Saturday, April 16, 2016

GADGET GIZMO REVIEW SAMSUNG PHABLETS - TOO PRICEY FOR SUCCESS

GADGET GIZMO REVIEW SAMSUNG PHABLETS - TOO PRICEY FOR SUCCESS


Samsung's new A series phablet impresses in looks as well as performance, but is priced too close to Samsung's more powerful offerings to make a meaningful mark

The A series of smart phones was introduced by Samsung in 2015. It received a fairly good response from users. To cash in on the success, Samsung has launched a refresh of the A series and they have not changed the model name or number: just added `2016' to the name.
The big change in 2016 for the A Series is that the devices now have a metal and glass body, quite like the more premium S6 and S7.T he phone uses Gorilla Glass 4, front and back, for added durability and scratch resistance. In our use, we did notice that the glass managed to hold its own against daily wear and tear and even survived a couple of drops. Like the S6, the new galaxy A7 features a chrome ring around the home button and camera module plus chamfered edges on the sides. Overall, the A7 gets full marks for style and build quality.
Samsung does amoleds well. This one has a 5.5-inch full HD super amoled which impresses with rich colours and slim bezels. There are various screen modes available (amoled cinema, amoled photo, basic and adaptive), a useful one hande d o p e r at i o n m o d e a n d smart stay (screen stays on while you look at it). Under the screen is the home button with integrated fingerprint scanner and the usual Android buttons (back and recent). We noticed that the fingerprint scanner on the A7 is not as good as the iPhone or even the cheaper Coolpad Note 3, Redmi Note 3 and Le 1s. We feel that Samsung needs to improve the response of their fingerprint scanners to match up to the experience provided by competitors.
Specifications include an octa core Exynos processor, 3GB RAM, 16GB storage and a 3,300mAh battery. As expected from this hardware, the phone zipped through all apps and games that we tried.There was no issue playing a 4k video or with playing games with multiple apps in the background. The 3,300mAh battery easily managed to last over a full day of use. This can be further improved using built-in power saver modes or by optimising how apps use power -settings that can be accessed in the battery details section. Plus, it supports fast charging (fast charger is included in the box) which enables charging from 10% to 80% in less than an hour.
The 13MP rear camera has an aperture of f1.9 along with optical image stabilisation and support for recording full HD video. Image quality is great: the camera captures excellent details with mini with minimal noise and rich colours in daylight as well as indoors. Low light images are a letdown though as there is lot of noise and the images suffer f ro m s of t details. Front camera is a 5MP snapper and while selfies were good enough for social media, we noticed that it tends to overexpose the images.
Audio quality of both earpiece and the loudspeaker is great: loud and clear. We liked the fact that the phone did not tend to overheat even with heavy usage. It gets a bit warm but never too hot to hold. The main issue with the Galaxy A7 (2016) is its price. At `32,500 its too close to the Samsung Galaxy S6 (`33,900) which offers a better display, better cameras and wireless charging. What's more, the Note 4, with its pressure sensitive stylus, bigger and better display and better perfor mance can be bought for just a few thousand more.


Karan Bajaj

ET30MAR16

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