordered will still be the biggest phone ive ever had at 5.8" and there just arent many under 6" to choose from.

I thought the same about the size for a long time. Going from 5.8 in my P20 to 6.7 was crazy, but now I love it. Best thing is it doesn't require any effort to see or read anything in the screen. Now my P20 looks so small.

I'd say 6.5 is the ideal size, in the A51 form factor, but that phone has worse performance.

Where I live I can't get the Pixel or Nord, which were other options, so I settled on the A71, but with the 3 year update policy I'm as happy as with a Pixel.

Surfing the web, using Twitter or reading in Tapatalk is a pleasure now thanks to this size. I never thought I'd like it so much.

 

[ian87w]

I was about to create a thread about this phone, since I bought it 2 weeks ago and am thrilled about the choice I made.

As you guys know, I opened a thread a few weeks ago asking for advice, since I couldn't decide which new phone to get. My previous phone was a Huawei P20, which I've kept for 2 years. Got that for 400€, which I think was a great price back then, so I didn't want to pay much more this time around.

Phones getting more and more expensive every year has been a problem for me. I have my job and can buy an iPhone if I want, but man, I just can't get around a phone costing 1.000€ or more. It's nuts.

So 2 years have passed and now mid-range phones have great specs, some way better than my old P20. But still I looked at the flagships, wanting also the best of the best. But did I really need that much tech? I always knew I didn't.

So after looking a lot I decided to buy the A71, which I really liked when I tried in the store for the first time. I also looked at the Mi 10, Oppo Find series, POCO F2, S10, S10+, S20, S20+, etc.

The thing is, I don't need and don't think it's necessary to have 12GB RAM on a phone, for example. I wanted an OLED screen, that's for sure, and bigger than my 5.8 screen in the P20.

Also phones are getting too heavy, surpassing 200 grams in most cases. Too much. A71 has a great big screen and doesn't weight too much for long use.

Same quick charge as S20 series and better than S10 series, same big screen with almost same design as S20 lineup. Didn't want curve screen also.

Phone is VERY fluid. I'm impressed, seriously. I feel like I don't need 120hz, not at least until battery life doesn't suffer so much because of it. I wanted also good battery life. I'm getting 8 hours screen on time... with bad signal!!

Software is 90% same as rest of Samsung phones, and best of all, this phone will also get three big software updates!! I got it for 330€ brand new!!

Sound is good, vibration is strong (again surprised by this. Expected worst), fingerprint sensor is ok (expected much worse), brightness is amazing outdoors, etc. Haven't transferred pictures to PC yet to check quality, but I love having the ultra wide lenses for pictures and 4K.

Front camera also records in 4K. Great.

Bad part is plastic quality of the phone, which already shows some minor scratches. But I can live with it for the cost.

Overall I'm extremely pleased with the phone. I don't envy anything of flagship as of now. RAM management is also surprisingly good. Apps stay open long after using them.

With some nice silicone cases and tempered glass all I've paid is 380€. Awesome price! And I hope I can keep this phone for at least 3 years with the promised updates from Samsung

Maybe I'll buy a Galaxy Watch with the money I saved. I really don't see the need to pay double or triple just to get 2GB extra RAM, a lightly nicer screen (this one is just excellent), better camera, etc. For example, I don't need waterproofing or wireless and reverse wireless charging. I need all day battery life more, and this one delivers much more than that.

Anyway, great phone and highly recommended. As of now it's VERY smooth, and has SO SO many options! Dark mode is best in class, AOD, great gesture navigation, etc.

Nice overview. It’s kinda my first Samsung phone, and I’m liking it so far.
Do you mind checking the super steady mode on yours? It seems that it’s not working on mine (that it seems to turn off stabilization completely).

 

[ian87w]

And is it just me, or I’m actually getting to like Bixby....
I never use these assistants before. Always turn Google Assistant off.

Due to my work, there are times I am wearing working gloves, and thus operating a smartphone is almost impossible. So I’m starting to toy around with this assistants. I tried Google Assistant first. Although it can do things like taking a picture from the camera, it cannot do further like deleting the picture. I thought it was expected as there is only so much these assistants can do. Then I tried Bixby, and it can do exactly what Google assistants couldn’t. I can have it open the Gallery and delete a photo. Sound simple, but this can be ultra useful during my job.

 

[The_Interloper]

Does the official silicone case get dirty easy?

Haven’t had mine long enough to know - I have the white phone with white silicone case - but it seems okay so far and wipes clean really easily. But I’m only a couple weeks in. For the fit and finish, though, I’m willing to take the risk for such a low amount (I paid £19.30 on Amazon).

(Just to clarify the above - my wife originally had an A71 in the comments I made further up the thread but I was so impressed with those discounts I decided to grab one too, despite my reservations about the size of the phone. Really torn now whether to keep it as a secondary device or switch out my SE SIM and make it my main phone. The screen is just terrific!)

 

[The_Interloper]

Playing with the video modes for a bit today. I am finding an interesting issue.
Regular video mode on the regular lens, there is stabilization (electronic). It actually works quite well.

In the camera app, Samsung put an icon to enable "Super Steady" mode. Now one would think that in this mode, there will be more aggressive stabilization. But in reality, it's like zero stabilization. Super weird. It's already strange that in this mode, the device uses the ultra wide lens instead of the regular lens. So the resulting video is a lot worse than the regular mode. How is this "Super Steady"? I wonder if this is a bug.

Have you updated to One UI 2.1? I’m not seeing the Super Steady Mode icon at all for the UltraWide lens - I assumed it only works for the main lens. It definitely seems to create a steadier video for me when switched on.