The Samsung Galaxy A10 has impressive party piece. It not only has three cameras rear cameras - but all three of these lenses pop-up and rotate in to serve as the front-facing selfie cameras too! It is a feat of engineering that will have you mesmerising – and we have been watching this video again and again of it in operation, shot by our colleagues at Techradar (opens in new tab).
For this trick of engineering alone it is a worth contender it could well go down as one of our best camera phones (opens in new tab). But this handset, which goes on sale at the end of May, also has some impressive photographic credentials.
The main camera is a 48 megapixel sensor with an f/2 lens - matching the resolution of other recent models such as the Honor View 20 (opens in new tab) and the Xiaomi Mi 9 (opens in new tab).
In addition there is an ultra-wide-lensed camera which offers a 123° view – which is roughly equivalent to the sort of view that you would get from a 12mm full-frame lens. This has a maximum aperture of f/2.2 and offers a resolution of 8 megapixels.
Finally there is a time-of-flight camera (opens in new tab) which is used to help create blurred background for photographs using AI (opens in new tab).
The ingenious pop-up and rotating triple lens array is a great solution to the conundrum that smartphone manufacturers have faced... A front camera gets in the way of maximizing the size of the LCD screen. We have seen notch arrangements, and other clever solutions, to this – but this is the cleverest. It ensures that the 1080x2400 Super AMOLED panel fills the whole front of the phone. And you get a the advantage of all three cameras whichever way round the phone is pointing.
The pricing for the Samsung Galaxy A80 has yet to be announced - and it will be interesting to see how the motorised lens system works in practice when you get a chance to test this enticing new camera phone.
Read more:
• The best camera phones in 2019 (opens in new tab)
• Best selfie sticks for your smartphone (opens in new tab)
• The best iPhone tripods (opens in new tab)
• The best gimbals for your iPhone, GoPro and camera (opens in new tab)
• The best phone cases to protect your camera phone (opens in new tab)
