About 1 month ago I made the jump and got myself the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017) for RM299 (excluding GST) by getting the Maxis One Club RM158 plan. Sold my previous phone (the Redmi 2 Enhanced, so I didn't have fork out a lot of money for the device).

I was a proud owner of the Samsung Galaxy S2, which took the world by storm, so it's nice to be a Samsung user again.

RRP is set at RM1,899 by Samsung Malaysia. Sadly at that price, this phone is parked under the 'midrange category'. With flagship price going higher and higher, this is no surprise actually.

Early reviews by critics gave the latest Galaxy A7 considerably good ratings as the A7 has gotten many great features from the big brother Galaxy S7, which is the flagship of the Galaxy S series.

What I love: 

1. Smart View - This is an exceptionally great feature as this means that I no longer need to use another app to cast a content from my phone to the smart TV. Everything is mirror-image, which makes viewing videos on my smart TV using my phone much easier. Instant.

2. Blue Light Filter - Many people would know by now that the blue light from electronic displays aren't good for your eyes and is said to have caused sleeplessness. Forget installing the 'Twilight' app to reduce the blue light emission as Samsung has got me covered with this feature. Handy.

3. Camera - I know people have criticised Samsung for not including the best camera for the mid-range phones to ensure that only the flagships get the best. However, coming as a user who was previously using Mi's Redmi 2 Enhanced, there is no doubt that this camera is a great upgrade for myself. However, people are right to slam Samsung for excluding the ois (optical image stabilisation) cause it's such an important feature for camera.

 4. Battery - Battery life is impressive! Enough said.

5. Display - I've always love the Super AMOLED displays.

What I dislike:

1. Always On Display - This feature means that your phone is 'never really turned off'. There's always something showing on your scree. A real good feature because I can see what time it is all the time... and whatever notifications on the screen without having to wake the phone. However, this also means that Samsung has do away with the LED notifications. While I still like if I have the option to enable LED notifications instead of just Always On Display.

2. Sound Mode - This a Android thing that I faced back when I was using Moto G (I didn't have such problems with MIUI, though). When I switch to the Vibrate sound mode - Ringtone, Notifications and Systems sounds are all muted EXCEPT for Media. Which means that I get startled when I accidentally scrolled and tapped on a video on Facebook. This is annoying but I googled and found a quick fix for this. Just download the 'Media-Mute' app on Google Playstore and the phone will immediately mute all sounds - including Media - when I switch to Vibrate sound mode.

3. Default Apps - In most phones, users are given the choice of a couple of apps and they would have to taps "Always" or "Just once" . Choosing "Always" means that you've set the app to be your default app when opening certain things (ie. default browser - Chrome) and "just once" means that you'll have to choose again the next time. I'm not sure who thought it was a great idea to do away with it in the Samsung. But once again, the world is full of alternatives so there's this app called 'Better Open With' that fix the situation but that means there's one extra step to make sure that I can still have the option to choose.

So there, a quick review and first impressions after using the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017) for more than a month.

Have a question? Leave it in the comment section below :)