Samsung Galaxy A80

One look at the Samsung Galaxy A80 and you can certainly that this is no ordinary device. The screen and camera module will blow you away with the implementation, giving you the impression that this is an extremely well-designed device. The rest of the specifications certainly wouldn’t fall under par, or it would totally be a waste. But it’s not. Here’s the breakdown.

Screen and design of the Samsung Galaxy A80

The Samsung Galaxy A80 is certainly a first on many fronts. It has a 6.7 inch super AMOLED Plus screen, with absolutely no cut out to accommodate the front-facing camera, which is a first for Samsung. It, therefore, pushed the screen to body ratio to a beautiful 85.86%. The bezels are very thin & the chin is not conspicuous at all. It has front only Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection as it blends into the plastic frame all the way to the plastic back. There is where lies the visual trick, a sliding phone dock that automatically flips into a front-facing module, a first of its kind implementation in any phone. The 3 camera module vertically placed and controlled by a software embedded mechanical winch pushes it up and down. The hardened plastic, called glastic offers a glossy premium feel widely associated with more expensive phones. The fingerprint sensor is an under-display fingerprint scanner, in addition to the biometric FaceID face unlock.

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy A80 is certainly no pushover when it comes to performance. It comes with the new high-end midrange chip, the Snapdragon 730, along with a 2.2GHz Kyro 470 CPU and an Adreno 618 GPU. The RAM is certainly massive, at 8GB and a non-expandable 128GB internal mass storage. The lack of the microSD slot could be attributed to the camera mechanism & the extra space it needed to be implemented. The performance is flagship material, and the lack of a camera notch certainly gives a visual illusion that the screen is more fluid. It most definitely never slacks even in the memory-intensive apps like games, making it a contender for top midrange.

Camera

The good thing about the Samsung Galaxy A80 doesn’t stop there. It has a triple camera set up, with the primary being a 48mp 25mm sensor, coupled with an 8mp ultra-wide 13mm shooter and a HQVGA ToF depth sensor. The photos are certainly clear, sharp and rich in colour. It doesn’t struggle with low light or overexposure and the portrait mode is impressive. It can record 4K UHD video at 30fps, full HD at 60fps, and 720p at 480fps. It supports HD in all modes, in addition to gyro electric image stabilization. Great news here is that all this capability can take selfies, due to the fact that the camera module slides up and flips to turn into a selfie camera, whose quality is easily in a league of its own. How cool is that?!

Battery

The Samsung Galaxy A80 comes with a decent 3700mAh non removable Li-Po battery, which is very capable, even after operating the mobile camera mechanism & a few heavy tasks. It comes with USB-C fast charging but lacks wireless charging, which is an acceptable compromise all things considered. The lack of a bigger battery is also warranted with the extra hardware that had to be added to the camera module, so it totally understandable.

Software

The Samsung Galaxy A80 comes with Android 9 Pie out of the box with Samsung’s One UI, though it is updatable to the new Android 10 with One UI 2 OS. The experience is certainly very fluid, smooth and fast. The One UI is no slouch too. It has been redesigned into a lighter and more objective skin, with a couple Samsung ecosystem surprises. The phone comes with anti-drop software, which automatically docks the camera lightning fast into its original position if it detects it’s about to fall, a very helpful feature, considering third party repair for a broken camera slider is virtually impossible.

After all is said in done, the Samsung Galaxy A80 is a unique experience on its own. From its looks to its fast internals, there really ain’t no misgivings close to a deal breaker. It has no NFC unfortunately and a 3.5mm headphone jack, in addition to of course having no IP rating for dust or water, considering all the moving parts. It comes in Angel Gold, Ghost White and Phantom Black.

Samsung Galaxy A80 Specifications