Galaxy A70 review

Samsung Galaxy A70 review

Over the past year and a half the smartphone mid-range has become incredibly competitive flagship feature has been brought down to more affordable phones and Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi have been hitting hard in 2018. However, Samsung sort of missed the mark and now they’re trying to up their mid-range game with their newest A series. However, the 400 euro or 400 dollar depending on where you live, the price segment is incredibly competitive. And in this Galaxy A70 review you’ll know what does this phone offer you for the money…

The galaxy A70 is not a small phone; however, it’s surprisingly thin for how large it is. The bezels are thin all around; although, the bottom one is thicker than the rest. The notch is small and in contrast with the large screen, you barely notice it. The plastic back which Samsung coasts glass stick has a rainbow gradient, when it catches the light it looks a little like the colors you’ll see from oil spilled on what asphalt. Get it at Amazon.com

There’s also the main triple camera setup thankfully the cameras don’t stick out very much, so the phone doesn’t wobble when it’s on a desk. The buttons are nice and clicky and they’re placed in a more intuitive position than the s10 series; however, the phone is still pretty wide and Wow when UI helps a lot it’s not the easiest to use one-handed.

The galaxy A70 collects fingerprints pretty easily, but while they’re noticeable the phone doesn’t turn into an oil slick. It tends to be a little slippery, but it’s not like a bar of soap unlike some phones. Still I’d be pretty careful with it especially around water, because it has even less IP protection than the original Galaxy A series.

As far as biometrics are concerned there’s a face unlock option and an optical fingerprint reader. if you get used to where it is, you can even unlock your phone without needing to turn on the display. Speaking of the 6.7 inch AMOLED is the biggest selling point of the Galaxy A7. Both figuratively and literally this is the biggest AMOLED screen you’ll find in the mid-range galaxy lineup, and even one of the biggest in Samsung’s lineup aside from the s10 plus 5G.

It’s not quite HD like the s10, but it’s a really good display with a decently accurate color in vivid mode, and it’s pretty much spot-on in normal mode. Brightness gets up to 407 if you bring it up manually, and if you’re in auto mode, it gets up to 607.

So sunlight legibility is great too, and short media consumption is really good on this device. There’s a headphone jack on the bottom and sound isn’t bad, but it’s not earning any bonus points either in some markets. There’s also NFC for easier Bluetooth connectivity if your headphones aren’t wired, and for things like Samsung pay there’s a tiny earpiece above the notch, but it’s not used for anything except for calls. Get it at Amazon.com

Galaxy A70 reviewThere’s no stereo speaker setup, instead there’s a single onward firing speaker. It has above average loudness, but isn’t particularly rich in terms of sound quality, however, for this price range, it still a good deal.

Despite being really thin, the A70 is packing a beefy 4,500mAh battery. Unsurprisingly it got an impressive 103 hours on the battery life tests. It also includes faster charging than A50 with its 25W charger, mind you this is faster than the s10 too. And you can get from 0 to 42% in 30 minutes of charging.

Performance is where the galaxy A70 performed well, it was about 25% faster in tasks that required the CPU than the A50; however, the A50 was about 10% faster with graphics performance. This is pretty insignificant in day-to-day usage, and for most use cases but it’s interesting to note, and it definitely surprised us.

The A70 sports Android Pie with their newest one UI on top in classic Samsung style, and it’s still packed full of customizations and features; however, it’s a huge improvement to previous generations because everything is much cleaner easier to find, and perhaps most importantly much easier to reach with just your thumb, and this is also why the icons are so much larger too. Get it at Amazon.com

Samsung also has their own gestures which work fine, but honestly, aren’t the most intuitive ones we’ve used. other than that you’ll still find an always-on display with plenty of options. a digital wellbeing submenu that shows you how much you use your phone, and three power modes that give you a lot of control over your power consumption.

The A70’s triple camera setup features a 32 megapixel main sensor, and 8 megapixel ultra-wide lens, a depth sensor, sadly none of them have OIS. By default the phone shoots in 12 megapixels, but you can go to settings and change it to 32 instead. However, in high resolution mode, there’s no HDR. And unfortunately take a second or two longer to get your shot. And the high-res mode, daylight shots aren’t bad; however, detail levels aren’t what you’d expect from 32MP.

Photos are a bit soft despite software sharpening, and though this worked for things like grass you can notice sharpening halos in a couple of places. Still the colors are quite accurate source good contrast, and in-spite of the lack of HDR, the dynamic range is good too. In the default mode images are good, but detail and sharpness aren’t the most impressive we’ve seen on a mid-range.

Colors and contrasts are quite good, and that dynamic range is simply excellent. The ultra-wide lens produces heavily distorted images still it fits a lot in the frame, so it’s a small price to pay colors and contrasts are excellent and the dynamic range is improved by the auto HDR. Get it at Amazon.com

In low-light the 32 megapixel photos are pretty bad, so we’ll just stick with the default mode. However, it still has poor levels of detail. Without HDR, The low-light photos tend to be overexposed. HDR fixes that but introduces a few issues of its own among which is uneven sharpness or extra softness, possibly due to the imperfect photo stacking.

And good light portraits are impressive, with no abrupt transitions in the background separation. They’re not always perfect, but even flagships make blender sometimes. The front camera is also a 32 megapixel one, and it too shoots 12 megapixel photos by default. images are very detailed and have excellent colors.

Selfie portraits are generally pretty good too, but the phone really struggles with some thinnest objects like hair. The Galaxy A70 can record 4k videos at 30fps with nice details, and have excellent contrast and dynamic range colors are accurate too, but sadly there is no electronic stabilization.

Full HD footage is great too, and clips are highly detailed sharp with little noise. Naturally colors and dynamic range are as good as in 4k. the A70 is a really good all-around phone that extra-large AMOLED is a rarity and it makes it pretty easy to recommend; however, if you don’t need that bigger screen, you don’t need that extra bit of battery life, then it actually go with the galaxy A50 for $90 less, you get pretty much the same camera performance, the same UI, and pretty much the same speed. Especially, if you get the version with 6GB of RAM.

Also if you’re a more interested in photography and videography, let’s get both of these phones pay 50 bucks more and go with the pixel 3A. still it all depends on what you need the most, and all in all the galaxy A70, is one of the best mid-range earns around. Get it at Amazon.com

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Daven Klarsen is a technology writer and researcher. He's also an avid sports fan, especially when it comes to the LAL. When not working, you can usually find him tweaking his Android devices or watching soccer news.