Dubai: Samsung’s Galaxy A7 Duos is the first smartphone with a sleek full metal body and decent specs that looks much better than its competitors.
Even though it does not have all the bells and whistles of a high-end smartphone, it has enough processor power to get things done without any issue. Samsung has started ditching its plastic back cover and it really pays off. The dual SIM A7’s metal frame feels very sturdy and is the slimmest Galaxy smartphone at just 6.3mm and weighs 141 grams. The S6 is 6.8mm thick while the iPhone 6 is 6.9mm.
The 5.5-inch Full HD Amoled screen is powered by Qualcomm 615 octa-core processor that includes two quad-core chips clocking 1.5GHz and 1 GHz respectively. It has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage capacity. It can be expanded up to 64GB via microSD card.
The only issue is that it runs on older KitKat operating system with its TouchWiz UI running on top of it rather than the Lollipop version.
The screen looks impressive with its Amoled screen (401 pixels per inch density) so the colours pop out with rich in details.
The device runs smoothly even with multitasking.
The 13MP rear camera with autofocus and single LED flash takes very good photos even in lowlight conditions. The camera interface is simple and allows decent amounts of customisation and lets you choose your own shortcuts from a variety of functions and settings.
The sticking out camera is at risk of getting scratched.
The animated GIF creation, beauty face, rear camera self-shooting, HDR and panorama are included while modes like sports shot, animated photo and sound & shot can be downloaded from the Samsung play store if needed.
The 5MP front camera includes an auto selfie mode without touching the button. Users can take a selfie with their voice or palm with the detection and voice recognition software built-in.
The wide selfie function allows users to create a panorama-like selfie by merging three photos taken from the left/middle/right into one perfect group selfie. Now you can capture all your friends in one photo with up to 110° of range in portrait mode and 120 degrees of range in landscape mode. The animated selfie lets you record those longer moments by snapping up to 20 continuous photos and automatically creating a shareable GIF instead of a movie.
The photo editing tools lets users improve the selfies taken.
The rear camera can shoot Full HD videos at 30 frames per second but it does not have options for slow motion videos at 60 or 120 frames per second. The front camera can record Full HD in landscape or portrait modes.
The automatic adjustable audio feature will automatically increase or decrease the volume in response to the background noise around you.
The single speaker grill on the right of the rear camera is excellent and produces rich sound.
There is no LED indicator on the phone to let users know of missed calls or notifications. It is a bit strange. Extra SIM and microSD card share the same slot. The dual-SIM device can receive calls on one card even while talking on the other. This feature can be disabled to reduce the battery usage a bit.
Regarding connectivity, it has 4G LTE, WiFi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, but no support for DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link), HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), Infrared and WiFi Direct.
The microUSB 2.0 port on the bottom of the phone does not support MHL so there’s no TV out.
The non-removable Li-Ion 2600mAh battery is decent enough to last for a day for heavy users. It gave around 10 hours for both web browsing and video playback and 25 hours of 3G talk time. With ultra-power saving features dramatically reduces battery consumption by shutting down unnecessary functions to prolong the battery life. It is priced at Dh1,799.
