Samsung Galaxy J5 Review

Samsung’s mid range portfolio was lacking a good value for money device ever since the release of Grand Prime last year. Samsung didn’t want to lose out on the mid range and has launched two new devices, the Galaxy J5 and J7 and these are selfie focused device. These phones are exclusive to Flipkart and comes with decent hardware for a mid range phone.

The Samsung Galaxy J5 features a 5 inch HD AMOLED display and is powered by Snapdragon 410 Quad core processor with 1.5GB RAM and 8GB internal storage along with Android 5.1.1. There is also 13MP rear camera and front 5MP camera.

Here is the detailed review of Samsung Galaxy J5.

Here is the video review

Design and Build:

Design wise, the Samsung Galaxy J5 is just another Samsung phone with the same design language you see on any mid range Samsung device. The phone has curved edges and Samsung has given a chrome finishing around the edges. The finishing doesn’t look premium and also the finishing on the rear panel could have been better considering this is a mid range phone. The rear panel has the 13MP camera, LED flash and the speaker located near it. There is also Samsung logo along with Duos branding. The device is pretty good to hold, but the chrome finishing does not provide great grip on the phone.

The front panel has the physical home button and two touch button very similar to other Samsung phones. There is 5 inch HD AMOLED display, front facing 5MP camera along with LED flash and usual sensors. But Samsung has not included an ambient light sensor on the device. The touch buttons below the display are not backlit.

Overall, we would have preferred a better build quality from Samsung on the J5.

Display:

The display on the Samsung Galaxy J5 is a 5 inch HD SUPER AMOLED (1280 x 720p) panel with 294ppi. The display is one of the strong points of the device. The display is vivid and have great colors, thanks to the AMOLED panel. The disappointing aspect is the lack of ambient light sensor, which means you need to increase the brightness when you go out. The touch response on the device is also very good, but there is no additional protection offered for scratches.

The viewing angles are also pretty good and the AMOLED display leaves an impression every time you use it. Although the price range has lot of devices with full HD panels, the J5 has a good display.

Software:

Samsung Galaxy J5 runs on Android 5.1.1 which is the latest version of Lollipop and has the custom Touchwiz UI from Samsung. The skinned UI offers good amount of features including a custom notification center which is customizable. The phone comes with a app drawer and 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.

Similar to most of the Chinese OEMs, Samsung has also included the theme store to download themes to customize your device. There is also option to buy themes. Samsung has also included few useful apps like calculator, Memo, voice recorder, radio and smart manager.

The phone also comes with Smart Manager which can manage the battery storage, RAM and also make the device secure. The phone also comes with easy mode which makes the device easy for elderly people. Easy mode has a simple home screen layout which is again customizable.

Overall software wise, the UI offers decent amount of features and functions.

Performance:

The Samsung Galaxy J5 runs on Snapdragon 410 Quad core 64 bit processor with 1.5GB RAM. The overall performance of the device was fairly good and we didn’t experience any major lags or issues which running apps or switching between apps. The gaming performance of the device was not that great and we encountered lag and frame drops when playing graphic rich games. The heat generated while playing games was considerably low.

Related Video: Samsung Galaxy J5 Gaming Review

Multi tasking was decent on the phone, we ran multiple apps in the background including games and there was close to 400MB of RAM available.

The phone supports 4G LTE, but we could not test it as our region does not have 4G. The call quality on the phone was decent and we didn’t notice any issues with calls. The speaker output was decent for a mid range phone.

The phone comes with 8GB of internal storage and out of which close to 4.5GB was available in first boot. You can expand the storage via micro SD card, but you cannot install apps directly on to the SD card. But having said that there is an option to move apps to the SD card.

Camera:

Samsung Galaxy J5 features a 13MP rear camera with f/1.9 and also a 5MP front camera for selfies. Similar to Galaxy Grand Prime, the Galaxy J5 is also a selfie focused device and comes with a front facing flash for low light selfies.

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. There is also a Pro mode or manual mode where you can manage your photo settings.

The samples taken with the device does have decent amount of detailing and the colors have come pretty decent, although it might not be as vibrant and rich as that of Lumia 730 or the new Moto G. The exposure of the camera is not really consistent and you end up images being over exposed at time. Overall, the daylight photos are decent and the camera performs well. The phone has an issue with focusing and even though there is touch to focus, you might end up with out of focus images when you hit the capture button. Coming to the indoor shots (or low light), it struggles to keep the same clarity and photos have noise, but it is decent for a mid range device. The phone can record videos in 1080P and the quality is again good.

The front facing 5MP is also pretty good especially with the powerful flash for low light selfies. It can also record videos in Full HD and the quality is pretty good. Here are some front camera samples.

Related Reading: Samsung Galaxy J5 Camera Review

Battery Life:

Samsung Galaxy J5 features a 2600mAh battery and this is good capacity for a 5 inch device in the mid range segment. 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 more than a day of battery life on this device. We haven’t tested the battery life on 4G, so we cannot comment on the performance.

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 11999, is the Samsung Galaxy J5 worth the money? To an extend yes. If you are looking to buy a new smartphone backed up by good after sales warranty which is mostly missing on most Chinese OEMs, then the Galaxy J5 is worth buying. It has good display, decent performance and backed by a above average camera and good battery life. Samsung could have done better with the design and build and also could have included a 2GB RAM.

Galaxy J5 is available exclusively on Flipkart.