It has been nearly a year now since I bought my Samsung Galaxy A70 device and to be completely honest, the phone has been good but not as good as I thought it would be. Obviously, for anyone that has seen the spec sheet of this device would know that for its starting price of about 118,000 naira, it has been value for money. Compared to some other smartphones at that price range, the Galaxy A70 blows its competitors out of the water with its specs. These include 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and there is also the option for expandable storage, triple-lens camera system with ultrawide and depth lenses, 32 MP front camera and an in-display fingerprint reader(it is not very effective). And these are just the headline specs, so yes the phone is pretty decent for about $300 at launch. But the problem with that now is the number of value phone that have been released between its launch and the time of writing this article. Apple released a relatively budget iPhone this year (iPhone SE 2020) and even the Galaxy A50 that was released alongside the A70 has definitely been better value for money. But all these are just numbers, I have a hands-on look at the phone and I have been using it for about a year now and here is my review on the device.
First things first, it is a good phone no doubt, but it really does not have good longevity especially in the battery life department. Yes, it is normal for smartphones to have a deteriorating battery after a long time, but this phone's battery life has declined way faster than I could have ever imagined. When I first got the phone I could get on-screen times of up to 9 hours on a full charge but after about a year, it is down to around 5 - 7 hours. Now I am not really sure of how bad this is compared to other smartphones, but it is well below my expectations of the phone. And then, there are also software glitches and what have you. These bugs slowly crept into the phone as I kept using the phone. Like one bug was with the My Files app on the phone, where I try to delete a document or a video and the file doesn't get deleted and the my files app literally gets stuck trying to delete it. The only way I saw to resolve this problem was to restart the phone. After a while, I just got Xiaomi's File Manager on my phone and I would usually just use it whenever I want to manage any of my files. Another bug was for my SIM lock tool. Essentially, this tool makes you enter a PIN whenever your device is restarted, it is just an extra layer of protection in case your phone is stolen, a thief will not be able to access your SIM card just in case it is linked to your bank. But anytime I restart the phone when I get to the SIM 2 PIN and I type in about 3 numbers, for some weird reason the phone just clears the numbers I have typed in. This is not such a big issue as I can enter the PIN successfully the second time but I do not expect such issue with a phone that I paid a substantial amount of money for. There is also the In-Screen fingerprint reader that is just average nothing more. Sometimes it does not respond after several trials which can be annoying but understandable because it is just a cheap optical display that is not as good as the ultrasonic ones used on Samsung's flagships. Then, there is the abysmal face unlock which barely even works at this point. When I first got the phone the face unlock was so fast and snappy but after a year I really just have to say I am rating it a Fantano "NOT GOOD".
So, those are the rather negatives I have encountered with my device over the past year, it does not mean I have not encountered any positives. The phone is still great value for money regardless of all its shortcomings and its competitors having a greater value as I have mentioned earlier. There is not a lot of phones you can get for less than $400 with a better spec sheet than the Galaxy A70. For screen enthusiasts, the screen is absolutely huge at 6.7". This makes it also really decent for gaming as it packs a Snapdragon 675 chipset alongside its 6GBs of RAM. And then we have the camera, with its wonderful ultrawide which I just love to see. The main shooter on the back is a 32 MP camera, this gives you a lot of crisp photos, though it may not still be as good as that of the Iphone's standard 12 MP camera as a lot of computation needs to be taken into consideration. And there is the absolutely amazing storage. Really at this point, I don't know why manufacturers keep on increasing storage space size, obviously, I get that apps are getting more complex and larger, but really 128GB should be enough for just about anyone. With all the absolutely useless apps I have got on my phone, I still haven't used up half of my storage space. And there is also the wonderful design on the A-series phones, which I really like. It has a plastic back or should I say "Glasstic" as Samsung has decided to call it because it really does look like glass until further assessment. This glasstic finish doesn't make the phone feel cheap which is always a positive.
Overall, the device's negatives and positive do not out weight each other out and leaves the phone's value perfectly balanced, as all things should be(Yeah I'm Pulling out a Thanos quote for this). I still have to agree with Samsung that it is a good value for money budget phone that I could advise anyone to buy even now as the phone is likely to still receive updates next year. But, from the perspective of someone living in Nigeria, this is not really a phone that will be categorized as a budget phone by a large part of the country's demography rather it would be considered a Mid-Range phone by some and even a Flagship by others, so that may be something to take into consideration when thinking about getting this phone.
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