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Samsung Galaxy A80 Review

Written By AJ Viray
Published • September 3rd, 2019
Gadget ReviewsMobile
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In April, Samsung launched in the Philippines its newest addition to the Galaxy A-series, the Galaxy A80. It’s one-of-a-kind for a Galaxy smartphone as it uses a flip camera module that serves as its rear and front cameras. Is this the ultimate mid-range phone for selfie lovers? Let’s find out.

Table of Contents

Design and Construction

The A80 is truly a unique looking phone, and for its build, we get a glossy 3D glass back topped with Gorilla Glass 6 with a metal frame. So, no “glasstic” back panel for this guy but it’s still a fingerprint magnet nonetheless.

The A80 is thick and heavy compared to conventional smartphones of today. The unit we have is in Phantom Black, but there’s also an Angel Gold variant if you prefer that.

The main attraction of this device is the motorized sliding component that houses the rotating triple cameras. The twist here is that these lenses serve as both the rear and front-facing cameras. And the way it activates makes it kind of addicting to use.

On the right side, you’ll see the power button, which is clicky and tactile. While on the left, you’ll find the volume buttons. There’s no dedicated Bixby button, which is good news if you don’t need it. Otherwise, you have the option to enable it using the Power Key.

Found on top, is a noise-canceling microphone. Then at the bottom, you get a single downward-firing speaker, main microphone, USB-C port, and a dual-SIM tray. Sorry guys, but no microSD card support here.

The Galaxy A80 looks elegant and feels premium but kind of thick at 9.3mm but that’s understandable given the design of the camera. My only concern is the durability of the rotating mechanism, but so far it’s been working great.

Display and Multimedia

Moving onto the display, you get a 6.7-inch Full HD+ (2400 x 1080) Super AMOLED New Infinity display which equates to 393ppi. You won’t see any notches here, and it’s protected with Gorilla Glass 3. Quality is good as you get deep blacks and punchy colors. It’s also bright enough to be used outdoors.

Given its large screen, the Galaxy A80 is an excellent device for multimedia consumption. The speaker is also loud and can produce crisp sounds but lacks in lows, which is not a surprise. The Dolby Atmos feature is a nice addition if you’re on your wired headset a lot. However, you’ll need to use the USB-C adapter included in the package as it doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio port.

Camera

Now let’s take a closer look at the Galaxy A80’s flipping cameras. It consists of three shooters – a 48MP F2.0 main, an 8MP F2.2 ultrawide, and a TOF 3D depth-sensing which helps in producing bokeh effects.

Photos shot during the day look good with excellent contrast and vibrant colors. There’s plenty of details with just the right amount of sharpness. For selfies, we can expect the same image quality. But you’ll be able to take advantage of Live Focus for that blurred background in portraits, thanks to the TOF 3D depth-sensing camera. In low-light conditions, photos are okay, but you’ll get better results when you switch to Night mode. Still, it struggles with noise, while overall quality seems a bit soft.

For videos, the A80 can shoot up to 4K resolution at 30fps, but something that I love to use is “Super Steady” feature which stabilizes the footage. However, it isn’t available when shooting in 4K, so you’ll need to reduce the resolution to Full HD. Watch the sample clip below:

OS and Apps

For software, we get Samsung’s One UI on top of Android 9 Pie. The interface is simple, clean, and organized. It’s smooth and easy to navigate and fits the A80’s large screen. The Dark Mode also looks great thanks to the AMOLED panel.

When it comes to pre-installed apps, we have the usual Google and Microsoft apps. Facebook, Spotify, and Netflix are also pre-installed but shouldn’t be an issue with its 128GB of storage.

For security, it has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is pretty slow compared to the traditional scanners. There are times that it would take around two seconds before it can recognize my fingerprint or won’t recognize it at all. Another downside is the lack of Face Unlock, which could help in increasing the unlock rate.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Galaxy A80 is a Snapdragon 730 chipset with Adreno 618 GPU GPU and 8GB of RAM. That’s a pretty powerful setup for a mid-ranger. In day-to-day use, the Galaxy A80 easily handles basic tasks such as browsing the web, checking social media, streaming videos, and even heavy gaming.

In our benchmarks, we got some pretty good results as well:

• AnTuTu – 203,562
• Geekbench 4 – 2,507 (Single-Core), 6,907 (Multi-Core)
• PC Mark – 7,196 (Work 2.0)
• 3D Mark – 2,410 (SSE – OpenGL ES 3.1), 2,259 (SSE – Vulkan)
• AndroBench – 498.88 MB/s (Read), 189.69 MB/s (Write)

Connectivity and Battery Life

Connectivity-wise, the Galaxy A80 has the basics covered. There’s 4G LTE, dual-SIM, WiFi ac, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, SatNav, and USB Type-C. Again, the only thing missing here is the 3.5mm audio port. Everything is working well as advertised.

Now taking a look at battery life, we get a 3,700mAh battery with 25W fast charging. In the PC Mark battery test, we got a result of 8 hours and 37 minutes, while in our standard video loop test, which involves looping a 1080p video at 50% brightness, 50% volume, headphones plugged in, with Airplane mode on, we got 15 hours and 10 minutes of total playback, which is decent.

Conclusion

Let’s do a quick rundown of what the Galaxy A80 can offer: an immersive screen, an upper mid-range chipset, large RAM and storage, and the main feature – the triple flipping cameras. And for all of that, Samsung is charging a quite hefty PHP 34,990USD 596INR 50,547EUR 568CNY 4,342 price tag. That’s almost flagship territory. It would have been easier to accept it had features like faster storage type, wireless charging, stereo speakers, an IP rating, or a 3.5mm audio port. Heck, it doesn’t even have a case included in the package.

But hey, if you have the budget and you like the flipping camera for selfies, go ahead and buy it. But if you want value for your money, I’d recommend looking somewhere else.

Samsung Galaxy A80 specs: