Samsung seems to have vowed to launch a new phone every month this year. It has been on a launching spree with its Galaxy A and M series of smartphones, which have been getting mostly positive reviews from the customers. The Galaxy A70 is the latest in the mid-range Galaxy A series by Samsung. It is positioned a step above the Galaxy A50 (read the review of Galaxy A50 here) and also above the newly released Galaxy M40 (read the review of Galaxy M40 here), priced at Rs 28,990 onwards.

Let’s go right into the review of the Samsung Galaxy A70, and see if it has what it takes to survive in the cutthroat competition in this segment:

Design

The Galaxy A70 is one of the best designed phones that I have seen launched this year in its price segment. It has a nice polycarbonate back (Samsung calls it the ‘Glastic’ design) which gives the back of the device a very premium, almost glass-like feel. The ‘Glastic’ back also gives the back sort of a prism effect., which makes for some great looking light effects, we have seen this same design with the Galaxy A50.

The Galaxy A70 is one of the largest mainstream smartphones, standing tall at 6.7inches. Though this gives it a large screen real estate, it also makes the phone difficult to hold in your hands. Thankfully, the back is rounded at the sides, which makes it a little easier to hold with one hand.

Though the glossy back makes for some pretty play of light, it also makes the device a surprisingly good fingerprint magnet. It was full of smudges in just 10 minutes of usage. A pleasant surprise is the lack of a physical fingerprint sensor at the back of the device, with Samsung going for an optical in-display fingerprint sensor.

The Galaxy A70 also, thankfully, still comes with a 3.5mm Audio jack, with a pair of in-ear headphones in the box. The device gets a USB-C port for charging at the bottom side.

Display

Display is one area where Samsung is really good at. The display of the Galaxy A70 is no different. We get a massive 6.7inch FHD+ Super Amoled panel with a resolution of 2400×1800. The panel is extremely vibrant, with deep blacks and punchy colors. You also get great legibility in direct sunlight. The display is also very sharp, with the images having a lot of detail.

Having such a large display makes the Galaxy A70 the perfect smartphone for media consumption, be it watching a TV series on Netflix or some videos on YouTube. It also has great contrast ratio, that really enhances the whole viewing experience.

The display is near bezel-less with just a tear drop shaped notch on the top, which houses the front selfie camera. The bezels at the sides are small, though the one at the bottom could have been smaller.

Performance and Software

One area where the Galaxy A70 may be a little bit behind its competition in this price range is in the performance department. It has the Snapdragon 675 SoC, though it is the fastest and latest processor in the Snapdragon 600 series by Qualcomm, it is still a mid-range SoC. When compared to the powerful 800 series processors, the 675 lacks the punch when it comes to gaming and graphics capability.

Though not that good for gaming, the Galaxy A70 is excellent when it comes to being your daily driver. It will handle most of the routine tasks like messaging, running multiple apps at once, or working on a document without breaking a sweat. The animations and transition were smooth.

Talking about the software, the Galaxy A70 comes with Samsung’s OneUI, which is among the best Android UIs after the stock UI. It has many great and useful features like Dark mode, navigation gestures, and many more. Read more about the OneUI and its features in detail by clicking here.

Samsung has also, finally, installed the full version of the Samsung Pay app on a budget smartphone. Earlier it was only available on the Galaxy Note and S series of smartphones. The Samsung Pay app allows the user to pay at any PoS station using their Debit/Credit card without carrying the card with you.

The smartphone packs in a huge 4500mAh battery, which promises the user a whole day of smartphone usage, even with such a large display. It also comes with support for fast-charging with the 25W charger allowing you to get 70% of charge in an hour.

Camera

The Galaxy A70 brings in a triple-camera setup with a 32mp sensor with f/1.7 aperture, 8mp 120-degree wide-angle sensor, and 5mp depth sensor at the back and a 32mp Samsung GD1 front-facing shooter at the front.

When it comes to mid-range smartphones, camera is one of the areas where the manufacturers usually compromise. As we saw with the Galaxy A50, the Galaxy A70 also tends to overexpose the pictures, with the details being lost. The ultrawide sensor does provide a lot of extra space for framing your shot, but there is exceptionally large amount of distortion, not suitable for frames with lots of lines and people.

The Galaxy A70 does not shoot in 32megapixel by default, it uses the 8megapixel sensor and then scales up the picture to create the 32megapixel image.

The camera performs the best in daylight settings, when the light is from the front of the subject. When the subject is backlight though, the A70 sometimes underexposes the subject and at other times overexposes the background. The autofocusing was fast, but there is an abnormally large minimum focusing distance, which rules out any kind of macro shots.

The front facing camera has the same 32megapixel sensor but a slightly larger aperture at f/2.0, which makes for slightly less detail than the rear camera, but still great images. It is a good selfie camera but a f/1.7 aperture would have been a lot better. The camera also lacks a dedicated night mode.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy A70 is a mid-range smartphone which borrows some features from its more expensive brothers in the Galaxy S and Note series. It has a great UI experience, long battery life, and stylish body, but lacks in the performance department.

The device makes for an excellent smartphone for multimedia consumption. It also makes for a great daily driver with its long battery, great screen, and fast charging.

Do share your views in the comments section below. Cheers!