Water resistance is usually a feature reserved for flagship smartphones. But occasionally, there are some mid-rangers that sport this convenient feature; one such phone is the Samsung Galaxy A73.
Aside from its IP67 water and dust resistance, other aspects of the Galaxy A73 are pretty good too. While its pricing is a little steep at RM2,099, this is comfortably an upper mid-range phone. If you’re shopping for a phone at this price point, here’s an unboxing of the A73!
Similar to Samsung’s higher-end phones like the Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Galaxy A73’s retail box is nice and compact, given that a charger is no longer bundled with the phone. If you don’t have a spare USB-C charger lying around, you’d need to get one.
Of course, a USB-C to USB-C cable is provided with the Galaxy A73, so you don’t have to shop for both a cable and charger. Now, if you want to make use of this cable, you’ll have to make sure you get a charger with a USB-C port instead of the more common USB-A connection.
Open up the box, and you’ll be greeted by the Galaxy A73 itself. A protective plastic sheet covers up the phone, and you’ll have to remove it to start setting it up. Unfortunately, a screen protector is no longer pre-installed on the phone. Consider getting one yourself along with a case to further protect the phone.
This review unit of the Galaxy A73 is in the Awesome Mint colourway, an exclusive colour option for this particular model. It’s certainly a unique shade of green, though if you want a more…classic-looking colour, there are the Awesome Grey and Awesome White options.
As for the Galaxy A73 itself, it feels quite solid despite its plastic frame and rear panel; the phone doesn’t feel cheap by any means. However, tipping the scales at 181g, it feels a tad too lightweight for my liking. A little bit more heft would’ve given the impression of a more premium phone.
Now, it’s worth reiterating that the Galaxy A73 still doesn’t feel cheap, but it doesn’t exactly feel like a high-end, flagship phone either. Nonetheless, if you don’t like hefty devices, you might find this to be a good quality for the 6.7-inch phone.
Speaking of which, the Galaxy A73’s 6.7-inch 2400 x 1080 Super AMOLED Plus display looks bright and vibrant with deep blacks; typical traits of an AMOLED panel. This is a pleasant screen to look at, and coupled with the 120Hz refresh rate, you’ve got yourself a high quality, fast display.
In the performance department, the Galaxy A73 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 5G chipset. Even though this is not a flagship-tier processor, it can still provide a fast, zippy user experience. I’ll be putting it through its paces in the full review of the A73 – stay tuned for that.
Packed with a 5,000mAh battery, I reckon the Galaxy A73 will be able to provide above average battery life too. After all, it only needs to power a 1080p AMOLED display – AMOLED panels are quite power-efficient – and the Snapdragon 778G itself isn’t too power hungry, given that it’s manufactured on a 5nm process.
And then there’s the camera system of the Galaxy A73. It has a quad camera system made up of a 108MP primary shooter, a 12MP ultra-wide angle lens, a 5MP bokeh camera, and a 5MP depth sensor. It also has a 32MP selfie camera.
While the Galaxy A73’s 108MP primary camera and 12MP ultra-wide angle lens is a good combo, it is quite odd that this phone doesn’t retain its predecessor’s telephoto shooter. This limits the versatility of the camera configuration, given that it essentially loses out on an extra focal length.
Granted, most folks will find more use out of an ultra-wide angle camera than a telephoto lens. In instances where you do need the extra zoom, the 108MP primary sensor can still be used, though it’ll be relying on digital zoom instead, losing out on image fidelity.
Nonetheless, I’ll definitely take a deeper look at the camera performance of the Galaxy A73 in the full review.
For the Malaysian market, only a single variant of the Samsung Galaxy A73 is offered here. Sporting 256GB of internal storage – that is quite generous – with 8GB of RAM, it is priced at RM2,099. Compared to other mid-range phones in the market now, this price tag is certainly on the higher side.
But the Galaxy A73 is also quite a polished mid-range, not to mention the fact that it has an IP67 rating, a rare feature even among flagship phones. But even then, can the A73 really demand a RM2,099 price tag? Well, stay tuned to the full review for an answer to this question.