The race to create a completely full-screen smartphone has inspired a lot of new designs. No longer chasing Apple with the big-size notch, Android smartphone manufacturers have devised all kinds of designs from water drops, punch-holes to pop-up cameras. And the latest, Samsung has launched the Galaxy A80 with a quite interesting rotating camera design. Let's see if the rotating camera is a great choice and whether the Samsung Galaxy A80 is a good choice for you or not.

Display

If there's anything you can trust in Samsung smartphones, it's the screen. Galaxy A80 uses a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED panel, with Full-HD + resolution (1080 x 2400 pixels), a 20:9 aspect ratio like the Galaxy A70 but without any defects, thanks to the rotating camera design.

Super AMOLED panel, with HDR support, as usual, offers vivid display quality, wide viewing angle, sufficient bright for outdoor usage. The only unfortunate point on the Galaxy A80 is that the Full-HD+ resolution is slightly insufficient for the screen size, if you pay close attention, you may notice some details on the screen that are not sharp.

With a full screen, Galaxy A80 does not have a speakerphone but instead uses Sound on Display technology to transmit sound to the user thanks to the vibration mechanism. Users will need some time to get used to how to put their ears close to the screen. All you need to do is putting your ears at the upper half of the display and you will be able to hear the sound very loud and clear.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy A80's external speaker is a single speaker, offering a moderate volume. During daily use, I often have to set the volume level up to 80% to listen comfortably. External speakers have no problem increasing to the highest volume level.

Performance

Galaxy A80 is powered by a Snapdragon 730G processor with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal memory. Snapdragon 730G is one of Qualcomm's most powerful mid-range chips at the moment, about 30% stronger than the Snapdragon 710. The chipset has the same specifications as the regular Snapdragon 730 with two Kryo 470 Gold cores 2.2GHz and six Kryo 470 Silver 1.8GHz cores.

However, the overclocked 618 GPU on the 730G is 15% stronger than that of the 730, incorporating Snapdragon Elite Gaming technology to optimize gaming performance. Besides, 8GB of RAM also helps the device multitasking well, can keep 8-10 apps running on the background without problems.

As for gaming, the Galaxy A80 is capable of handling the current popular games. Dead Trigger 2 stabilized at 60fps while with PUBG Mobile, the device reached 30fps at the highest graphics setting and 40fps at the mid-range graphic setting. 

Galaxy A80 is equipped with a 3,700 mAh battery, which may not sound like a low level, but when used in practice, you have to be quite "hard-headed" to be able to use for a working day. This is also understandable when the screen of the A80 is large, and if the selfie regularly, the rotating camera cluster will surely take up a small amount of power.

The battery life of the Galaxy A80 is not too impressive, but in return, the phone is equipped with fast charging technology with a maximum capacity of 25W, which is only available on the Galaxy S10 + 5G. It is also compatible with Qualcomm Quick Charge.

Fully charging the device to 100% battery from 0% will take about 1 hour 34 minutes(15 minutes - 25%, 30 minutes - 55%, 45 minutes - 75% and 1 hour - 90%). When fast charging, the device is quite hot and like other Samsung smartphones, A80 only charges fast when the screen is turned off. Unfortunately, the phone does not support wireless charging, the feature is still for high-end products S and Note.

Camera

With a rotating design, the camera cluster of the Galaxy A80 can be used on both front and back, including 48MP main camera with f / 2.0 sensor of Sony IMX586 sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera, f / 2.2 aperture and a 3D ToF camera (Time-of-Flight) with an aperture f / 1.2 used to take portrait shots.

The rotation of the camera cluster is fast, about 1 second, but the noise from the rotor is quite high, at first, I thought that was the sound effect Samsung added to the phone.

It should be noted, the rotating camera cluster needs space to be able to perform the rotation process, so if you put the machine on a flat surface, the camera will not be able to rotate, stuck for a few seconds and exit the camera app itself.

By default, the 48MP camera of the Galaxy A80 will not shoot at the highest resolution but only at 12MP. However, the quality difference between 12MP and 48MP resolution is negligible, so you shouldn't be too concerned about which mode to choose. Not to mention, HDR+ mode will not work when shooting at 48MP resolution, so this will be a major disadvantage if you take photos in complex light environments.

In low light conditions, the Galaxy A80 shows its weaknesses. The detail is greatly reduced and the color is also more pale. However, the main camera has a night mode that will help improve the brightness and detail of the image even though you will have to hold the camera for up to a few seconds.