[Samsung Galaxy A70 Real Life Review] bravomail:
Half baked A70, coming from S7 edge

Half baked Samsung A70, coming from Samsung S7 edge.

Pluses

- enormous screen 6.7", while keeping the size of iPhone 6s Plus (car mount still works :) )

- some apps do use full screen - youtube being primary

- big battery and 2.5 days battery life (with disabled Samsung Max!)

- fast charger

- price, value ($350 USD from amazon for A705MN): mine came with case, preinstalled screen protector, and microSD 128GB

- CPU/GPU performance is very good even in battery saving mode

- more LTE bands support for me (North America, I have A705MN model)

- integrated Samsung Max data compression VPN, to save mobile data

- dual sim

- sdcard slot

- headphone jack

- Dolby Atmos and Adjust Sound equlizer and customization work well for headphones

- speaker sound and volume is very good, not sure where mainstream reviewers were coming from

- camera is pretty good with updated software, you can also use gCam. I like LiveView and Portrait modes for their fake bokeh effect

- face recognition works, unless you r wearing glasses or your skin is not white

- bootloader is unlockable, xda recovery released, root is available, custom ROMs here we come!

Minuses

- not all apps use full screen estate, leaving unused notch and navbar area

- some apps like Waze have navbar in white background (AMOLED burnout issue), despite theme being black

- I tried autohiding navbar (with swipe gestures for home, back, recent), but that was way too awkward, I reset it back to normal navbar

- dark or black OS-wide mode is desperately needed, I tried some themes, they do not customize all the screens in OS, let alone the apps, apps follow their own theming

- there is no notification led, but u can turn on "notification reminders", which will turn on the screen periodically

- "Samsung Max VPN" and "Cell Standby" are biggest battery drainers. Luckily Samsung Max can be disabled. That tremendously improves battery life.

- camera has no stabilization of any kind, so good luck getting unshaking videos, or trying to zoom in for photos, I tried both updated camera and gCam

- phone piece (on top of phone) is kinda weak sounding (not the bottom speaker)

- headphone jack sound quality is average even after applying Dolby Atmos and Adjust sound gimmicks. S7edge (with Exynos CPU and CS DAC) rules the king of HiFi headphone sound.

- fingerprint reader works at first, but then the reader area gets too smudged and it stops recognizing even after 5 long attempts. do not use.

Bottom line:

none of the minuses are killers.

full screen issue with the apps will be fixed by app developers, I'm hoping.

Black mode for OS either going to be released by Samsung, some good theme developer, or I will use CyanogenMod.

Shaking camera is a let down, but if u don't zoom - u will be perfectly fine. Pictures r good otherwise.

Notification led - there r ways around it. Vibration/screen/flash - pick your poison.

Alternatives - take a big long hard look at S9 Plus. It retails for $333 right now. Has smaller screen 6.2, smaller battery, better everything else. Or, wait til Note 9 falls in price, as of right now (refurbished!) Note9 is double the price of A70. Note9 does have 6.4" screen and big battery. Plus that S-Pen which nobody uses, but it is cool nevertheless. If u want save some money - consider A50 - while offering the cost savings, it also offers everything less. The phones and manufacturers who offer no sdcard and no headphone jack should reconsider (Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus, Oppo), if they want to have my attention.