Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Review

Last month Samsung had announced its mid range selfie focused smartphone, the Galaxy Grand Prime. The phone comes with a  5-inch qHD (960 x 540 pixels) display with a pixel density of 220. The phone is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 Processor. The phone runs Android KitKat 4.4.4 with custom UI from Samsung. It also has Dual SIM support and a 8-megapixel rear camera.

The biggest feature of the device is that it has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with  85 degree wide-angle lens for selfies. Today, we see lots of OEMs are into selfie smartphones and Samsung has also entered this race. The phone also comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage which is expandable to 64GB via MicroSD card.

Related Reading: Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Unboxing

Here is the detailed review of the device. Below is the video review, for text version read on.

Design and Build:

Design wise, there isn’t anything exciting about the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime and looks more or less like Grand 2 or Grand Neo or even the newer budget phones like Core 2 Duos. Having said that the design is pretty decent for a mid range phone and the phone sits perfectly in hand as it is slimmer to hold than the Moto G.

The front panel has the 5 inch display and below the display is the buttons for back home and multi tasking. For cost cutting Samsung hasn’t provided backlit buttons. Above the display is the usual set of sensors and also has the 5MP wide angle camera. One the right side, you have the power key while the volume keys are on the left side. The 3.5mm audio jack and the micro USB charging slot are on the top and bottom respectively.

The rear panel has the 8MP camera with flash and speakers. Around the bezel, you can see a chrome finish which does give a premium look to the device. The build quality of the device is pretty good.

Display:

The device comes with 5 inch TFT display which has a resolution of 540 X 960 pixels (qHD) and is considerably lower than the competition which comes with HD (720P) display. But having said that the display on the device is pretty good and is crisp and vibrant. The touch response on the display is really amazing and even better than Moto G (2014).

The viewing angles are also really good, but on thing missing on the device is the ambient light sensor. This means when ever you step out to sunlight, you will have to manually adjust the brightness from the notification center and this could be an annoyance most of the time. Even though the display resolution is not the best in this segment, the display performs really good.

Software and Performance:

Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime runs on Android 4.4.4 KitKat with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI on top of it. But unlike other phones, Samsung has not bundled any bloat ware with the phone and hence you don’t have unnecessary apps taking up space or running in the background. The UI is pretty similar to what we see on other Samsung devices. It also adds useful features like disable or hide apps from the app drawer.

The notification center is also pretty handy and has good set of quick launch icons included although you cannot customize them. The software on the device is pretty responsive and nothing to complain about. The phone runs on Snapdragon Quad Core 410 processor with 1GB RAM and this is slightly better than the Snapdragon 400 powering the Moto G and Lumia 730. The performance of the device is really smooth and lag free. Switching between apps and opening apps are pretty fast. App drawer open even faster than the one on Moto G with almost core Android.

The dedicated multi tasking button allows you to switch between apps effortlessly and you can also close all running apps in one click.

The device comes with 8GB internal storage, out of which close to 5GB is available on first boot. You can also expand the storage via microSD card. The phone also comes with tools like screen mirroring where you can project the screen on to larger display using Wi-Fi and also Ultra Power saving mode to get better out of your battery.

The call quality on the device was really good and we didn’t have any issues like dropped calls or low signal strength. The speaker quality is just average and there are other devices with better audio output. The phone comes with dual SIM card support and has dedicated section to manage the SIM cards. Overall, we are really happy with the software and performance side of this device.

Camera:

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime is a 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a front facing 5MP wide angle camera for selfies. This is Samsung’s first mid range phone focusing on selfies with the 5MP unit. The camera interface on the device offers a host of features including ability to edit ISO, exposure, add filters and effects and more. There are also a host of shooting modes including Panorama, Night Mode, Beauty face and more.

The samples taken with the device does have good amount of detailing and the colors have come pretty decent, although it might not be as vibrant and rich as that of Lumia 730. Overall, the daylight photos are good and the camera performs really well. Coming to the indoor shots (or low light), it struggles to keep the same clarity and photos are pretty noisy. The phone can record videos in 1080P and the quality is again good.

Here are some of the samples taken with the device.

Rear camera:

Front Camera:

Battery Life:

The phone comes with 2600mAh battery which is considerably higher than what we have on other mid range devices and this really has an impact on the battery life. The phone does give good battery life in normal usage which includes calls, browsing, email,causal gaming and social networking apps. We tested the battery on two instances and found that if you are an average user, you can get around 1.5 days of battery life on this device.

Along with this, the device also has ultra power saving mode which can get you more life in case you are running out of battery.

Verdict:

So is Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime worth the money? At Rs 14500, the phone is a bit expensive comparing with Moto G (review) or Zenfone 5 (review) and it does not match up with the specs as well. But having said that there are couple of strong points for this device, first is the amazing performance, second decent display even though lower resolution and finally great battery.

The camera is pretty decent as well. So if you are looking for a mid range Samsung device, Galaxy Grand Prime wouldn’t disappoint you.