Samsung Galaxy J2 Review

Few weeks back Samsung had announced their new budget smartphone, the Galaxy J2 which is the successor to J1 launched earlier this year. The Samsung Galaxy J2 comes with a 4.7 inch qHD (960 X 540 p) Super AMOLED display and is powered by a Quad Core Exynos processor coupled with 1GB RAM. The internal storage on the device is 8GB and is expandable via micro SD card.

The phone also comes with 5MP rear camera with LED flash and 2MP front camera. The phone is powered by Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with a 2000mAh battery. Here is the detailed review of the device.

Related Reading: Samsung Galaxy J2 Unboxing

Design and Build:

Design wise, the Samsung Galaxy J2 is just another Samsung phone with the same design language you see on any budget range Samsung device. It is high time Samsung concentrated on the design aspect of the budget and mid range phones. The phone has curved edges and Samsung has given a chrome finishing around the edges. The finishing doesn’t look premium, but the rear panel finishing looks mich better than what we saw on Galaxy J5. The rear panel has the 5MP 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 4.7 inch qHD 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 design from Samsung on the J2.

Display:

The display on the Samsung Galaxy J2 is a 4.7 inch qHD SUPER AMOLED (960x 540p) panel with 234ppi. While the segment has plethora of devices with HD resolution, Samsung J2 fails to impress. But having said that display is still one of the best aspects 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 decent, but at times it feels a bit sticky. 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 even though it is behind the competition in terms of resolution.

Software:

Samsung Galaxy J2 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 themes, but unlike the J7 and J5, there is no theme store to download themes and you are left to use the default 4 themes included to customize your device. 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 misses out on easy mode, which was available on Galaxy J2 and J5.

Overall software wise, the UI offers decent amount of features and functions, but still does not catch up with options offered on the Yu Yuphoria or the Redmi 2.

Performance:

The Samsung Galaxy J2 runs on Exynos Quad core processor with 1GB RAM. The overall performance of the device was fairly good and we didn’t experience any major lags or issues which running apps, but did have some niggling issues when 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. Ideally the device is not really suited for gaming.

Related Video: Samsung Galaxy J5 Gaming Review

Multi tasking on the device is implemented the Android Lollipop way.

The phone supports 4G LTE and we tested the phone using 4G SIM and we could achieve good speeds. 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 4.2GB 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 J2 features a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera for selfies. The camera interface on the device offers a host of features including ability to edit ISO (pro mode), 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. But sadly, HDR or rich tone mode is missing in this device.

The samples taken with the device disappoints with lack of colors and photos look washed out. The 5MP camera isn’t able to capture too much details and they look noisy even in daylight shots. The exposure of the camera is not really consistent and you end up images being over exposed at time. Coming to the indoor shots (or low light), it struggles and the photos are noisy and lacks clarity. The phone can record videos only in 720p and the video quality is also not at par with the competition.

Here are some of the camera samples taken with the device.

Battery Life:

Samsung Galaxy J2 comes with a 2000mAh battery and the battery performance is pretty decent on the device. With average usage, you can easily get one day of battery life which includes calls, browsing, email,causal gaming and social networking apps.

We tested the battery performance on 4G LTE connection.  The phone also comes with Ultra power saving mode as well.

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 8499, does the Samsung Galaxy J2 make sense to buy? The market is offering a plethora of devices which have better specs than the Galaxy J2, but the area where J2 shines is the after sales service and warranty of Samsung which is probably missing on many online-only players. So if you looking to buy a new budget Samsung smartphone, this is a good buy, else look for better options like Redmi 2 Prime, Yuphoria, Lenovo K3 Note or even A6000 Plus.