10 MONTH UPDATE (August 25, 2021): I was going to wait until the 1 year anniversary before posting an update. However, this one pertains to 5g on ATT. I was on their cheapest prepaid plan where you pay the annual amount which equates to a $25/mth average fee. This plan DID NOT allow connection to the 5g network. The speeds were still very good but I wanted to experience 5g on this phone. So I switched to the $65/mth prepaid plan which gives 22gb of 5g data.My 5g experience was horrible. The speeds usually remained at 1.5mbps to 3.4mbps throughout the day. Only late at night did speeds get up to 43mbps. Tinkering around with the phone I tried to test LTE but could not find Network Mode which should have been under Mobile Networks in the settings. If you can't find it on your A71 5g, simply go to your dialer and enter this string of characters: *#*#4636#*#* It will automatically take you to a menu of 3 options. Choose "Phone Information". Then click the option for "Set Preferred Network Type". Then select LTE only.Lo and behold my speeds were 43mbps to 83mpbs in the middle of the day consistently. I don't know how good 5g is on other carriers but where I am, the speed is slow on ATT even though the coverage map shows that it should be strong. Going to LTE only is giving me speeds faster than broadband. I hope this helps!8 MONTH UPDATE (June 12, 2021):Eight months in and I still have no complaints regarding my purchase of the A71 5G. I'm loving all the updates it has received including Android 11. I have figured out how to successfully get the finger print reader to work 100% of the time. Basically, I've just trained my hand and thumb to place my thumb perfectly where it needs to be. It's like second nature now. Samsung continually updates its customization apps. If you have this phone you really do need to make sure you have the latest version of Good Lock (found in the Samsung store) and its various modules. You'll be able to control the adjustments to just about every facet of the phone. I love the camera on this phone. The shutter speed is average, however, in outdoor lighting the pictures are phenomenal. The wide angle selection for the rear camera and the selfie camera produces excellent shots. One thing I did wish the camera had was motion autofocus. You'll just have to spend flagship money to get a feature like that.Overall my experience with this phone has been excellent. The battery life is still excellent and still charges very quickly. I'm still using video background on my lock screen and home screens and the battery still performs like a champ. I've upgraded my wireless earbuds to Bose from the Galaxy Buds. No BT connection issues at all. My phone also connects to my Win10 laptop via the built in Link to Windows feature. The only drawback is that I still can't get the laptop to show the phone's screen. My laptop is older and doesn't have Mirror Share on it so that might be the reason. On a good note though the SmartView feature on the phone works extremely well with my Roku. I can mirror my phone's screen on my TV through the Roku using this feature. Displaying photos and video to family on a large wide screen TV is amazing but the biggest benefit is displaying Zoom calls on the TV from my phone. I can use the phone as the webcam but then see everything and everyone on the TV.I still highly recommend people get this phone. The features and the quality that you get for the price can't be matched by other phones.2 MONTH UPDATE (Nov 11, 2020):Two months in and I'm still quite happy with the A71 5g. I've removed plenty of the bloat using methods I found on the Internet. Just google "How to Remove Samsung Bloatware without Root technastic". The first link in the results should take you to the article. The method is for more advanced users. You will need to use your computer to assist in the removal.DEALING WITH SPAM CALLS AND TEXTS: During this election season I received non-stop spam calls and texts. No matter how many times I blocked a phone number the calls and texts still came in from new numbers.SOLUTION: I put the phone in "Do Not Disturb" mode in the Settings. This kills all notifications. I then selected to allow notifications from my contacts. I made sure to add companies that I deal with such as banks etc. that may call into my contacts list. The only drawback is that this doesn't apply to Duo or other apps that you may receive messages on. For example, if someone DM's you on Instagram, you won't see the notification.5g ABILITY: I am on AT&T's prepaid plan. To pay the least amount, I paid for a full year. I didn't realize that 5g is not available on most prepaid plans. Oh well. It doesn't really matter much because my use doesn't require downloading super large files. There's no advantage to streaming movies or sending/receiving texts and emails on 5g than on 4g LTE. Loading websites on 5g might be quicker but it's negligible. The only prepaid plan that gives you 5g support on AT&T is their Premium Plus plan for $75/month. I don't believe that 5g is worth the extra $50 per month.Overall the A71 5g is a champ. The screen is crystal clear and the phone operates smoothly even though at 60hz. I've customized it and have removed much of the bloat. The facial recognition is quick and flawless. I have it configured to open directly to the home page-no extra buttons to push or extra swipes to make. I just lift the phone and tip towards my face and it opens to the home screen. Battery life hasn't been a problem. My usage includes 3 to 4 hours of Youtube Music streaming high quality music while connected to Galaxy Bud Live bluetooth earbuds, an hour or so of Youtube videos in 1080p, 3 plus hours on Google News, 3 cumulative hours in Instagram, an ongoing texts throughout the day. I use a video background on the home screen as well as a video background on the lock screen. I usually end the day with about 30%-40%. I then just refill overnight.I'll update again in a few months.----------------------------------------------------------------Quick Update September 15: My neighborhood is right in the center of a 5g area according to the ATT coverage map. However, I have yet to see "5G" appear on my phone. I've only ever seen LTE. I'm not sure what the problem is.Original Review September 10:My A71 5G arrived yesterday. I've spent the last 24 hours customizing it.Here are my First Thoughts:- Screen is amazing. Videos are much better when viewed on Samsung displays.- The phone itself is quite a thin slab. It's thinner than my glass bodied Honor 8 from 2017 which was my daily phone until now. This makes the A71 5G extremely slippery.- The phone has many customization features although not quite as customizable or as easy to customize as my Honor 8.- Back plastic looks good but is still very slippery.- Camera system is more advanced than my Honor 8. Focus, clarity, wide angle, etc, the A71 5g looks to have an awesome camera. I will test out and update this review later.- Fingerprint & facial recognition are consistently accurate if I'm paying attention to what I'm doing. You can't get lazy or you will get errors before it lets you in.- Always On Display is cool but there's no configuration for adding your own photo or video or animated gif- Call quality is excellent- Transferring data from old phone to new phone is kind of a chore. You'll still have to do plenty manually after the automated transfer process- the One UI is buttery smooth just like everyone says.- dismissing apps from the recently used screen is a swipe up rather than swipe rightSurprises I Encountered:- A71 5G doesn't use a Samsung dialer as its native dialer app. It uses an app from Hiya. If you want the app to filter spam then you'll have to give up some privacy to Hiya.- Microsoft apps come already installed. The downside is that you won't be able to get Outlook to access your mail. According to the reviews the app is currently screwed up after a recent update. I couldn't get it to connect to any of my email accounts (non gmail and non hotmail accounts).- There is no native email app installed on the phone. I had to download Samsung Mail from the Play Store.- There's no way to configure ring tones and alert tones for contacts in Google Contacts. I use Hangouts for my permanent personal number from Google Voice. On my Honor 8, I could configure a unique tone for each of my contacts. I could also configure special ring tones. No such luck with the A71 5G.- The charging cord is USB-C to USB-C which means the charging brick has a USB-C socket. This is great when you want to connect the A71 5g to an old phone to transfer files, but it negates my ability to use my newly purchased 6ft USB-C charging cord w/magnetic attachments. The way the cord works is that there is an adapter that fits into the phone's USB-C socket with a round magnetic connector that the cord easily connects to. The cord itself has a magnetic connector on one end and a regular USB male on the other to connect to a charging brick. The A71 5G's charging brick only accepts USB-C.- The phone has a built-in "app lock" type of function. It allows you to put apps and files into a secure folder. The apps or files in the folder can't be opened unless you use your fingerprint or PIN. The surprise here is that when you place an app in the folder, it creates a new instance of that app which means you will still have the app accessible as normal but you will have a new instance of the app which requires secure access. So if you have a dirty Instagram account and a clean account, you can have the clean account logged into the app in the app drawer and the secured version of the app logged into the dirty account. I had to do some Google searches to figure out why I was still able to open an app placed in the secured folder from the regular app drawer.So-so Observations:- 5G speed: I tested at 9:30pm. I live in a suburban area adjacent to a metropolitan city. AT&T supposedly has 5G in my area. I got an average of 45mbps download speed and 7.7mbps upload speed via speedtest.net. I compared that to my broadband speed of 64.7mbps download & 10.25mbps upload with Centurylink using the 5ghz channel on the router. I probably would have gotten better speeds with TMobile but oh well. Let me know what you're getting if you have AT&T with any 5G phone.- Theme customizations. If you come from a Honor phone like me you'll miss your ability to fully customize your UI such as choosing among a large selection of available navigation buttons; a huge selection of different icon sets and not just icons that are contained inside a square or a circle but true free floating graphics; a user friendly interface to customize lock screen features including wallpaper from within the same theme customization interface. I took for granted that these things were the norm across all devices but not so this Samsung device. You have to go back-and-forth through multiple menu items to make changes to different parts of the UI. For example, if I want to place my own personal video as wallpaper on my lock screen, I have to do it via a handful of menus rather than the Themes app which itself, btw, can only be accessed via the Settings menu.More observations to follow.