Meet our new mid-range hero. This is our new favourite phone for less than R10 000, a highly competitive category. It narrowly beats our previous winner the Samsung A53, which, in spite of boasting superior waterproofing, falls just short of the A78’s total package.
It is difficult to fault the A78. It’s powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 700 chip, which has a slight edge on the Samsung’s Exynos, especially for gaming, and includes blazingly fast 5G. There is a generous 8 GB of RAM on board, and it offers the same RAM extension technologies now found on most mid-range phones, up to 8 GB.
The 6.5-inch screen is strikingly good, pin sharp, colour rich, great for gaming and certainly the best in the category. It offers 90 Hz fast refresh, which we think is the sweet spot for smooth performance without affecting battery life too harshly.
The A78’s cameras were excellent all round. Although it offers a fairly basic dual-camera setup (compared to the quad cameras on the Samsung A53) the results we got from the 50 MP main shooter were superb, even from awkward low-light shooting. We also appreciated the stereo speakers, which include a volume booster. There is also a headphone jack and a microSD memory slot for hoarding clips, photos and music.
In the looks department, this one is a beauty, with mixture of grippable matte texture on the rear and a glossy panel around the camera hubs. The side-mounted fingerprint sensor is extremely fast and reliable and keeps your fingerprints off the screen. One crucial failing is lack of proper waterproofing, though in fairness only the Samsung A53 offers full IP67. The A78 offers IPX4 splashproofing, which is adequate to shrug off rain and desktop coffee spills.
If you’re looking to move up from an entry-level phone, you can’t go far wrong with the A78. There is some room for improvement in the camera setup, though. Otherwise, the ample processing power and graphics and the superb screen mean it’s great for gamers, and the large 5 000 mAh battery gets through two full days of mixed usage.
5G, 6.56” display @90 Hz, 8 GB RAM, 8 MP front/50 MP + 2 MP depth rear cameras, 128 GB storage, BT5.3, microSD, 5 000 mAh battery, 188 g, R8 900
