Samsung Galaxy A07 4G review

Display

The Galaxy A07 4G has a pretty large 6.7-inch display. Samsung typically has a great reputation in the display department, but the Galaxy A07 4G is far from the best example of that. Unfortunately, its display is a basic PLS LCD with a rather low resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels. That works out to around 262 ppi of pixel density, which is visibly low even to the naked eye.

We have to be honest here, the display really doesn't look great in person. The colors are washed out, and the viewing angles are poor.

The panel isn't particularly bright either. We measured around 451 nits on our standardized testing by maxing out the slider. There is automatic brightness adjustment, which works well enough, but it doesn't significantly increase brightness in bright environments. We measured around 468 nits as the absolute maximum. That's not enough to be comfortable or even frankly usable outdoors. Then again, the Galaxy A07 4G is an extremely affordable device.

One area where the Galaxy A07 4G is upgraded compared to last year's model is the display refresh rate. The new model gets a 90Hz refresh rate with Samsung's Adaptive refresh rate tech. You can either keep the phone in 60Hz or enable said Adaptive mode, which automatically decides when to use 90Hz and when to drop down to 60Hz to save power.

Generally, the Galaxy A07 4G does a surprisingly good job of automatic refresh rate management, dropping down to 60Hz when there is no motion on screen and also when you play back a video in post apps.

We naturally tried high refresh rate gaming and had mixed results. Some of our test games ran at 60Hz, others at 90Hz. Not that the Helio G99 has a lot of graphical power to push high frame rates in any demanding titles to begin with, but perhaps you can find yourself some casual games that will take advantage of the 90Hz refresh rate.

Battery life

The Galaxy A07 4G has a 5,000 mAh battery on board, which is pretty standard for a modern Samsung device. It managed a decent Active Use Score of almost 13 hours, which is slightly worse than last year's Galaxy A06 achieved, presumably due to the chipset change and higher display refresh rate. Still, you get better battery life here compared to either the Galaxy A17 or the A26.

Charging speed

The Galaxy A07 4G uses Samsung's tried and true 25W PD-based charging. Since you don't get a charger in the box, we grabbed a 25W Samsung Fast Charger and a Samsung cable for our testing.

Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy A07 4G is not the fastest-charging device out there, far from it. A bit surprisingly, the charges are marginally slower than the likes of the Galaxy A17 5G and A26. Perhaps that can be explained by the fact that both of those devices use Exynos chips.

In any case, the difference is hardly huge. Plus, for the sake of thoroughness, we also conducted a charging test on the Galaxy A07 4G with a 45W Samsung charger and obtained almost the same results.

Speaker - loudness and quality

The Galaxy A07 4G has a single bottom-firing speaker at its disposal. No stereo speakers, not even a hybrid setup, though that is expected in this price range.

The speaker on the Galaxy A07 4G isn't particularly impressive. It produces a decent volume, though it is only enough for a good score in our ranking. Mids come out sounding well enough with clear dialogue, which is great. Highs can easily get distorted, especially at higher volume levels, and there is practically no bass. It is essentially identical to the one in last year's Galaxy A06 4G.

Samsung has still thrown in some more advanced audio features, like Dolby Atmos and Bluetooth's nifty separate app sound feature.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

Connectivity

Not a lot has changed in the connectivity department from last year's Galaxy A06 4G to this year's Galaxy A07 4G model. Our Galaxy A07 4G review unit is a dual-SIM model with two Nano-SIM slots, and as far as we know, this year, there will be no single-SIM variant. However, there is always time for Samsung to change its mind on that end. You only get LTE connectivity with the Galaxy A07 4G, with no 5G support. There is no eSIM support either.

The Galaxy A07 4G supports GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO and BDS for location. Local connectivity is covered by dual-band Wi-Fi 5/ac and Bluetooth 5.3 with LE support. There is no NFC, which is kind of unfortunate. No IR blaster either. The Galaxy A07 4G has a 3.5mm audio jack, which is great. It also has an FM radio receiver.

The Galaxy A07 4G has a Type-C port backed up by a basic USB 2.0 data connection. That means a maximum theoretical transfer speed of 480 Mbps. There is no video output support or anything fancy, but you do get OTG/USB Host support.

The Galaxy A07 4G has a pretty sparse set of sensors, but the basics are still covered. There is a MES mc34x9 accelerometer and a SENSORTEK stk6a7x light and proximity combo. The proximity sensor appears to be a physical device, not a virtual one, which is great to see on such a budget device. Unfortunately, there is no magnetometer (compass), no gyroscope and no barometer among the on-board sensors.