A modest camera setup
The Galaxy A07 4G hasn’t made any major changes in the camera department. The Galaxy A07 4G still has a pair of rear-facing snappers, out of which only one is effectively usable – the 50MP camera. The 2MP macro is complementary, so to speak.
Wide (main): 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL (S5K)JN1, f/1.8, 1/2.76″, 0.64µm, PDAF; 1080p@30fps
Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 8 MP GalaxyCore gc08a8, f/2.0, 1/4″, 1.12µm, fixed focus; 1080p@30fps
The Galaxy A07 4G has a pretty modest camera setup. The main snapper is a 50MP in-house unit – the ISOCELL (S5K)JN1, more commonly known as the JN1. It is not a particularly large sensor, at least not as large as, say, the Samsung ISOCESS S5KGN8, used in some of the company’s higher-end phones. It has phase detection autofocus, but that’s about the only extra on board. There is no OIS, and video capture is limited to 1080p. However, that seems to be a chipset limitation rather than a sensor one.
The 8MP GalaxyCore gc08a8 selfie camera is not particularly impressive either. It has a fixed focus and is also limited to 1080p video capture.
The camera app is the same as you’d find on every Samsung phone these days. You only get Pro mode on the main camera, while night mode can be used across the main and selfie cams.
Daylight photo quality
Main camera
The main camera on the Galaxy A07 4G captures binned photos in around 12.5MP by default. Quality-wise, these can best be described as passable but largely unimpressive. The detail is decent, although it’s mostly aided by a heavy-handed artificial sharpening.
The colors are a bit off; possibly due to incorrect white balance as some photos we took had a color tinge on everything. And the dynamic range is far from ideal.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera samples
The Galaxy A07 4G does portraits with its main camera. These can vary significantly in quality, ranging from decent to aggressively overexposed, particularly in the background layer. If you are careful with the shooting conditions, you can get some pretty decent shots with plenty of skin detail, nice facial features, good subject detection and separation and believable, even if not amazing background blur.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples
At 2x digital zoom, shots from the main camera look just a bit softer and noisier, as expected. Nothing too drastic, though.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples
The Galaxy A07 4G can’t focus particularly closely with its main camera, but we did manage to get some mostly decent close-up shots. If you are careful enough to get the subject in focus, it is a valid use case.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera close-up samples
Last, but not least, you can force the main camera to capture in its full 50MP resolution. The resulting shots are naturally larger in resolution and file size. As for quality, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The 50MP shots are less processed, more natural and with less artificial sharpening. It is debatable whether you actually get more fine detail on things like foliage, though. Still, if you prefer the more natural rendition and don’t mind large file sizes and pretty slow capture times, the 50MP mode is there for you. Just don’t expect miracles.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 50MP main camera samples
Selfie camera
Selfies from the 8MP front-facing camera are quite decent, considering the hardware we are working with. The focal plane is wide and pretty forgiving. Faces come out looking pretty natural with good skin tones.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 8MP selfie camera samples
Skin texture isn’t particularly detailed, but some detail is still coming through. The dynamic range could definitely be better.
Low-light camera quality
The main camera captures surprisingly clean low-light photos, all things considered. Noise is kept to a minimum. Even so, the photos are a bit soft and light on detail. Still, on the plus side, the dynamic range is fairly decent and light sources are handled very well.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples
At 2x digital zoom, photos are once again a bit softer and noisier, but still usable.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera low-light 2x zoom samples
The Galaxy A07 4G has an automatic night mode that triggers quite reliably and does automatic HDR stacking. You can trigger night mode manually through the camera mode selector, but the results are mostly identical.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples
Overall, despite using the same hardware as the Galaxy A06, the Galaxy A07 4G seems to offer slightly better low-light quality quite consistently. The low-light selfie quality is a good example. These selfies are nowhere near as noisy and actually offer quite decent detail with pleasant skin tones.
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 8MP selfie camera low-light samples
Samsung Galaxy A07 4G: 8MP selfie camera night mode samples
Video capture quality
The Galaxy A07 4G captures video at up to 1080p resolution on both its main and selfie cameras. The limitation seems to be mostly artificial, though, since using the Open Camera, you can get 1440p video out of the rear camera.
You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.
Video gets captured in a standard AVC/h.264 video stream of around 20 Mbps at FullHD quality, plus a stereo AAC audio stream, packaged inside an MP4 container. Alternatively, you can choose to capture in HEVC/h.265 and save some storage at the same quality level.
Unfortunately, the main camera lacks OIS or EIS, resulting in very shaky handheld video. Quality is decent, but largely unimpressive. There is not a lot of fine detail, colors are yellowish, contrast and dynamic range are far from perfect. At 2x, videos are softer still, but not much.
Low-light video is far from great, but honestly, it’s better than what we expected. This seems to be a common trait with the low-light photos. The detail isn’t half-bad. Light sources are handled well. Even darker areas are developed quite competently.