Samsung has unveiled its latest smartphones for India today — the Galaxy J7 priced at Rs 15,990 and the J5 at Rs 13,990, taking on Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and Le 2.
Both phones will be available on Flipkart only.
The highlights of the 2016 J7 are as follows:
METAL BUILD: Comes with a new diamond cut metal frame unlike the previous plastic build. This should give some competition to the A7 and models like Xiaomi Redmi Note 3.
AMOLED DISPLAY: The display is has a 5.5-inch super AMOLED panel, which again sets it apart from competition from LeEco and Xiaomi. UPDATE: Looks like the panel is only HD and not full HD.
PERFORMANCE: Though the chipset is (only) quad-core and is made by Qualcomm (not Exynos, as we had reported earlier.) It is likely that it is the Snapdragon 412. RAM too is measly at just 2 GB while 4 GB RAM is increasingly becoming common among youth-oriented models.
However, in terms of storage, the Samsung J7 2016 has 16 GB built-in and supports 128 GB of external memory card. We will update on whether that is a hybrid slot or a dedicated one.
The cameras have 1.9 aperture, which should help in low-light situation. The back unit has a resolution of 13 MP while the front one captures 5 million pixels.
Android version is 6.01 Marshmallow and comes with a double data offer from Airtel for up to six months that will allow consumers to get up to 30GB of free data.
GALAXY J5 SPECIFICATIONS
The J5 2016 has a smaller, 5.2-inch display with HD (and not full-HD) resolution and the same amount of RAM at 2 GB.
Battery is 3.1 Ah, which should easily last through the day.
GOOD ENOUGH?
The J7 and J5 were fairly successful models from Samsung, and were also path breakers as the company had managed to keep pricing fairly competitive for the two models at Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000.
When the original J7 hit the Indian market as a Flipkart exclusive, it had only one challenger — the Lenovo K3 Note. This time, however, its a wholly different game because there are three mighty warriors to for the J7 to fight against — the K4 Note, the 1s, the Note 3 and the upcoming Le 2 and Meizu M3 Note.
In fact, all four competing handsets are very similar to each other in terms of specifications. All of them, for example, come with 5.5-inch, full-HD displays and octa-core processors (except for RN3 – which has only six cores.)
The new Samsung models, however, have quad-core processors and 720p displays. Yet, Samsung has a secret ace up its sleeve: the display of its model is built on Super AMOLED technology, which offers stronger colors and consumes less power compared to the LCD panels found on the other three models.
While some people find the strong colors offered by AMOLED displays too artificial, the Korean company’s display technology has already garnered a strong following in India.
In addition, the company also has a better reputation and possibly a stronger service network compared to the others.
Another key difference is in application memory or RAM. Here, all the other models come with 3 GB, but the Indian version of the J7 will have only 2 GB. This is all the more irritating when you consider that the Chinese version gets 3 GB of RAM. (This part is subject to final confirmation.)
Though this may not make much of a difference most of the time, having 2 GB of RAM could start pinching if you are a heavy user of apps.
One of the unknown factors here is Android 6 Marshmallow. The J7 is the only one among the four phones which comes with Android 6 and it is not known how good Marshmallow’s RAM management is. If it’s really good, then 2 GB may be just as good as 3 GB on Android 5.
Another missing feature on the Korean model is a fingerprint scanner, found on both the Le 1s and Redmi Note.
Overall, we’d say that Samsung’s upcoming phone offers a tough fight in the lower mid-range segment and fans of AMOLED displays could choose the phone over the others despite its lower RAM and lack of a fingerprint scanner.
[socialpoll id=”2357746″]