As the launch of the Samsung Galaxy A80 was underway, the brand also had a number of Galaxy A70 units available for our perusal. Considering that it’s a phone that has not yet appeared on our shores, and is pretty likely to do so, we thought we’d spend a few moments with it.
At a glance, the Galaxy A70 looks par for the course for a phone much under Samsung’s Galaxy A lineup. It’s also the largest among them all, and equal in size to the Galaxy A80. That said, using it is a pretty similar experience to using any other member of the Galaxy A line.
It comes in a 6.7-inch form factor, with an accompanying Full HD+ Infinity-U display. It does feel a little tall compared to the other phones in the series, but it’s not immediately noticeable until you really take a closer look at it. It sits pretty comfortably in hand too, though it does feel lighter than expected.
As with many phones of today, things are kept very simple on the outside. You have the power button and volume rocker on the right, and the SIM tray on the left. At the bottom, you’ll find both the USB-C port, another a 3.5mm audio jack.
At the bottom is also where you’ll find the speaker grille, housing the mono speaker. being in a crowded room, it’s a little difficult to tell exactly the kinds of volume output that the Galaxy A70 is capable of. But, as you’d expect, push it all the way to the max and most of what you hear will also be distorted.
On the back, you’ll see the Glasstic texture; a play of words by Samsung that describes its appearance of glass, but is actually plastic. That said, because it’s ultimately plastic, scratches are an eventuality, unless you get a case for it. If you need another reason for a casing; that camera bump also looks prone to scuffing.
You’ll notice also that there’s no fingerprint sensor here. This is because the fingerprint scanner that the Galaxy A70 employs sits within the display itself.
Since it runs Android 9 Pie with Samsung’s One UI, swiping from screen to screen and switching from app to app is smooth and crisp. Colours are accurate, but can also be vivid at times.
As for the camera, it comes with the usual set of modes to play with. Colours are accurate, which is something that’s pretty common among Samsung phones. Detail retention is slightly above average, but considering its status as a Galaxy A series device, I would say it sits within the expected range.
In short, the Samsung Galaxy A70 is a midrange phone that does it all, like a jack of all trades. It doesn’t particularly stand out in any way, but it does everything pretty well. Most of the things that actually make it pretty impressive are the things inside the phone, which we can only experience through having it for extended periods of time.
