Samsung Galaxy A70 review

One UI is the way forward

The Galaxy A70 boots the brand new One UI based on Google's Android Pie. It premiered on the Galaxy S10 phones a couple of months ago and is shaping as a promising replacement of the previous Samsung Experience UX. Just as expected, it packs heavy customizations and tons of old and new features but presented in a cleaner and simplistic way.

If you've used Samsung UX over the past few years, you will probably work your way around easily. However, there are a couple of major revamps that may seem strange or even uncomfortable at first, but we think it's for the best.

Aside from the colorful new icons that might not be to everyone's taste (you can swap the default ones with another icon pack), Samsung has implemented numerous changes towards more effective and comfortable one-handed use. Now all system menus, including the drop-down menu with all the quick toggles, are located on the bottom half of the screen, so they are within reach of your thumb. It takes some time getting used to, but we think it's a pretty smart solution.

Home screen, recent apps and app drawer

Speaking of one-handed use, there are still some small tidbits that Samsung forgot about. For example, the app folders still open in full-screen with the icons placed on the upper half of the display, which means you'll have to use your other hand to reach them.

Notification shade

And just like everyone else, Samsung has its own way of implementing Google's new gesture-based navigation. They work as conventional buttons - swiping from the bottom-left brings out the recent apps menu by default and swiping from the bottom-right takes you a step back. You can swap them in the settings menu, but the home button remains as a single swipe from the bottom-center. If you swipe and hold, it will summon Google's Assistant.

In the end, Samsung saved a couple of pixels on the bottom, but the gestures still feel half-baked.

Gesture navigation options

What doesn't feel half-baked, however, is the Always On Display feature. It gives you plenty of options although not as many as on the Galaxy S10 phones (there is no brightness setting or wallpaper option here). You can choose different clock styles and font colors, what notifications to be displayed, and when the AOD to be shown - on tap, always, or scheduled.

Always On Display

In line with the rest of the UI changes, the general Settings menu has been revamped too. It's pretty compact, and some of the settings you might be looking for have ended up elsewhere. For example, the Device care sub-menu now accommodates the Battery settings and information, storage and memory management and the security features. Tapping on the Battery icon will open up the familiar battery menu full of settings and adjustments. Aside from the usual info and features which you'd find on pretty much every other Android handset, Samsung has added a couple of additional options.

Settings and other apps are redesigned for one-handed use

You have three power modes - Optimized, Medium-power saving and Maximum power saving. Optimized is the default one with performance cranked up to the maximum. In the upper right corner of the battery menu sits another sub-menu giving you more granular control over your power consumption.

Battery settings

Speaking of granularity, the Advanced menu gives you the option to set notifications to pop-up in a small view with which you can interact.

Google's push for the so-called Digital well-being has reached Samsung's One UI too. If you were ever wondering how much time you spend on your phone and which apps you mostly used, the Digital well-being sub-menu would give you the details. It's cool, but it will probably stay unused by most users.

Advanced settings and Digital Wellbeing

As before, Samsung's own take on the custom Android is full of features and pre-installed apps. We are overwhelmed, and it's hard to go over every one of them. And besides, there are plenty of carry-overs from the previous software versions. Some users may be annoyed with the heavy customization and set of pre-installed apps, especially if you are coming from a vanilla Android.

For multimedia you have the new Gallery app by Samsung for browsing photos and videos, while Play Music handles well, your music. There is also an FM radio app on board, a proprietary My Files file manager app, Bixby assistant, among others.

Gallery • Gallery • FM radio • My Files • Bixby • Bixby

And although not perfect, we kind of like where Samsung is going with this. It's addressing an issue that's been overlooked for quite some time since the new wave of huge smartphone displays. One-handed operation on the One UI is much more pleasant and comfortable. Oh, and the inclusion of the Night mode was a long-awaited feature for more than just a few users. Only using the phone's UI as a daily driver will help establish a more objective opinion but we like what we see so far.

Night mode

Performance and benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy A70 is only the third smartphone we meet powered by the Qualcomm's Snapdragon 675 chipset. The SoC has an octa-core CPU with 2x Kryo 460 Gold cores (Cortex-A76 derivative) clocked at 2.0 GHz and 6x Kryo 460 Silver cores (Cortex-A55 derivative) ticking at 1.7 GHz. The GPU inside is Adreno 612.

The SoC is manufactured on the cost-efficient 11nm node but more advanced than most chips from the previous gen 14nm Snapdragon 600-series. The 11nm (11LPP) process has been developed by Samsung as a mixture between the company's 14nm and 10nm nodes and that may be one of the reasons for opting for this Snapdragon instead of some of the in-house Exynos chips.

The Snapdragon 675 may have just two high-performance A76-derived cores, but those were enough to put it well ahead of the competition that uses A73 cores. The single-core score is amazing, as is the multi-core performance. The Snapdragon 675 offers enough processing superiority over the Galaxy A50's Exynos 9610 to make a difference.

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro
  2404
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  2391
• vivo V15 Pro
  2386
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  1715
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  1650
• Motorola One Vision
  1609
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  1576
• Oppo F11 Pro
  1560
• Realme X
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  1325

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro
  6620
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  6584
• vivo V15 Pro
  6527
• Oppo F11 Pro
  6020
• Realme X
  5915
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  5549
• Motorola One Vision
  5425
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  5411
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  5396
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  4112

The GPU scores aren't that impressive though. The Adreno 612 GPU isn't bad, not at all, it's just about 15% less capable than the Exynos 9610's Mali GPU meaning the cheaper Galaxy A50 is actually better suited for games, at least in theory. Then again 15% or less of a difference won't be felt in real life scenarios at all, so there is no cause for concern.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro
  17
• vivo V15 Pro
  17
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  15
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  14
• Motorola One Vision
  14
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  14
• Oppo F11 Pro
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  8.1

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Motorola One Vision
  9.3
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  9.2
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  9
• vivo V15 Pro
  8.8
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro
  8.7
• Oppo F11 Pro
  8.5
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  8
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  7.7
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  5.2

3DMark SSE 3.1 Unlimited

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  1409
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  1353
• Motorola One Vision
  1327
• Oppo F11 Pro
  1275
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro
  1220
• vivo V15 Pro
  1206
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  1112
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  988
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  647

Finally, the one-number-to-rule-them-all AnTuTu 7 puts the Galaxy A70 ahead of the competition, but a little bit behind its S675 peers - the vivo V15 Pro and Redmi Note 7 Pro.

AnTuTu 7

Higher is better

• vivo V15 Pro
  180774
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro
  180754
• Samsung Galaxy A70
  167750
• Oppo F11 Pro
  150218
• Samsung Galaxy A50
  144574
• Motorola One Vision
  143124
• Huawei P30 Lite (perf. mode)
  141600
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 7
  139075
• Samsung Galaxy A40
  106388

The Galaxy A70 has more than enough power punch for its price. It is a very dependable performer thanks to the Snapdragon 675 chip. It's as great for gaming as it is for daily operations and browsing the social media. The Android OS and One UI are fast and fluid on this hardware, although once you populate apps with personal content you may notice some prolonged loading times.

We didn't notice any hot points around the Galaxy A70 even when running those benchmarks for longer duration and there was no throttling at all. Overall, the A70 offers great performance for the class and nobody should be experiencing major hiccups.