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.

Related Reading:

Comments Locked

14 Comments

View All Comments

  • phoenix_rizzen - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link

    Wife's A8 (2018) has received 1 OS update so far, along with security updates every other month. She upgraded to an S10e in January due to hardware failure (microphone stopped working) but we still use it as a web browser device. There's an update waiting, but haven't checked if it's an OS or security update.
  • nicolaim - Saturday, April 11, 2020 - link

    No mention of software update policy?
    No mention of waterproofing?
    No mention of wireless charging?
    No mention of headphone jack?
  • leexgx - Sunday, April 12, 2020 - link

    surprised no one has started complaining about the lack of mmWave yet (personally i think mmWave usefulness is extremely limited 2-3.5Ghz is what's more interesting (having mmWave is a nice have if your in a area that needs it like transport hubs or large events)

    t-mobile saying they have all over USA 5G when its only 600mhz 5g witch is same or slower than 4G (real 4G/LTE not fake 4G/HSPA+) USA needs to free up 3.5Ghz 5g phone use (band n78) as currant mast placements can be still effective without microcells

    (it be really helpful if USA would use same bands as EU/UK it make phone development a lot easier)
  • DoraMK - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    In my opinion a great gadget. It will be convenient to play online slots on it. For example, such as on this site https://fa-fa-fa-slot.com/winning-at-fa-fa-fa-slot...

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now