Taeki Chan Samsung has launched its new mid-range A series phone; the Galaxy A52, A52 5G and A72 on the market earlier last week. I’m honoured to be able to be able to review on their A72 phone before it has been sold in Malaysia. The phone makes me feels it was light but doesn’t looks cheap at the first sight. The back of the phone was furnished with Soft Haze finishing where it makes it feels a bit sandy texture-wise, but it’s still nice to touch and doesn’t attract fingerprints.
A notable improvement we see this year is the IP67 water and dust proof, which the A71 unfortunately lacked. This feature is an important addition, even to the mid-range phone segment, as we all probably know mid-rangers are as susceptible to water-spilling-on-phone accidents as any premium phone. For those of you who don’t know, the IP67 rating assures the phone can withstand for about 30 minutes under 15cm to 1m of water, and is protected against dust and sand.
The Screen
Although the Galaxy A72’s display is the same 6.7-inch AMOLED display we see in the Galaxy A71, the Galaxy A72 has a faster display refresh rate; 90Hz compare to the Galaxy A71; 60Hz. This feature makes its first appearance in a budget-friendly Samsung phone to assure smooth scrolling and animations, especially for those gamers. It’s also equipped with the Eye Comfort Shield that helps to reduce the blue light produced from the screen and indirectly protecting our eyes from damages.
The Galaxy A72’s screen sports 2400 x 1080 resolution with 394PPI is a good resolution for this price range. The Super AMOLED Plus screen that we have on the Galaxy A72 gives us those deep AMOLED blacks and rich, yet not over saturated, colors, and is definitely a pleasure to look at.
Overall, the screen quality on this phone is excellent, and you have Vivid and Natural color modes to pick from for the display.
The Camera
The first thing that catches my attention when we discuss the camera is the camera bump design. It looks organized, neat, and the camera lenses stand out in a quite sophisticated manner.
On top of the nice new look, the Galaxy A72 is graced by some notable improvements in the camera department. It features a quad-camera setup just like its predecessor with a main sensor of 64MP, but this time with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization).
To complement the main camera, we are getting a 12 MP Ultra-wide shooter, and two additional sensors: a 5MP macro and an 8MP telephoto camera. The telephoto lens will be able to provide higher quality zoomed-in photos than your regular digital zooming (cropping in the photo) can.
On top of the nice new look, the Galaxy A72 is graced by some notable improvements in the camera department. It features a quad-camera setup just like its predecessor with a main sensor of 64MP, but this time with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization).
To complement the main camera, we are getting a 12 MP Ultra-wide shooter, and two additional sensors: a 5MP macro and an 8MP telephoto camera. The telephoto lens will be able to provide higher quality zoomed-in photos than your regular digital zooming (cropping in the photo) can.
The Galaxy A72 can also zoom up to 30x, which is surprises us but we truly recommend it not to zoom more than 4x to retain the photo quality and sharpness.
Up to now, you must be wondering what is the difference between the Galaxy S21 64MP camera and the Galaxy A72 64MP camera. The obvious difference is their sensor size which would affect its photo and video quality. The Galaxy S21 has 1.8mm while the Galaxy A72 has only a 0.8mm sensor. The larger your camera’s sensor, the larger the photosites, the more resultant megapixels, which allow for a better image and a higher resolution. High resolution is important to ensure that your images are high quality even when you blow up a photo to a larger size.
This means that can’t expect Galaxy S21’s level of photo quality with the Galaxy A72 but it still looks decently good because the Galaxy A72 has included an important feature onto it, the OIS, which will help the mid-range produce brighter and sharper images even in challenging lighting conditions, such as low-light, for example.
Video Performance
The Galaxy A72 could record 1080p 30fps and 4K 30fps on its front selfie camera and 1080p 30fps, 120fps, and 4K 30fps on its back camera. Overall the video quality was good. It appears the same as when we imported the video into our computer.
Samsung has incorporated the 4k Video Snap feature in this phone which enables us to take an 8MP photo out from 4k video was amazing. It saves us a lot of hassle to spare an additional phone or camera to take photos while recording or time from trying to grab a cover photo or any photoshoots from the video.
Overall the video footage looks decent and nice. The Scene Optimiser which quickly adjusts the color and movement of our footage also saves us from any video pre-productions on the color grading too. The auto focus was fast and with the build-in IOS, the video stabilization was above average in this category of the phone in my opinion.
To check out more on the camera performance, check out my youtube review above.
Sound Quality
Samsung Galaxy A72 was equipped with a premium stereo sound speaker (which is the first for its Galaxy A series) with Dolby Atmos 360 surround sound effect which makes the sound even better and livelier. It also allows our BudsLive and BudsPro to put you at the center of the sound automatically adjust the sound position according to your movement.
Phone Performance
The Galaxy A72 comes with the Snapdragon 720G, a slight upgrade over last year’s Snapdragon 730 on the A71. Overall, it brings a small improvement in CPU speeds, but it should be capable of handling everyday tasks with ease, such as social media browsing, video streaming, and even gaming (although some heavier games may need medium settings to run smoothly). With the 90Hz refresh rate the A72 rocks, the phone feels snappy and responsive.
The phone comes with Android 11 and you get all the bells and whistles of Samsung’s One UI here. For example, you can make your phone automatically switch to dark mode after sunset, to protect your eyes; you have revamped notifications, fast access to widgets, more lock screen customization options.
The OneUi 3.1 also has added a few more features in it such as Google Discover to customized news and content on your feed, Google Duo that allows users to chat up to 31 users at once, Video Calls Effects to customize your videos call background, and also Object Eraser – erase unwanted object on your photo.
Connect and Collaborate
The Galaxy A72 has also added a highlighted new feature called Music Share Feature which allows users to sync their phone with the device via Bluetooth. Besides, that users could use SmartThings to track or locate their devices, connecting to SmartConnect to connect and control their home smart devices, and Samsung Health to workout virtually with up to 9 friends.
Battery Life and RAM Storage
The Galaxy A72 has a bigger 5,000mAh battery that promises 2-day battery life and 8GB of RAM. This is certainly true for non-heavy gamers, but if you’re always gaming and watching videos, you may need to charge the phone about one and a half-day later. Samsung also maintained 25W fast charging with the Galaxy A72 which is a great feature to have. But you should also take note that it comes with only a 15W charger in the box.
Security
Samsung understands that the security of our data in our phones was important to us. The Galaxy A72 also has built-in security by Samsung’s very own security system; Samsung Knoxx. The multi-level security that is provided by this system ensures that our data will never be leaked out to a third party without our permission.
Connect Create Express
Now we could Connect, Create and Express ourselves with our phone which follows us around 24/7 with confidence even with this mid-range phone.
If you are looking for a mid-range phone with a Great Screen, Improved Camera, A Long Lasting Battery Life with an option of Bigger Storage up to 1TB with a Micro SD card, this is a phone that you must consider buying.
The Samsung Galaxy A72 were priced at RM 1,899 (cheaper by RM 300 compare to it’s European price if we convert) for 256GB Memory and 8GB RAM starting from 26th March 2020. For those who purchase it on Samsung’s website will also be getting a Clear Standing Cover (worth RM 109) for FREE!
For more information or update on the Galaxy A72, you may check out Samsung’s official product page starting from today at https://www.samsung.com/my/smartphones/galaxy-a/galaxy-a72-awesome-violet-256gb-sm-a725flvhxme/
