When the Samsung first announced the Galaxy Alpha after the
Galaxy S5 debacle, it seemed like the company was trying to
head in a new direction. For years, it had been criticised about
the build quality and plastic materials of its smartphones. The
Galaxy Alpha addressed many of those issues but was over-
priced and had a lot of shortcomings. Jump to March 2015
when I reviewed the Samsung Galaxy A7 right after the Galaxy
S6 and S6 edge announcement and I could see Samsung’s
plans falling into place. The A7 was a fresh new take on what
a mid-ranger should be and showcased what Samsung is
capable of achieving given the right push. Fast forward to
today and now we have the second generation i.e A7 (2016)
which builds on the same ideals as the original but promises
to refine the smartphone and provide a premium experience in
a mid-ranger smartphone like never before.
Unboxing
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016) smartphone in Golden color
In-ear headset
2-pin fast charger (9V-1.67A / 5V-2A)
Micro USB cable
SIM ejector tool
Quick start guide and user manual
Design, Materials and Build Quality
The first Galaxy A7 had a really good build quality. The
smartphone got rid of the removable back panel and opted for
premium materials as well as a unibody design that really
worked wonders. The Galaxy A7 (2016) is actually a bigger
leap in terms of build quality and materials used than even the
first generation. The 2016 variant also has a unibody design
but incorporates glass on both the sides in addition to the
metal body. It has a really simple design that seems like a mix
between the Galaxy Note5 and the A7 2015 version. What you
get as a result is a really simple yet beautiful device that
handles like a dream. The glass at the back isn’t curved like
the one on the Note5 or one of the newer Galaxy S7 devices.
However, it fits in your palms really well and feels great to
hold and handle especially with the 2.5D curved glass effect
being applied on both the sides.
At first, I was worries that the glass on both the sides would
make this device really slippery but I’ve not had the phone
slipping out of my hands yet and that is saying a lot for a
phone with glass on two sides. The OnePlus X which had a
similar construction was notoriously slippery but luckily the A7
(2016) is an exception. The edges of the bezel are also
beveled on the right and left sides however are flat at the top
and bottom unlike the previous generation.
In terms of physical footprint, the newer A7 is more or less
identical to the previous generation. It is almost the same
height but is a good 2 mm narrower and a whole millimtere
thicker owing to the larger battery inside. The weight too has
gone up by around 30 grams but that is expected considering
the amount of glass used. Rest assured, the smartphone
doesn’t feel heavy as the weight distribution is done very well.
The front houses the earpiece, front facing camera as well as
the ambient light and proximity sensors above the display.
Below the display lie the customary keys – 2 capacitive keys
on either side of the physical home key which also houses the
fingerprint sensor.
The right side of the smartphone features the power key along
with the first tray that houses the primary nanoSIM and
microSD card slot. The left side has two separate buttons for
volume up and down which seems like a better
implementation than the single volume rocker of the last
generation.The feedback from these keys are quite good too.
At the top, you will find the secondary SIM card tray and the
secondary microphone (If you have the single SIM variant, you
on’t find a SIM card slot here). At the other side, things are
quite busy at the bottom since the microUSB port, primary
microphone, 3.5mm audio jack and speaker grille are located
here.
Moving over to the back, you will see just the primary camera,
LED flash and Samsung logo. The back looks really clean
since the loudspeaker has been moved from the back to the
bottom of the smartphone. That was one element in the
previous generation A7 that really detracted the elegance of
its design.
The back panel is non-removable and neither is the battery.
The smartphone comes in 4 colours – Black, White, Gold and
Pink. In our personal experience, the Gold variant does a good
job at keeping fingerprints relatively unseen at the back. The
same should apply for the White and Pink variants too with
the White version being able to hide them the best. However,
the Black variant is likely to be a fingerprint magnet and would
require your constant attention in order to remain spotless.
Display
The display remains more or less the same on paper. 5.5″
1080p SuperAMOLED is what you got with the previous
generation as well. However, there is a world of a difference
when it comes to the feel when using it thanks to the new
2.5D curved glass. The display is really smooth to use and
swipe across. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4 as well
and does a good job at keeping scratches at bay. The
brightness has been improved both at the higher and lower
end as you will find that the display can go really low and
really high in terms of brightness.The contrast ratio is great as
you would expect from a SuperAMOLED display with deep
blacks and the sunlight legibility too is one of the best we’ve
seen recently. The resolution of 1080p doesn’t feel less as the
content still looks sharp enough. For a mid-ranger, that
resolution seems justified and also considering that more
pixels require more battery and processing power to push, we
are glad Samsung stuck to 1080p.
The capacitive keys are backlit and offer haptic feedback
when pressed. We miss the option where you could turn off
the backlighting altogether or keep it on always whenever the
screen is on. We hope that Samsung would bring it back in the
future. The smartphone screen mode can be adjusted to your
liking. AMOLED Cinema is the most vivid profile while
AMOLED photo is quite standard and basic feels quite under-
saturated but is more easy on the eyes since the amount of
blue light emitted from the screen is cut down. Alternatively,
you can use the Adaptive Display option to let the smartphone
choose what mode is best according to the content on screen.
There is a smart stay feature that prevents the phone from
going to sleep as long as the front camera detects that you
are looking at the screen.
Fingerprint Sensor
One of the major exclusions on the previous A7 was a
fingerprint sensor. Considering how popular and cheap
fingerprint sensors have gotten in the past year, it would’ve
been ignorant of Samsung if they didn’t include one on the A7
(2016). Luckily they have and the fingerprint sensor is located
within the home button up front. The accuracy is really good
and the unlocking speeds are right up there as well. In fact, I
find that it is faster than my Galaxy Note5 as well but not quite
as fast as the S7 or S7 Edge. It falls behind the Nexus 6P and
5X as well but considering that this is a mid-range device, it is
surprising that it is faster than the Note5 itself. Accuracy too
seems to have been improved and the sensor seems to have
more of a tolerance to dust and moisture than previous
smartphones from Samsung.
As usual with other fingerprint sensors these days, you just
need to tap your finger and there is no need to swipe across
the sensor pad. You need to wake the phone from sleep first
however either by pressing the power key or home key and
then placing your finger on the home button. In our experience
waking it up using the home key and unlocking it is the fastest
solution as you don’t even need to lift your finger off the
button. A fraction of a second after waking the phone, the
sensor detects the fingerprint and unlocks the smartphone.
Calls and Messaging
The Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016) has good quality audio over
the earpiece. Calls are loud and clear both for you as well as
the party at the other end thanks to the noise cancelling
microphone. In terms of loudspeaker, the quality is good but
the volume seems low especially if you have some
background noise, it becomes difficult to hear what the other
person is saying. The dialer is large and easy to use. It has
shortcuts to place calls and send messages with either SIM
since the smartphone supports DualSIMs. The smartphone
also has video call functionality built into the stock phone app.
The keyboard that comes on the A7 (2016) is the Samsung
keyboard which like the Google Keyboard has one of the best
layouts. It is customizable, supports trace input and has an
extra numeric row at the top for faster typing. You can easily
download and use a 3rd party keyboard if the one included
isn’t your cup of tea.
Software and UI
The Galaxy A7 comes with Android Lollipop 5.1.1 with
TouchWiz UI on top. The UI layer has become less obtrusive
compared to past iterations and the specifications of the
phone are powerful enough to ensure a smooth performance.
The smartphone will most definitely receive the upgrade to
Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The only question is when. Since
most of last years flagships such as the S6 lineup and the
Note5 have already been updated or are getting update, we
believe that the A7 (2016) too will get the update in a month
or two (if no delays or obstacles appear in the update cycle).
The smartphone comes with motions and gestures that make
certain tasks easier. For example, taking a screenshot can be
done by pressing the home key and power button
simultaneously. Alternatively, users can just swipe from one
edge of the screen to the other using their palm to capture the
screen. The phone can be set to vibrate and notify you of any
missed calls or notifications when you pick the device. You
can also mute incoming calls and notifications by turning the
phone over onto its display or by placing your palm over the
display.
Since the smartphone has a large display, Samsung has
bundled a few features that will make the life of users easier
to use with one hand. You can choose the reduce the screen
size by pressing the home key thrice in quick succession. As a
result, the entire UI shrinks to a corner of the screen and you
can align it to the bottom left or right corner of the screen.
You can also shrink the size of certain individual apps without
making the entire UI smaller and finally you have a one-
handed input mode where certain aspects such as the
keyboard, dialer, lock pattern etc can be made smaller and
aligned to either the left or right side to make one-handed
usage easier.
Storage, Connectivity and Performance
The biggest improvement from past generation is probably the
least highlighted one as well. This time around, Samsung has
ditched the Hybrid DualSIM slot and actually gone for
dedicated card slots. The smartphone has a primary tray at
the right side which houses a nanoSIM as well as a microSD
card slot. There is a secondary tray at the top which can house
another nanoSIM card as well on the DualSIM model. This
means that you can put in two SIM cards and a microSD card
without having to choose between the two.
You wouldn’t really want to make a choice like that especially
if you can’t do without DualSIMs since the smartphone comes
only in a 16GB variant which will likely run out soon enough for
most people. The A7 supports microSD cards upto 128GB in
capacity. The smartphone supports 4G LTE on both the SIM
cards but only one SIM at a time can run on 4G while the other
one will stay in 2G mode.The smartphone also supports Dual-
Band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.1 but doesn’t
support 802.11 ac. Being a mid-range device in 2016, we
expected that to be a standard spec by now.
The smartphone is powered by an octa-core Exynos 7580
chipset from Samsung and comes with 3GB of RAM as well.
Performance is smooth and doesn’t lag. The 3GB of RAM is
good enough to handle multi-tasking of apps well too.
Music Player and Audio Quality
The Galaxy A7 comes with Samsung’s own music player. You
can sort your music according to tracks, artists, album, genres,
folders, composers and playlists. A wide variety of audio file
formats are supported. Users can scroll between them or jump
to an alphabet using the quick scroll option at the side or even
directly search for a song. The Now Playing screen features
the album art as well as track controls and options for shuffle
and repeat. You can favorite a song and also use on-screen
volume controls instead of the hardware ones. You can even
set the play speed to be faster or slow and also have an auto
off timer for the player to quit and stop playing music. You can
choose from one of the presets or specify your own time. The
smart volume feature allows the phone to automatically adjust
the volume so that every song appears to be at the same level
acoustically. You also have sound quality and effects such as
SoundAlive+ and Tube Amp both of which really failed to grab
our attention. They’re more of a marketing gimmick than an
actual use case.
Sound quality was really good through earphones and the
volume was more than loud enough too. There was a good
dynamic range with minimal crosstalk and had a punchy bass
whenever the need arose. The sound through the speakers
however isn’t that great as it is a bit washed out and lacks in
terms of volume as well.
The primary camera on the Galaxy A7 (2016) is a 13 Megapixel
unit with OIS,PDAF and LED flash. The sensor has a default
aspect ratio of 4:3 which means that to get the full resolution
of 13 MP, you will need to capture images in 4:3 aspect ratio.
Images in 16:9 can be captured at a maximum resolution of
9.6 MP. The 28mm FoV (Field of View) is pretty good for most
shots including landscapes but a 26mm lens would’ve been
welcome too. The f1.9 aperture does a good job at creating
bright images and good bokeh with a shallow depth of field.
The images are not as saturated as per usual Samsung
standards but have a more natural colour tone and balance.
The smartphone is quick to focus but the only downside is that
it can’t really focus onto objects that close. We would’ve liked
to go even closer to many of the objects that we tried
capturing but the smartphone wasn’t able to lock focus. The
shutter speed is quite fast too unless you are taking a HDR
photo which takes a longer time to process. You can click on
any photo below to get the full resolution samples.
The phone manages to capture pretty good detail for a 13
Megapixel sensor but what is impressive is the dynamic range.
You can still capture a lot of detail from the shadows and
have perfectly exposed highlights by metering on the
highlights. In case you still want more detail and dynamic
range, you have to resort to the HDR mode. The photos on the
left are taken in HDR mode while the photos on the right are
captured in auto (normal) mode.
The front camera is pretty good too offering good detail and
bright images thanks to the 5 Megapixel f1.9 lens. There is a
beautify option with different settings as well if you want to
smoothen your skin etc.
Panorama mode works well and does a good job at stitching.
It is better to take images in portrait and then pan to get
maximum detail from a scene. Note that the viewfinder has a
bit of delay when in panorama mode so you’ll have to move
slow in order to compensate for that. Video recording
resolution peaks at 1080p at 30 fps. The detailing is pretty
decent but nothing to boast about. 4K video would’ve been a
nice addition but the processor would have difficulty handling
it.
You can launch the camera app by either using the shortcut on
the lockscreen or using the app shortcut once you unlock the
device. Alternatively, you can use the home button as a trigger
to launch the camera app as well. Double tapping the home
key quick launches the camera app and you can begin
capturing. The camera app is quite similar on the ones found
on high-end Samsung devices like the S6 series, Note5 or S7
series albeit with lesser options to play with. You still get a pro
mode but the only controls you get are ISO, White Balance
and Exposure compensation. There is no support for RAW
photos and neither can you set the focus or shutter speed
manually. We feel that a manual focus could’ve helped us
achieve closer macro shots than we could manage with AF.
One weird thing is that the HDR mode is still present as a
separate mode within the camera app rather than a quick
toggle in auto mode. This is fine for some but for those who
are used to the quick toggle, they may find it annoying. But the
worst part about HDR is probably the resolution. Users can’t
take HDR photos in full 13 Megapixel resolution. Instead, they
have to opt for 4:3 images at 13 MP or 16:9 images at 6 MP
or 2.4 MP.
Battery Life
The Galaxy A7 (2016) comes with a non-removable 3300 mAH
battery which is a big jump from the 2600 mAH battery of the
previous generation which was also non-removable. The
increase in battery capacity while keeping the screen size and
resolution the same has led to a better battery life. The A7
(2016) got a one charge rating of 15 hours 04 minutes in our
battery tests which is a good 4 hours more than the previous
generation.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)is a beautifully constructed
device especially for the price. You need to see and handle
one in person to really appreciate the design and quality as the
photos and videos don’t really do it justice. It is a powerful
smartphone too overall but at the price of Rs 35,000, the
smartphone is definitely costly. There are several options from
Chinese OEMs that will get you flagship grade specifications
(more powerful processor, higher resolution display etc) at a
cheaper price but none of them offer the build quality and
finish that the A7 offers. The A7 (2016) also has very few
flaws that could really set you off from buying the phone. The
main deterrent is probably the price. If you are someone who
values a phone’s design and aesthetics as much as whatever
is inside it, then this phone is definitely worth the premium
and you’ll find yourself staring at the beauty of the smartphone
from time to time once you buy it.
Pros
Beautiful Design and Brilliant Build Quality
Great Screen
Fast and Accurate Fingerprint Sensor
DualSIM 4G LTE Capability with Dedicated microSD Card
Slot
Good Battery Life
Good Camera Quality
Cons
A Bit Expensive
Camera has difficulty taking close-up shots
Feeble Loudspeaker
