From The Straits Times    |

Hit you with that ddu-du ddu-du du!…so went the chorus for Blackpink’s hit song (also titled, well, Ddu-du Ddu-du) at Bangkok’s Impact Arena stadium and the 1,000-strong crowd went manic.

The South Korean girl group had taken the stage as guest performers for the launch of Samsung’s new Galaxy A80 phone on Wednesday night, and Her World was there to witness it.

The electricity in the air was perhaps symbolic of the smartphone war brewing – what with a spree of innovations launched and launching later this year across most brands, and the game-changing rise of foldable phones. In a bid to capture the interest of a saturated market marked by the aggressive entry of Chinese makers such as Oppo and Huawei, Samsung has also appointed Blackpink as its first global brand presenter – a move that may just hit back at its competitors with that ddu-du ddu-du.

Samsung GALAXY A80 launch

Photo: Dhylan Boey

But Samsung’s finesse didn’t stop there. The A80 itself is a mobile marvel.

Touted as an emblem of what Samsung coins the “Era of Live”, where live social media feeds are forecast as the next big cultural fixation, the Galaxy A80 is birthed with functions – yes, a rotating camera, no less – that enable ease of selfie photo-taking or video-capturing, and a superbly stabilising mechanism that shoots video content with semi-professional stability and vividness.

Of course, the functions here address more of our continued fixation with social media, but that same ease of use can very well translate into our mobile-dependent work life. Consider these new innovations:

1. Maximal Screen Display

Samsung GALAXY A80

The smartphone landscape began revolutionising the display with the minimized frame – almost bezel-less, screen, with accommodation of the groove and aperture for the front-view camera. Now, this Galaxy A80 has even done away with the notch and the pinhole, and maximised the screen display across the entire expanse of its 6.7-inch (just slightly larger than its existing biggest model, the Galaxy S10 Plus at 6.4-inches).

All the better for optimal viewing when it comes to office functions such as emails, doing up Google-documents, viewing of presentations, videos and Skype/WhatsApp video calls. And of course, Netflix’ing during commute (K-dramas? We’re not judging).

So where does the front view camera go? Which brings us to the next point.

2. Rotating Camera (Psst! It’s hidden from the front)

Samsung GALAXY A80

A common gripe of smartphone users from most brands is that the front camera is never as powerful as the rear-view camera i.e. your selfies taken at the front aren’t ever going to be as sharp or intensely coloured nor detailed as your landscape shots taken with the back camera.

Consider Samsung’s new formidable camera app for the A80 – which comprises three powerful lenses: the 48MP main camera, the Live Focus 3D Depth lens for depth and detail, and the 8MP Ultra Wide angel lens that reproduces the same viewing expanse as the human eye. And which would be a shame if they are all just for rear camera shooting.

So in a first, Samsung has enabled its trio of cameras from the rear to be rotated to the front. It’s a sexy new sliding mechanism that cleverly tucks away the camera when viewed from the front, and only appears in a smooth upward sliding motion only when selfie mode is activated.

3. Long-lasting Battery Life

The Korean manufacturer has heard our collective women-at-work battery woes and answered it with a new confection that lasts us the whole day.

How? The new battery (3,700 mAh) is an intelligent one: It learns your daily routine and app usage patterns so that your phone only optimises power to those apps that you access often. In addition, it does charge much faster (at 25W capabilities) so that it doesn’t hinder you any longer than necessary while on the go.

The Galaxy A80 smartphone is launched in Singapore in the second quarter of this year. It comes in three shades: Angel Gold (which looks pinkish to us), Ghost White (with a very subtle bluish hologramic effect – perfect if you’re onto that unicorn trend, still) and Phantom Black.