Samsung Announces Galaxy A51 5G & A71 5G Mid-Range Smartphones
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 9, 2020 8:00 AM EST
Yesterday Samsung announced the company’s new Galaxy A51 5G and A71 5G phones – for the first time adding 5G capabilities to the company’s arguably most popular and successful phone line-up.
While there’s a lot of talk about the prestige high-end Galaxy S series from Samsung – the majority of phones the company actually sells lies in their more affordable mid-range line-up. Particularly in the last few years, the A-series devices have seen a large amount of success and being Samsung’s top selling phones. The new A51 and A71 iterate on last year’s models – updating a lot of the aspects of the phones hopefully without breaking the bank in terms of cost. Today's A51 5G and A71 5G phones augment the previously announced A51 and A71's with 5G connectivity.
| Samsung Galaxy A51 & A71 Series | ||
| Galaxy A51 5G | Galaxy A71 5G | |
| SoC | Exynos 980 2x Cortex-A77 @ 2.2GHz 6x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz Mali-G76MP5 |
|
| Display | 6.5-inch | 6.7-inch |
| SAMOLED FHD+ 2400 x 1080 (20:9) |
||
| Dimensions | 158.9 x 73.6 x 8.7 mm 187 grams |
162.5 x 75.5 x 8.1 mm 185 grams |
| RAM | 6/8GB | |
| NAND Storage |
128 GB + mSD |
|
| Battery | 4500mAh (17.32Wh) typ. 4370mAh (16.82Wh) rated |
|
| 15W Fast Charging |
25W Fast Charging |
|
| Front Camera | 32MP f/2.2 |
|
| Primary Rear Camera | 48MP f/2.0 |
64MP f/1.8 |
| Secondary Rear Camera |
12MP Ultra-Wide-Angle f/2.2 |
|
| Tertiary Rear Camera |
5MP Depth Camera f/2.4 |
|
| Extra Camera |
5MP Macro Shot f/2.4 |
|
| 4G / 5G Modem |
||
| Exynos 5G - (Integrated) (LTE Category 16/18) DL = 1000 Mbps 5x20MHz CA, 256-QAM UL = 200 Mbps 2x20MHz CA, 256-QAM (5G NR Sub-6) DL = 2550 Mbps UL = 1280 Mbps |
||
| SIM Size | NanoSIM + eSIM | |
| Wireless | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac BT 5.0 LE, NFC, GPS/Glonass/Galileo/BDS |
|
| Connectivity | USB Type-C | |
| Special Features | On-screen fingerprint sensor | |
| Launch OS | Android 10 with Samsung OneUI 2.0 (Unconfirmed yet) |
|
| Launch Prices | n/a | n/a |
While we don’t have outright confirmation from Samsung, the phones are seemingly powered by the new premium Exynos 980 SoC from Samsung SLSI – it’s the only chip that fits Samsung’s higher-level specifications of the new phone’s SoCs. The chipset was released last September and seemed extremely competitive in its positioning, brandishing all the capabilities of similar chips in its range, including the newest Cortex-A77 CPU cores.
The key aspect of the phones is that they are 5G capable. Samsung here integrates the modem onto the chip, capable of support sub-6GHz networks (mmWave capability is missing – both due to technical lack of ability and the associated higher costs).
Usually Samsung posts an either/or in the specifications of the SoC of a new device when it differs between regions. Here the specifications are referring to a single chip – it’s going to be interesting to see if this also means that Samsung is going forward with the Exynos chip in the USA – typically a market where the company always preferred to use Qualcomm chips.
The phones come in 6 or 8GB of RAM although Samsung doesn’t specify how this will be chosen as they only list 128GB storage as the only configurable option in that regard. MicroSD card slot is naturally still available for more storage.
On the front, both the A51 and A71 come with 2400 x 1080 FHD+ AMOLED displays- only differing in their diagonal size at 6.5” and 6.7”.
These are actually still quite big phones at 73.6 and 75.5mm widths, both wider than a Galaxy S20+, with the A71 almost matching an S20 Ultra in width. Oddly enough, the smaller A51 is advertised as being the heavier of the two new phones at 187g vs 185g.
Both come with a centre hole-punch camera setup, featuring a 32MP sensor and f/2.2 aperture lens. Samsung’s press renders also show the camera cut-out on the higher-end A71 5G is actually larger than on the small model – also a bit odd.
On the rear camera side, the smaller A51 comes with a 48MP sensor at f/2.0, whilst the A71 has a 64MP f/1.8 main camera unit. Both phones share the specifications on the remaining 3 modules: A 12MP f/2.2 Ultra-Wide-Camera, a 5MP f/2.4 depth camera, and a 5MP f/2.4 macro shot camera.
The rear glass design is glass, but with a more shimmering design effect that’s visually distinct and divided into two halves on the phone.
Samsung hasn’t yet announced official pricing for the new 5G variants of the phones (The A51 and A71 were around 300 $/€ to 400 $/€), but says availability will start throughout the month of April depending on region, subject to 5G availability.
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NICOXIS - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Good to see the huge jump in SoC from the A50 that was based on the A73/A53 comboHideOut - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
This vs assumed Pixel4 will be the real phone(s) of '20patel21 - Thursday, April 9, 2020 - link
Would really be interesting to see these phones compared to their 4G siblings w.r.t performance and battery life.Peskarik - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
I hope there will be review of Sony Xperia 1 II when it comes out.yetanotherhuman - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Yeah, still too big. Forget it. The smartphone market isn't for me these days.philehidiot - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
The size puts me off as I have small hands and the 1080 resolution on an OLED screen over that size is a problem for me. I can tell the difference between 1440 and 1080 on my phone quite easily which is why I always have it on 1440P.But... I do kind of like the idea that there's an alternative to the utterly stupid, rushed and (for me as I'm in a Exynos region) overpriced Vs performance S20 series.
awehring - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Exactly. The A3 from 2017 or so is the largest that fits in my pockets. I hope it lives long enough until the marketing departments have listened to their prospective customers.A while ago it was almost impossible to find a notebook with a non-glare display. It took years until they listened.
Rocket321 - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Do the A series phones get 2-3 years of guaranteed updates, or is that "feature" reserved for $1k phones?philehidiot - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
This got me interested as I've always been a flagship buyer but they're now getting beyond silly in price and I resent paying for a processor which is lower in performance than another region's model but valued the same. The 4G A51 is £329 which is absolutely brilliant when compared to the silly prices of flagships. Y'know what's amazing? I used to be the target market for flagship mobile devices. I'm a wealthy nerd with disposable income who loves to play with the latest technology... I loved Windows Mobile and how I could play with such relatively powerful software on a phone. Now, phones are fashion symbols and status symbols - something which nerds like me have always rejected. They've transitioned from marketing to nerds to marketing to normies with stupid, stupid features based on vanity (did you read about the phone which detects your face in a group shot and applies "beautification" to you and "uglification" to your friends?!) and restricting the ability to really play with the technology. They locked out the passionate and made strides to appeal to the shallow. /rambling_rantSo, I went out to answer your question and on none of the UK Samsung promotional pages could I find any information on updates. That makes me think that duration of updates is not one of the selling points. It's possibly something that they commit to in a variable way depending on how many people are using their devices. It's quite possible that they actually want these phones to be as disposable as possible so people turn them over quickly.
mattma - Friday, April 10, 2020 - link
Samsung selects models that are given 2-3 years of guaranteed updates. The list includes all S series phones and selected A series models. Samsung calls them Enterprise Models, and those included: A5(2017), A8(2018) and A50. Exactly those models, as similar models A8s, A50s or A51 have not been labelled Enterprise and have not been entitled to better update policy.