Samsung’s tentacles have effectively encroached into every crevice of the smartphone market. Whatever the size of your wallet, there is a Samsung phone for you.
But if you haven’t been following new releases, you could be excused. A total of eleven new Galaxy phones have been released in 2019, ranging from entry-level devices to high-end flagships, and as 2020 drags on, that list is projected to get even longer.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A70’s design and main features
By 2019 standards, the Galaxy A70 is a really ordinary smartphone. It might not be a marvel of smartphone architecture, but it also doesn’t seem cheap in comparison to Samsung’s S-tier flagships or the Galaxy A80. Despite its size, the Galaxy A70’s slightly curved sides fit comfortably in the hand thanks to its “3D glasstic” union of metal and glass. Additionally, it is incredibly thin, measuring only 7.9mm.
The A70’s four distinct colors—black, white, coral, and blue—shimmer attractively anytime light touches the back, emulating the Galaxy S10’s opulent iridescent paint treatments. For instance, the blue device I received for review produces a gentle orange ombre tinge, which is a very charming touch for a phone that costs less than half as much as Samsung’s flagship model.
The Galaxy A70 also has a huge 6.7-inch notched display and a triple camera setup on the back of the device. Thankfully, Samsung has chosen to include a 3.5mm audio jack, which is a connector that is absent from the more expensive Galaxy A80. This connector is located adjacent to the Galaxy A70’s USB Type-C charging port and lone speaker grille. The dual-SIM tray is visible on the upper-left edge, and the volume rocker and power buttons are located on the right.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A70: Display
With the Galaxy A70, Samsung debuts their custom “Infinity-U” display, which uses a semi-circular drop notch to eat through the top of the 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel. Although it doesn’t appear as as sleek as the Galaxy S10’s completely borderless display, you can’t really complain about the price given how inexpensive it is.
By some technical miracle, Samsung’s outstanding ultrasonic on-display fingerprint reading technology for safe unlocking is still available on the Galaxy A70. In our tests, this unlocked the phone quite quickly and could even be used to wake the device when the screen is off by analyzing the ridges of your thumb or finger when it is put on the bottom of the display.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A70’s functionality and endurance
An octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 CPU with a maximum clock speed of 2GHz and 6GB of RAM may be found within the Galaxy A70. This mid-range chipset was initially spotted earlier this year powering the Vivo V15 Pro, but oddly, the less expensive Galaxy A50 uses the Samsung-made Exynos 9610 engine, which has a slightly higher clock speed. In any case, there is a respectable 128GB of internal storage that can be expanded by a further 256GB with a microSD card.
When put to the test, the internals of the Galaxy A70 stand up admirably, but you shouldn’t anticipate the same lightning-fast speeds as the Galaxy S10. It’s really perplexing that the more affordable Galaxy A50 is faster, but the Galaxy A70 generally performs admirably versus the competition.
This outcome is so outstanding that it propels the Galaxy A70 to the fourth spot in our ranking of smartphone battery life, making it the first device to come this close to the top spot since the Moto E5 Plus last year. It’s not impossible to get a day and a half of use out of this, and if you’re a little more frugal with your apps and photo-taking, you might even get two days.
Review of the Samsung Galaxy A70: Camera
Moving on to the Galaxy A70’s photographic capabilities, I should mention that. A triple camera array that is vertically oriented may be seen when you turn the phone over. An 8-megapixel (f/2.2) ultra-wide lens with a field of view of 123 degrees and a 5-megapixel (f/2.2) depth sensor are added to the primary 32-megapixel (f/1.7) sensor to improve portraiture with blurred backgrounds.
By 2019 standards, this triple camera setup is nothing new, yet the Galaxy A70 is still capable of generating photographs of the highest caliber. The A70 captures outside environments with exceptional clarity and detail, giving the Pixel 3a its first real competition. The brickwork is clearly delineated with precisely measured exposures and color reproduction, and sunlight reflections on nearby windows appear brilliant.
In low-light photography, the A70 doesn’t perform as well as it could. The Galaxy A70’s low-light images appear to have faint, washed-out colors, while the Pixel 3a is able to capture a picture that is sharper-looking and has more detail. Although neither image is free from visual noise, the Galaxy A70 still performs better than most of its competitors.
Simple swipes to the left and right are all that’s needed to access shooting modes like panorama, hyper-lapse, and 960 frames per second slow-motion recording on the camera’s software. The “live focus” portrait mode on the Galaxy A70 is still fantastic and lets you control the amount of background blur before taking the picture.
The Galaxy A70 also offers Full HD capture at up to 60 frames per second and 4K quality video recording at 30 frames per second. When recording video, the ultra-wide lens can also be used, but in this mode, footage can only be recorded at Full HD definition at 30 frames per second. In general, the video looks fantastic, albeit it isn’t ideal that there is no image stabilization at higher resolutions and faster frame rates.
Verdict on the Samsung Galaxy A70 review
With the Galaxy A70, Samsung seems to have found the correct balance between high-end features and cost. This is a perilously thin line to walk. If you don’t like spending flagship-sized amounts of money, the Galaxy A70 is the perfect option. It may not have the fancy rotating selfie camera of its more expensive A80 sibling, but it excels in the important areas.
