The new Samsung Galaxy A73 5G is the most premium device in the brand's A-series line-up this year, and promises to offer a great experience overall, which is what we're going to put to the test.
Design & Display
The Galaxy A73 is really well designed, and it looks modern and minimal. The colour I've got with me is the 'Awesome Mint' variant and I have to say, it's really pretty! The back is finished in matte, so it doesn't really pick up fingerprints at all, but it is made of plastic. Speaking of plastic, the frame of the A73 is not metal, even if it's been polished to make it look that way. I do like that Samsung has done this, though, because it gives the phone a striking similarity to the S22 and S22+. Weight-wise, the A73 is just a shade over 180g, making it quite lightweight despite its big size.
The front of the Galaxy A73 gets this big and beautiful 6.7-inch display with a full-HD+ resolution and a buttery smooth 120Hz high refresh rate. In true Samsung fashion, colours are rich and punchy, and using this phone for watching content is a treat. Adding to that experience is Widevine L1 certification and HDR 10 support for Netflix.
It's worth noting that the 120Hz refresh rate is not adaptive, and the A73's display features Gorilla Glass 5 protection.
Cameras
Samsung's phones at nearly every price-point are known for their great camera performance, and to help keep that reputation intact, Samsung fitted the A73 with a quad camera system on the back.
There's a 108MP primary sensor, a 12MP ultra-wide sensor, and two 5MP sensors--one for depth and one for macro shots.
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In well-lit, outdoor scenarios, the main sensor performed quite well, and I was somewhat surprised to see that Samsung had toned down the over-processed, saturated look that's usually seen on its A-series devices. Colours were quite well preserved, and there was good dynamic range in shots that required it. Being such a high resolution sensor, there was quite a lot of natural depth of field when shooting objects, although I noticed a tearing effect around the edges of the frame at times. Shots taken indoors with mixed lighting conditions were pretty good too, but the camera had a tendency to pick up noise in the darker areas of the frame.
With the ultrawide lens, there was a bit of colour shift in some images compared to the main sensor, but on the whole, the processing was pretty uniform. The field-of-view is quite wide though, so you will notice the phone doing some heavy lifting when it comes to correcting distortion in the frame.
The 5MP depth sensor helped with portrait images, and with good lighting, I got fairly good results. Colour accuracy was mostly on point, and edge detection for such a wide frame was also pretty decent.
The 5MP macro sensor, on the other hand, produced some mixed results. In some close-ups, colours were close to what they looked like in real life, but at times, there was a visible lack of accuracy and detail in the image.
So in terms of overall versatility, the A73 is quite sorted, but I do wish there was a dedicated telephoto lens here like we saw on the Samsung Galaxy A72.
When it comes to videos, the A73 shoots at a maximum of 4K 30fps, but for smoother, 60fps filming, you'll have to bump down the resolution to 1080p. It's still good to see that there's optical image stabilisation here though, and there's also an ultra-steady mode to get even more stable footage.
The front 32MP selfie sensor performed really quite well in decently-lit environments, with good detail reproduction and natural skin tones. The portrait mode also showed accurate edge detection and offered pleasing results. It's worth noting that videos with the front camera can be taken at the same resolution and frame rate as the back--4K at 30fps.
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Performance & Software
Now performance is a bit of an interesting area for the Galaxy A73, because despite being at a value flagship price point, it sports the Snapdragon 778G chipset, and while it is quite a capable performer, it's usually seen on mid-range phones. It's present on phones that are nearly half the price, in some cases, which makes it a bit of an odd choice for the A73. Still, for day-to-day tasks, performance from this chipset is great, and at no point did I feel that the phone was sluggish or struggling to keep up.
Even when playing graphic intensive games like Call of Duty: Mobile, I was able to max out the settings and play comfortably for long sessions without performance taking a hit or thermal throttling being an issue. There's 8GB RAM on tap, no matter what storage variant you buy, so switching through apps idling in the background wasn't a problem either.
Speaking of usage, the user experience on the A73 is excellent, thanks to Android 12 and One UI 4.1 on top, with all of Samsung's customisation options and extra tools. I particularly enjoyed loading up the Good Lock app for the One Handed+ feature, because of how large this phone is. In addition to this, Samsung has also promised 4 years of Android OS updates to the A73 and 5 years of security updates, making it about as future-proof you can in the Android world.
Battery & Utility
Now I said earlier that the 120Hz refresh rate on the A73 is not adaptive and eats into battery life, so it's good that Samsung has fitted the phone with a 5,000mAh battery. With moderate usage patterns, I got well over a day's worth of usage, and even with heavy workloads, I wasn't able to kill it in the span of a single day.
Charging also seemed to be pretty well optimised, because 25W fast charging on the A73 took the phone from flat to full in around 80 minutes, which sounds like a lot, but it's also a massive battery unit. Still, it's not all good news here, because like with other A-series devices, there's no charging adaptor in the box, only a Type-C to Type-C cable. So if you want to take advantage of that faster charging, you're going to have to spend Rs. 1,299 buying the adaptor from Samsung.
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Another important exclusion is the lack of a headphone jack this time, a blow that is somewhat cushioned by the fact that the stereo speakers are really loud and clear on the A73. There's also an in-display fingerprint scanner that worked well for me, and there's space for microSD card expansion, although it does come at the cost of a second SIM-card since the tray is a hybrid one. Still, it's better than not getting expandable storage at all. You also get an IP67 rating for the A73, which is something other phones at this price and higher tend to miss out on, so I'm glad Samsung is offering it here.
Price & Verdict
At a starting price of ₹41,999, I'd be lying if I said the A73 wasn't an expensive phone--it is. And while the chipset is competent enough, it could have been more powerful at this price point. But if you're not someone that needs a super powerful processor, but does need the complete Samsung experience, many years of Android updates, a large battery and a big, beautiful screen, there's only one phone that does all that--the A73.
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