So I took a while longer to present to you my in depth video of this Samsung Galaxy A73 because there are A LOT of things about this phone which make it too good to be true, so let’s find out what they are after using this phone daily for 1 and a half months.
Build & Design
Now, as usual, during my full review videos, I don’t go into all the technicality of the phone where; instead, it will be based on just using the phone daily and from the build quality and design perspective.
Firstly, the phone did feel like I was using the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE; I love how the side has an aluminum finish and had a matte silver finish to the phone, which helped in the overall grip of the phone to the point that I didn’t even use any case when I was using it daily.
Although I always preferred a white color smartphone, I have to say that this Awesome Mint color has surely turned some heads, where the usual question that I get from people is, “Is that a new Samsung phone?” Now it is super rare for a mid range smartphone to have an IP67 dust and water resistant rating, so its nice that this phone had it because if you live here in Malaysia, you would know how crazy the weather is; sometimes it’s super hot and the next thing we know it is raining for days. And I came into several situations where I got wet in the rain, and I never had that sort of anxiety that the phone wouldn’t work afterward. As mentioned in my first impressions video, there were lots of complaints about the phone not having a headphones jack and based on me using it daily, I didn’t feel like I missed that all since Bluetooth headphones and earbuds are getting ridiculously good and cheap these days, and yes, some cant live with the whole no headphones jack situations then you should probably look elsewhere. Still, I think we are at the point where this is to be expected. However, a “trend” that the Galaxy A73 didn’t follow is the removal of the MicroSD card expansion, which, for me, was more important than the headphones jack. Once again, personally, I can’t remember when was the last time that I used or even held a MicroSD card, but I feel that this would be something that a lot of people can benefit from, so kudos Samsung for not getting rid of this.
Display
One of the main reasons I always recommended and loved the A series smartphones from Samsung is the consistency of giving us a great screen on their devices.
I have mentioned tons of times that not all AMOLED screens are created equal, and this 6.7 inch Super AMOLED+ display even pushes the quality of the screen even further because ultimately, what is the point of having a smartphone that has all the cool features but you have to live with just an OK screen right? If you love a flat screen smartphone, I assure you that you will absolutely like the screen on this phone, and probably the ONLY difference you might notice if you compare the screen on the Galaxy A73 and a flagship smartphone is the quality of the refresh rate. Because while it had a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, it is not adaptive, so it will force its way to use that high refresh rate all the way, so you will get a lower battery life if you use this daily compared to going down to 60Hz. Still, the screen is so good that I rather not go down to that lower refresh rate. So with that, navigating and scrolling around the phone daily was a very smooth and pleasant experience indeed.
Then consuming videos on the phone was great as expected; the color accuracy was on point, and since it has Widevine L1 playback quality with HDR 10 capabilities and I even watched a couple of Stranger Things recap episodes exclusively on the phone when I was doing my daily cardio sessions in the gym.
So yes, the display on the Galaxy A73 was really great, and I have absolutely no complaints at all.
Cameras
A quick recap of the camera specs, in case you have missed my previous video on this phone,
The Galaxy A73 comes with a massive 108-megapixel F 1.8 main camera, a 12-megapixel F2.2 ultrawide lens, a 5-megapixel 2.4 depth lens, and a 5 megapixel F 2.4 macro lens.
Then the front camera has a 32-megapixel F 2.2 lens.
Now here is another area where Samsung’s mid-range A series never disappoints, so whether or not you are taking a high 108-megapixel image, the ultrawide, or the main lenses, you are looking at pictures that look as close to the flagships.
The portrait mode especially has always been one of my favorites compared to most other mid-range smartphones within this price range, where the dynamic range has always been excellent with decent edge detection.
And you are guaranteed to get one of the best skin tones and properly exposed images for the selfie photos as well.
Taking photos at night also produced great results, whether on the ultrawide lens or more so for the main lens, with the perfect balance of highlights and shadows.
However, the selfie images at night might be a hit or miss sometimes, depending on the lighting environment.
Looking at the video sides of things, the video quality was great as I can record up to 4k 30fps, where the image stabilization was decent for the main, and while you can turn on the super steady mode for better stabilization but it goes down to 1080p; hence I would prefer to use the ultrawide lens 4k footage as it has higher 4k quality. Taking videos at night was still pretty decent but obviously not as high-level quality as the videos produced during the day.
Then as for the front camera, I can honestly say that it has the BEST quality compared to any other android smartphone, and yes, even for some claimed “flagship” smartphones because Samsung is the only mid range smartphone that shoots in 4k 30 frames per second, so rest assured you are getting the best video quality with still very decent image stabilization at that high recording resolution, but if you want better video stabilization, you switch it down to 1080p, but I rather have the higher quality video recording over here especially if you not walking about
Software
One of the biggest debates, whenever someone tells me how Samsung’s smartphone is too “expensive” for a mid-range smartphone, is you are paying for the overall software experience.
I have said before, and I will say it again, in my humble opinion, the One UI 4.1 skin is my favorite Android Skin; it has still the best UI and experience when using it daily, but there has been a point where the phone lagged on hung when I tried opening a bunch of apps or loading up games. And since the Samsung guarantees to have four years of Android and One UI Upgrade and up to five years of security updates, it is quite a no brainer to invest in a smartphone that will last you for many years to come from not only from a hardware perspective but also on the software end as well.
Software features like Link to Windows, Bixby routines, Buds Auto-Switching and Samsung Pay work flawlessly on the phone as well. And the good news is that since its using the Snapdragon 778G Chipset, the 700 series has always been super reliable, especially when it comes to overheating, where during my heavy usage, it had never come to a point where it overheats but ONLY warm to the touch when I was doing some high-quality gaming, which is a great segway to the next topic, which is gaming.
Gaming
Based on my test of other smartphones using the 700 series chipset, I knew that the phone would be capable of running on Genshin Impact well.
The optimum settings it performed the best were at Medium with 60 frames per second, and Motion Blur turned off. As mentioned, here is the only time where the phone became a little warm, but never hot to the touch where it only raises the temperature towards nonstop gameplay of 33 minutes or so. And while the performance and the overall gameplay were smooth with no micro stuttering or lag, one really noticeable area was the battery drain, and this could be due to the nonadaptive refresh rate that the screen had at 120Hz.
Switching over to PubG Mobile, since the game works exceptionally well on midrange to flagship smartphones due to its excellent software optimization, the gaming experience was really smooth. The phone had hardly any heat even during very long gameplay, where there was only a slight warmth was towards the camera bump area, and that’s it; the battery drained about 6% in about 29 minutes of gameplay, and the settings were set on HDR for the graphics and Frame Rate at Ultra.
Battery
As for the phone’s battery, it has 5000 mAh of battery with 25 watts of fast charging, which sounds really good on paper, but from a real time and daily usage, I felt this could be something that should be improved on.
Now, this is because the average screen on time that I got was about an average of 4 hours+ with dark mode turned off with 120Hz refresh rate all the way with lots of gaming and social media browsing,
but you can get a little more battery if you don’t use it heavily and turn the dark mode on but of course, this is obviously due to the non-adaptive refresh rate, which is the phone’s only Achilles heel. Because I couldn’t bring myself to use the phone on a 60Hz refresh rate even though it will prove to save even more battery because of how beautiful the screen looks, that could be a workaround for that. However, I do hope that there will be some sort of a software update to improve the battery situation, but knowing Samsung, they always deliver when it comes to updating their software, especially as of late.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, coming at a price of RM2,099, while it may not be the “cheapest” compared to the other mid range counterparts, I humbly feel that is an extremely fair price if you are looking at a smartphone that has an excellent build that lasts long under any weather, a camera performance close to a flagship level quality, especially for the front cameras, both for video and photo and a really good screen then this Galaxy A73 is a no brainer for you to get.
Should you upgrade if you are using the A72, well, if your phone works well and you don’t have any issues, especially on the battery performance, then you probably shouldn’t, but on every other aspect or if you have any smartphone with more than 1 generation gap, I would totally recommend the Samsung Galaxy A73.
