Is the Galaxy A80 worth upgradable from Galaxy A70 ?

Samsung had launched one of its premium smartphone of A series called the A70 in the month of May as it builds on the very
balanced tri-eyed mid-ranger Galaxy A50 by enlarging its AMOLED
screen and employing a higher-end chipset with a better processor.
Then the camera setup on the back might be keeping its logic
(wide/ultra-wide/depth) but the main snapper is now a 32MP one and it
can capture 4K videos.

But now the arrival of Galaxy A80 has given some tough competition to its predecessor with good all round performance and that rotating camera that gathers attention to everybody.

Both the Galaxy A70
and Galaxy A80 are big-screen devices and offer powerful mid-range
chipsets. The A80 offers some unique new features that you won’t find
on any other Galaxy phone.

Design & Display:

Now lets deep dive into and first design comes into picture when you think about the A series smartphone with their attractive looks.
The A70 uses cheaper
materials like plastic back, but the glass-like finish and gradient
Black, Blue and White colours make it look quite premium. The A80, on
the other hand, offers a Gorilla Glass 6 rear panel that comes in
Phantom Black, Angel Gold and Ghost White solid colours.

Both the phones come with large displays and Super AMOLED screens where the Galaxy A70 houses a 6.7 inch FHD+ Super AMOLED Infinity-U display with a tiny water droplet notch and Galaxy A80 comes with a 6.7-inch FHD+ Super
AMOLED display only with no notch or punch-hole cutout.Both smartphones come with a single loudspeaker and are adequately loud but Galaxy A80 does miss on the 3,5mm audio jack which is provided on Galaxy A70. The Galaxy
A80 is the first Samsung phone to use the New Infinity display which
offers an edge-to-edge screen with no distractions and minimal bezels
for an immersive viewing experience.

Both the displays look stunning
with attractive colours, deep blacks, good brightness levels and
excellent viewing angles. The rear camera
system rises and flips to the front when using the selfie mode,
allowing you to use the same high quality camera for selfies as well.
This is a pretty unique solution that also allows Samsung to offer a
notchless display but misses on face unlock provided by Galaxy A70.
Both phones house in-display fingerprint scanner and are quick to unlock but neither of them get the ultrasonic fingerprint scanner as on the elder brother Samsung Galaxy S10 series.

Performance:

Here the Galaxy A80 holds an upper hand as it is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor which is a slight upgrade over the Snapdragon 730 processor (found in Xiaomi Redmi K20) with Select Snapdragon Elite Gaming features. This includes
support for True HDR10 gaming, as well as a max display resolution of up
to 1440p as well as battery and graphics performance.

The Snapdragon 730G
SoC is based on an 8nm process and comes with six Kryo
470 Silver high-efficiency cores operating at 1.8 GHz along with
two high-performance Kryo
470 Gold operating at 2.2 GHz.

The CPU is also
touted to uplift the performance by 15 percent over the 730. For an
enhanced graphics experience, the new Snapdragon SoC has Adreno 618
GPU alongside features such as true HDR mobile gaming with 10-bit
colour depth and Vulkan 1.1 graphics like the 730.

On the other hand, Galaxy A70 is shipped with a powerful mid-ranger chip Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 based on 11nm process and comes with six Kryo
460 Silver high-efficiency cores operating at 1.8 GHz along with
two high-performance Kryo
460 Gold operating at 2 GHz accompanied by Adreno 612 GPU. This CPU also handles many games very well like PUBG, Asphalt 9. This chipset is also found on Redmi Note 7pro (starting at Rs.13,999) as well.
When it comes to
performance, the Galaxy A80 trumps the Galaxy A70 beacuse the Galaxy
A80 as it offers a faster performance (8nm vs 11nm) and better GPU
as well (Adreno 618 vs Adreno 612).

The smoothness with
which the Galaxy A70 handled day-to-day tasks including gaming
because the Snapdragon 675 SoC is a pretty good mid-range chipset is
impressive. But the A80 handles games like PUBG and Asphalt 9
extremely well on high graphics. The SD730G is also more energy
efficient and is likely to age better compared to 675.

As of now you will not notice any lag in either of these on a daily basis as both handle multitasking seamlessly but the app loading and opening times sometimes are faster on Galaxy A80.

Battery Life:

The Samsung Galaxy A80 sports a 3700 mAh battery, while the Galaxy A70 sports a higher capacity battery of 4500 mAh.

Galaxy A70 delivers slightly better battery life compared to Galaxy A80 as it can deliver close to
a day and a half of battery life on a single charge and a full day
with Always On display enabled but the A80 is also not bad as it
gives you charge for a full day nonetheless you can charge it up
quickly by the quick charger in the box. Both the phones support 25W
fast charging over Type-C as both get charged 50% in 0-30mins.

Camera & Software:

Here Galaxy A80 marks an entry with a new module of camera called the rotating camera due to which it has allowed the phone to give a full screen display. It houses three cameras to its module with a 48MP Sony IMX586 Sensor main one + 8MP depth camera and a 3D Depth Camera.

This particular 3D
camera projects a set of laser beams and measures the time it takes
for them to return, thus recreating a depth map of the scene. This
should be able to provide a more accurate subject/background
recognition for the artificial bokeh modes and indeed Samsung’s even
using it for Live Focus. It provides good picture quality and works well in portrait modes also.

On the other hand Galaxy A70 offers 32MP lens with
PDAF, joined by a familiar 8MP ultra-wide and a 5MP depth sensor. This also like the Galaxy A80 provides Live Focus and clicks some good photos during the daytime both with the main camera and the wide angle lens.(Remember it takes photo in 12MP by default).

But the lack of night mode does hurt it and still it captures decent photos in low light.

In terms of low light or night photography, Galaxy A80 also lacks a night mode but does better the Galaxy A70 with a long exposure mode.

Coming to the front camera Galaxy A80 houses the same rear cameras as the front as the module rotates and flips to the front giving good selfies with a wide view and good colors in the background whereas on the Galaxy A70 there is 32MP doing the duty with good photos in indoor as well as outdoor conditions. Both phones can use wide angle snapper for photos and videos as well.

Both the phones can shoot video at 4k at 30fps and lack OIS which hurts the video at low light and night conditions. The videos shot by both phones at 1080p at 30fps and 60fps is good with electronic image stablilization kicking in and colour reproduction taking place.

OnePlus 7 pro at similar range of Galaxy A80 provides OIS in the camera and the hardware supports 4k at 60fps thanks to Snapdragon 855 under it.
Now coming to software both smartphones run OneUI on top of Android 9 Pie. OneUI with each update brings many new features like system wide dark mode, more rounded icons and much more. Now the OneUI 2.0 is soon to roll to these devices. The devices are smooth and the new software improves it further.

Verdict:

You can either go for any of these as both are very compelling phones in their ranges with the Galaxy A70 at Rs.28,990 and Galaxy A80 at Rs.47,999.

Rs.19,000 is a huge margin difference but if you want a good phone for gaming purpose and that segment first rotating flip camera (if you are a camera centric) with good photos plus the full screen display Galaxy A80 marks it well. That Snapdragon 730G is better than 675 in some areas otherwise you will not know any difference in day-to-day tasks.

Galaxy A70 is also not far behind the A80 as it also comes with a powerful mid-range processor,good camera and it does have the 3.5mm that the A80 lacks.

Both phones are good at their respective positions with good specifications overall but if you can shell that extra money go for the Galaxy A80 or the Galaxy A70 will also serve you well.

Both the phones are available on Samsung store as well as Amazon.in.