Recently, I was searching for a smartphone
under 400$ and I was lucky to find out that Samsung made a great job creating
flagship-level, budget smart phones.
I
found a ton of other companies during my search such as OnePlus, LG, and Huawei
that make wonderful phones in this price range. However, the one that stood out
was the Samsung
Galaxy A7 (2016). It is available unlocked with a price of about 370$.
Although its cheap price, it is powered by Samsung's Exynos 7580 Octa-core
Processor, in the Duos A710FD Version, which is stronger compared to last
year's 5430 Octa-core Processor, found in the 2015's A7 and A8. Best part, you
get a 5.5 Super AMOLED Panel, which impressively covers 74.3% of the device,
with a 1080p resolution and a density of 401 pixels per inch. Not to forget,
the glass on the front and back of the device is Gorilla Glass 4 2.5D which is
durable to most scratches and drops. Inspired by the S6 Edge you get this
subtle curve on the borders that melts into the metal edges giving you that premium
feel of glass and metal. Although Samsung kept the same design language
with this year's A7, it is still the definition of premium to most of the
smartphone audience.
Aside from the
design, we should what matters: the internals. The Exynos Chip, along with 3
GBs of RAM performs as snappy as the S6. Moreover, for the photography section,
it has a 13 MP sensor with f/1.9 Aperture, Optical Image Stabilization for
those shaky hands, autofocus for the point-and-shoot situation, HDR, and a
flash. Its performance is quite comparable to the S6's. In addition, for selfie
enthusiasts, you have got a 5 MP front shooter. Both front and back sensors can
record 1080p videos at 30 frames per second. We have spoken about the top part
of the device forgetting an essential feature at the bottom: the fingerprint
scanner. It is as fast as the Note 5's. Getting a bit lower, you get the
speaker grill, the Micro USB Port, and the 3.5mm headphone jack. Speaking of
the speaker, we always hated the grill's placement on the bottom part of the
device because it can be easily covered by just holding the phone, but we
respect the sacrifices Samsung has to make in favor of making the phone thin,
7.3mm thin. Although 2016' A7 is 1mm thicker than its predecessor, 2015's A7,
it is incredible that you get an extra 700 mAh of juice in the battery, fast
charging, OIS in the camera sensor, and the fingerprint scanner. As for
software it runs Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop) skinned by Touchwiz UI.
As a conclusion,
on one hand, if you are an owner of last year's A7 you will not have much if
you get this year's, except for the extra gig of RAM, OIS, the fingerprint
scanner, and the extra juice. On the other hand, if you are coming from an
under 200$ smartphone or planning to buy a budget smartphone under 400$, you
will not go wrong with this year's A7.
