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It has a huge 6.
And thus, no notch. Software-wise, that 3D Depth camera adds Live Focus videos, which scans what the cameras see for both measurement and depth -- expect cool bokeh effects for selfies and more traditional shots. Samsung says its new wide-angle lens has the same viewing angle as the human eye, too. I got to handle one earlier today, and the significant part here is that the wide-angle functions can now pull double shifts for both landscapes and crowded selfies. So this rotating camera: It sounds like the solution for getting the best camera for any situation, and freeing up the screen to be the perfect rectangle, sans notches and punch holes.
It all happens once you're in the camera app. Press the on-screen button that typically switches between front- and rear-facing cameras and the back of the phone will extend. Tiny motors whirr, and this motion rotates the camera array as it moves, spinning the lenses and sensors around to face you.
The phone is now roughly half an inch longer, with a recessed band on the back. It's slick.
Very slick. But it does make even the P30 Pro seem reasonably sized. I do have concerns about whether this mechanism can handle hundreds of rotations. Introducing a mechanical motion into a smartphone, with the constant threat of pocket fluff, grit and the rest, sounds like a recipe for trouble.
The mechanism got flustered if you manually tried to retract the phone down, instead of letting the A80 pull itself back, but this was early hands-on reveal day -- Samsung should have ample time to sort any teething issues before May 29th. I noticed that all that technology along the upper edge of the Galaxy A80 does make the phone a little top-heavy too -- be careful how you handle it.
For video, Samsung's "super steady" video mode reduces video shake, and AI-powered Scene Optimizer will be able to enhance up to 30 scenes. Oh, and a Flaw Detection feature that will pick up on glitches before you click apparently. There's a 3,mAh battery which puts it closer to the S10 series, and it packs 25W super-fast charging like the incoming S10 5G phone and its little brother, the A Samsung has also mentioned that the A80 will have an "Intelligent Battery" that adapts to your routines, modifying battery use to ensure the device makes it through your day.
Related but different, there's an "Intelligent performance enhancer" that will also optimize processor use, based on how you handle your phone.
For example, if you're using the camera app and typically follow that up with an Instagram post, your A80 will learn these habits and gear up your social media apps once you've launched the camera app. I'm intrigued to see whether you'd notice this feature in real life. Many smartphones in the past have touted these power-saving AI tricks, but it's been difficult to discern the benefit when you're using the phone.
So where is the selfie camera? There isn't one.
The Galaxy A80 instead uses the main camera system on the device's back to double as the selfie lens. Whenever a user triggers the selfie camera mode, the top part of the A80 elevates, and then the triple-camera module flips over to face the user. This is a complicated mechanism that makes the pop-up camera modules in recent releases seem simplistic.
The phone looks great. The 6. There's an in-display fingerprint reader embedded under the screen too, further freeing the phone from needing to create distractions for cameras and sensors. Overall the A80's hardware is sleek and clean.
You can track the approximate location and route of your lost device. If you have enabled the 'Send last location' option in settings, it will send your device's last. Help you manage your fitness and wellness better. Keep track of your progress each and every day without giving it a thought. Just begin. * Auto-detection will.
I'm a fan of the glass back with a glossy, metallic black paint job, as well as the subtle gold trim around the camera module. The software experience here is virtually identical to that of the Samsung Galaxy S10, and that's mostly a good thing. Samsung has cleaned up its software significantly in recent years. Bixby, Samsung's critically-panned digital assistant, is still here, but at least it's now merely a software feature, as the physical Bixby button that plagued the last few flagship Galaxy phones has been omitted.
And without an actual button that is begging for accidental presses, I find that I can now mostly ignore Bixby and use a phone that feels bloat free. The TOF range imaging sensor is put to good use in a new feature called Live Focus Video, which is a video shooting mode that produces real-time depth-of-field bokeh effect around the subject. It's an impressive feature that most phones do not offer. The A80 runs on Qualcomm's mid-tier Snapdragon On paper it's not as powerful as the used in flagships, but the is still good for almost all tasks, the only shortcoming happens in the GPU, so graphically intensive games won't run as well.
But there are a couple of major hardware problems.
The first is the slow and unreliable in-display fingerprint sensor. Samsung didn't give the A80 that ultrasonic in-display scanner that's used in the S Instead it uses an optical scanner.
Now that's not necessarily a bad thing " I find the optical scanner in recent Vivo, Huawei and Oppo phones to be better than the S10's ultrasonic scanner " but Samsung used a lesser known vendor from Taiwan to supply its ultrasonic scanners Vivo, Huawei and Oppo all use a Shenzhen-based vendor named Goodix , and it is at least a few generations behind. Unlocking the A80 takes twice as long as unlocking the P30 Pro.
The second issue is that the complicated elevating camera system may be susceptible to malfunction. During my testing period I handled three separate units, and on one of them, the elevating camera mechanism would get stuck while flipping over every now and then. The other two units operated fine, so perhaps that was the rare defective unit. While it's possible that I may have just got a rare defective unit, but when I shared my video on social media, several other users said their unit suffered from similar problems, including the official Twitter account of SamMobile, the largest Samsung fan community on the internet.
The cameras, even when working, are mediocre. And the wide-angle camera, at eight megapixels, is a bit low in pixel count. In general, daytime shots turn out fine, but at night, everything falls apart. The wide-angle camera in particularly, captures images so muddied and lacking in detail at night, it is almost unusable.