Review of Samsung A11 phone

A while ago I had my Samsung S9+ phone taken, but eventually managed to get it back.  But in the meantime I bought a temporary cheap replacement, this one.  It's okay as a phone, but just about everything else about it was a letdown.  I'd completly avoided smartphones, until I'd seen friends with some decent phones, and decided to treat myself to the S9+, buying their (then) top of the line model (fastest processor, most storage space, most RAM, good camera, etc).  My reasoning being that I'd buy the best so I wouldn't regret it later on.  This phone, the A11, was exactly why I chose the best model, before.  Unsurprisingly, as a cheaper phone the quality and features were poorer.  But I was surprised by how much, considering it came from the same company, and was at least two years newer.

The camera picture quality was acceptable, though poor in low light, but the sound quality was absolutely diabolical.  It distorted terrible with moderately loud sound, and at some stage an app update removed stereo sound leaving it all mono.  Using a non-default app (Open Camera) I got stereo sound back for a while, then it went away again, and I could get better sound quality by turning off the audio processing.  It was quieter, but no-longer mangled by terrible gain processing, though still disappointing.

The screen quality was lower, and apps were slower to start up and run.

It's one of the few phones still with a 3.5 mm headphone socket, so there's one plus.  And the socket is on the top, meaning that if you put the phone in your pocket while plugged in, or read the screen on your lap, the plug is not being bent or broken against yourself.  So there's another plus.  There aren't many pluses for this phone, only minor ones.


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