Vacation photos? Instagram it. Family reunions? Facebook it. Dancing silly at a beach with friends? TikTok it. Unlike other social media apps where you have to first build an audience to showcase anything, TikTok involves making spur-of-the-moment videos that can reach friends and beyond. The idea is not to allow inhibitions get in the way; the idea is endless unspooling of one’s life online.

Generation Z is doing just that. For them the mobile phone is as central to their lives as their friends. And that Samsung understands very well.

A couple of months ago, the South Korean tech giant announced that it would reboot its A series smartphones. The focus? The TikTok generation that wants mobile phones of certain standards across price points. The objective? Make Galaxy A series the largest single brand among smartphones in the country in 2019. The company, in fact, is talking about sales in the range of $4 billion in this year (in terms of just the Galaxy A series).

That brings us to Samsung’s two new members in the Galaxy A series— the A70 and the A80— and each has its target audience. t2 had a chance to check out the two devices in Bangkok on Wednesday and here is what impressed us most.

Rotating camera

After a long time, Samsung has played around with its design to accommodate a new technology — the rotating camera on the A80. At a glance, there are no notches or hole punches on the visually appealing 6.7-inch Full HD+ (1080x2400) Super AMOLED screen. The screen real estate is much higher than what we get on smartphones.

When the selfie icon is tapped, the entire camera set-up on the back is pushed out and then turned 180 degrees at the blink of an eye. Once you exit the selfie screen, the set-up goes back in with the shooters — main: 48MP (f2.0) + 8MP; ultra-wide: 8MP, f/2.2 (123 degree); 3D Depth — pointing backwards.

What looks like a flagship feature, Samsung has introduced to a phone in a series that roughly covers a price band of Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000. Zero compromises have been made to the cameras or the look of the phone.

The 3D Depth camera has a lot to offer to the A80. First, the camera would be able to measure the height, breadth and weight of objects in real time. It will make bokeh shots appear better. Plus, it has given birth to the Live Focus Video feature. The bokeh effect that we have been enjoying on still photos gets extended to videos. The technology is spot on and none of the background blurring effect ruin the main focus in the videos.

Besides, the new full screen allows one to watch videos with no interference. Rejoice fans of video streaming.

All this brings us to address a point to worry about: What if one drops the phone while the selfie camera is on? Have no fear, the device can sense the situation and the selfie camera automatically retracts. Also, we kept an obstacle near the selfie camera when it was popping up — it immediately rolled back in.

Flagship grade

To make way for a full screen, the earpiece also had to be dealt with. The A80 uses sound-on-display technology that uses the panel as the speaker; it uses vibrations to generate and transmit sound to the listener’s ear, which is something generally reserved for high-end phones. Also present is a very receptive on-screen fingerprint scanner.

Design evolution

The Galaxy A10 and A20 came in very vivid colours to reflect the fun personalities of the consumer. The A30 came with a diagonal design effect, giving the phone a different direction. The A50 gave specifications a higher benchmark. The Galaxy A70 not just has a bigger screen size — 6.7-inch — it has a more than an all-day battery — 4,500mAh with super-fast charging.

In fact, Samsung has managed well to spread its spec sheets between the A70 and A80.

While the Snapdragon 675 powers the A70, Snapdragon 730G is in the A80. Qualcomm is positioning the latter at gamers.

Flagship vs almost flagship

With the specification-rich phones in the Galaxy A series spread over a price spectrum, one may ask why choose a flagship Galaxy S phone over, say, the Galaxy A80. First, the features on flagship series compete with those from other brands. Be it reverse wireless charging or the massive amounts of storage and RAM or AI app prediction, these are things reserved for the Galaxy S10. The Galaxy A series has brought in some flagship features to price points that are amazing.

This is a unique strategy from DJ Koh, the president and CEO, head of IT & mobile communications division, Samsung Electronics. Early last year, the company’s long-term partners in India had said they wanted to see innovations across device categories and not just on flagship models. “When I returned to Korea, I channelled all my attention — changing the way our R&D works — to put new technology ahead of device categories. Thus arrived the triple camera and the quad camera on the Galaxy A7 and A9. Then that technology moved towards the flagship models. It works. My partners loved it,” he told t2 a few weeks ago.

The strategy has worked, the proof of which is the high selling figures of the already-launched phones in the A series.

In short, the Galaxy A70 and A80 are beautifully-designed phones that does justice to the screen and top-of-the-line cameras.

Samsung Galaxy A70 The Telegraph picture

Specs

Display: 6.7-inch, Full HD+ (1080x2400) Super AMOLED. The A70 has the Infinity-U display and the A80 has the new Infinity display

Camera: On the A70 — main 32MP (f1.7), ultra-wide 8MP (f2.2), depth 5MP (f2.2), selfie 32MP (f2.0). On the A80 — main 48MP (f2.0)+8MP, ultra-wide 8MP (f2.2), 3D depth and rotating camera

Internal: On the A70 — 6GB/8GB, 128GB internal plus Micro SD slot. On the A80 — 8GB, 128GB internal storage

Battery: On the A70 — 4,500mAh and on the A80, 3,700mAh