Samsung Galaxy A7 review: A triple-camera smartphone at an amazing price

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Dual cameras are now officially old hat. Following on from the Huawei P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pros three-camera flagships, the Samsung Galaxy A7 brings a versatile triple-camera configuration down to around the £300 mark. Its a landmark for mid-price handsets.

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Of course, whether customers are actually crying out for this feature is still to be seen. But the Galaxy A7 looks good in other areas too, with an attractive design and a stunning Super AMOLED screen.

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Samsung Galaxy A7 review: What you need to know

Without question, the Galaxy A7s headline feature is its trio of rear cameras. The regular 24-megapixel sensor is accompanied by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide unit and a 5-megapixel depth sensor for fancy bokeh-effect portraits.

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But Samsungs latest mid-ranger has more than this to draw you in. Theres a lovely 6in Full HD+ 18:9 Super AMOLED screen on the front of the phone, and inside youll find Samsungs latest mid-range processor, the octa-core Exynos 7885, clocked at 2.2GHz. Its supported by 4GB of RAM, and theres 32GB of on-board storage too, which can be expanded by a further 400GB via microSD.

Samsung Galaxy A7 review: Price and competition

Samsungs Galaxy A7 is the cheapest triple-camera phone on the market, costing a mere £309. Thats a lot less than Huaweis three-camera P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro models.

Samsung has several other recent budget and mid-price options, however. Theres the Galaxy A9, which has a total of four rear-facing cameras, and the J6 Plus (£249) and J4 Plus (£169) have started appearing in phone shops up and down the country too.

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The Galaxy A7 also has competition from other manufacturers. Xiaomis terrific Pocophone F1 offers flagship internals at a wallet-friendly price, and the Moto G6 Plus is an excellent alternative if youre looking to save even more cash.

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Samsung Galaxy A7 review: Design and key features

The Galaxy A7s most obvious point of comparison is to the Huawei P20 Pro. Its tall, skinny chassis, glossy hue and triple-rear cameras are strikingly similar and thats a major compliment to Samsung, since the P20 Pro costs hundreds of pounds more. The A7s shiny rear panel looks positively lovely, shimmering nicely whenever the light catches it.

Flip the phone over and youll find a thankfully notch-free display. The forehead and chin bezels arent exactly discreet, but the display cuts ever so close to the left and right edges. As is typical with mid-range phones these days, theres no physical home button, and the fingerprint sensor is side-mounted, situated on the right edge of the phone next to the power and volume controls. I like this arrangement, as I find its where my thumb naturally drifts to when I pick up a phone, and it reduces clutter on the rear of the handset. Samsung has also included a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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At the bottom, theres an old-school micro-USB port for charging and data transfer. This is fine, but it means the A7 doesnt benefit from the fast charging speeds of its USB-C rivals.

Samsung Galaxy A7 review: Display

The A7s display specifications are brilliant for a phone at this price. You get a Super AMOLED 2,200 x 1,080 (Full HD+) panel, wrapped in durable 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4 for protection against drops and scrapes.

Perhaps most impressively, our ColorMunki calibrator confirms that the screen is capable of reproducing 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, with an effectively infinite contrast ratio. Thats hardly surprising from Samsungs excellent Super AMOLED technology, but it means that this £309 phone looks as good as competitors costing more than twice the price.

Samsung Galaxy A7 review: Performance and battery life

Powering the Galaxy A7 is Samsungs self-made Exynos 7885 octa-core chipset, clocked at 2.2GHz. This is the same processor as found in the slightly more expensive Galaxy A8, and its served by the same 4GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage (expandable by a further 400GB via the microSD slot).

Samsung Galaxy A7 64GB Single SIM UK Version – Black

£155.00

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Samsung Galaxy A7 64GB Single SIM UK Version – Black

£155.00

Check price

Its unsurprising then that performance is identical. In the Geekbench 4 single- and multi-core CPU tests, the Galaxy A7 scored 1,483 and 3,935, which represents enough power to provide a smooth Android experience. Its not a great score, though: despite costing the same price, Xiaomis Snapdragon 845-powered Pocophone F1 delivers more than double the performance.

Its a similar story when it comes to gaming performance. The integrated ARM Mali-G71 MP2 GPU achieved an average frame rate of 15fps in the GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 on-screen test, which is on the low side for a modern phone. I spotted frequent frame drops in graphically intensive Android games, such as Fortnite and Asphalt 9: legends.

Where the A7 fares much better is battery life. In our video playback test, its 3,300mAh battery lasted for 17hrs 43mins before needing to recharge. Thats miles ahead of the Pocophone F1 and the rest of its similarly priced rivals, for that matter.

Samsung Galaxy A7 review: Camera

About those cameras, then. The three lenses are stacked vertically down the left-hand side of the handset, with the flash sitting just below. Its a neat, clean design which leaves the shimmering back panel largely unobstructed all the better for fellow commuters to admire.

The primary camera unit has a 24-megapixel sensor with an f/1.7 lens, accompanied by an 8-megapixel sensor with an ultra-wide f/2.4 lens, and a 5-megapixel, f/2.2 depth-sensing unit. Working together, these are capable of capturing some truly stunning pictures. The A7s shots of Londons skyline on a gloomy Wednesday morning looked superb, with crisp, well-defined details and accurate-looking colours.

Samsung Galaxy A7 64GB Single SIM UK Version – Black

£155.00

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Samsung Galaxy A7 64GB Single SIM UK Version – Black

£155.00

Check price

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Performance in low light isnt quite as impressive, though. Theres no optical image stabilisation, so the sensitivity gets dialled up, leading to noticeable noise and unnatural processing. Even so, the relatively wide apertures allow for better-looking images than the Moto G6 Plus rear-facing snapper. Video looks pretty standard, with a maximum resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 at 30fps.

Samsung Galaxy A7 review: Verdict

With a long-lasting battery, a swish design and a trio of cameras that perform rather well, the Galaxy A7 should be on the fast track to greatness. Unfortunately, when it comes to performance, the A7s thunder is very much stolen by Xiaomis Pocophone F1, which delivers flagship power at a very similar price. If youve got £300-ish burning a hole in your pocket, thats the phone that Id wholeheartedly recommend.

Still, if you have your heart set on a triple-camera phone then the Samsung Galaxy A7 ticks that box at a very tempting price and it has a superb screen to boot.

Written by

Nathan Spendelow

Deputy editor at Expert Reviews, Nathan joined the website back in 2016. Kicking off his journalism career as a laptop reviewer, he swiftly became Expert Reviews' smartphone expert, testing and reviewing hundreds of handsets over the years. Nathan is an NCTJ-accredited journalist and regularly attends key industry events and product launches around the world, including the MWC and IFA trade shows.

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