The Galaxy A52 was Samsung’s best overall mid-range handset last year. The Galaxy A72 was a close second, with many interesting features (including an optical 3x telephoto camera) on-board, but Samsung made a compromise on one of its most important aspects: the Galaxy A72 was powered by the same Snapdragon processor as the Galaxy A52.
The Galaxy A52 and A72 both had the Snapdragon 720G chip, while the Galaxy A52 5G, which came in between the A52 and A72 as far as pricing was concerned, was powered by the Snapdragon 750G. It made the Galaxy A72 a little less good than it could have been, but thankfully, Samsung has fixed that with the Galaxy A73.
The Galaxy A73 is pricey, but the good thing is that it is powered by the Snapdragon 778G processor. That chip is mighty powerful even if it isn’t a flagship chip, and boy does it show. The Galaxy A73, which I started using earlier in the week, performs exactly like a flagship phone, similar to the Galaxy A52s, another Samsung phone powered by the Snapdragon 778G.
The Galaxy A73's got a near-flagship-grade chipset
The Galaxy A73 has a 120Hz screen, and despite that high refresh rate, this phone has no problem keeping things running smooth at all times. It feels completely like a high-end phone in day-to-day use, and battery life has been pretty solid, too, though I haven’t used the phone long enough for it to show its true endurance (that happens once the device learns your usage patterns, which can take a few days).
Samsung has basically fixed what was the Galaxy A72’s biggest shortcoming. Not performance-wise, mind you – the Snapdragon 720G was more than enough to let you do almost everything on the A72 without issues – but price-wise. Samsung actually listened to feedback on the A72 and did the needful with the Galaxy A73, and outside of Samsung’s flagship phones, this is the most consistently high performing smartphone from Samsung yet.
Too bad Samsung also decided to remove the optical 3x telephoto zoom camera and replace it with a depth sensor, which is a serious downgrade in my opinion. Sure, the A73’s the first mid-range Samsung phone with a 108MP camera, but I have a feeling that resolution bump isn’t going to be worth not having a dedicated zoom camera .
I won’t say throw in a verdict yet, though. I’ll be using the Galaxy A73 a few days more to see what the overall experience is like and letting you guys know about it in our full review. But, again, I’m glad that Samsung decided to give the Galaxy A73 a processor it deserves, one that doesn’t make you feel like you were shortchanged or feel like it belongs on a device a couple of steps down the ladder of mid-range Galaxy smartphones.
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