Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro Review

Last year Samsung announced two devices under the On series, the On5 and On7. Few days back Samsung has upgraded the specs of the device and launched them as On5 Pro and On7 Pro. The On7 Pro is Amazon exclusive and comes with 5.5 inch HD display and is powered by Snapdragon 410 Quad core  processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage.

It also comes with 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera along with Android 6.0 Marshmallow. So how does the On7 Pro perform in the segment? Let’s find out in this detailed review.

Design and Build:

Samsung has been maintaining the same design for almost all of its budget and mid-range phones and same is the case with Galaxy On7 Pro. The Galaxy On5 Pro and On7 Pro have the exact design. There isn’t any change in terms of design when compared to previous generation On series phones. The device looks dated in terms of the design and the build quality also looks average. It has almost similar design as that of Galaxy J7, but with plastic finishing. The phone comes with chrome finishing on the sides. The power button is located on the right side while the volume keys are on the left panel. The audio jack and micro USB charging slot are located at the bottom. The front panel houses the 5.5-inch display, three buttons with the physical home button.

The rear panel has faux leather like finishing which was first found on Note 3. The 13MP rear camera, flash, and the speaker is located on the rear panel. The phone comes in gold and black variants. While the device is pretty decent to hold, the design and build quality is pretty average considering the competition is offering better design and build in the price point.

Display:

The phone comes with a 5.5 inch HD display (1280 X 720p) with a TFT LCD panel instead of the regular IPS LCD panel found on most of the phone today. The TFT panel provides a dull display for the device and it is even worse that what we saw on On5 Pro. While the brightness levels are sufficient, the colors are not impressive, particularly when you see the AMOLED display on Galaxy J5 and J7. Samsung has opted for the cheaper TFT panel and the display looks out-dated. There is no additional protection offered on the display. The touch response is quite decent. Similar to J series, the On7 also misses out on ambient light sensor and it comes with an outdoor mode.

Software:

Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro runs on Android 6.0.1 which is the latest version of Marshmallow and has the custom Touchwiz UI from Samsung. The skinned UI offers a good amount of features including a custom notification center which is customizable. The phone comes with an app drawer and Samsung has not bundled any bloatware 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.

The phone also comes with a theme manager where you can download additional themes to customize the phone. This wasn’t the case with On7 which did not feature theme manager. Samsung has also included few useful apps like calculator, Memo, voice recorder, radio, S Planner and Smart manager.

The phone also comes with Smart Manager which can manage the battery storage, RAM and also make the device secure. There are features like S Bike mode, ultra data saving mode, ultra power saving mode which adds to the useful features. S Bike Mode allows you to turn on do not disturb mode when driving or riding a bike. Overall, in the software, the phone offers decent features for the price.

Performance:

The Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro runs on Snapdragon 410 Quad core processor with 2GB RAM and this is one of the most popular processors for the mid range phones. There is an upgrade in the RAM from 1.5GB in On7 to 2GB in the pro version. The overall performance of the device was good on moderate usage and we did not experience any lags or issues on the device. The gaming performance of the device was also quite good and we did not encounter any major issues. The heat generated while playing games was considerably low.

While the overall performance looks quite decent, 410 is now a dated processor and we have quite a lot of devices in this segment with Snapdragon 6XX series.

Multi-tasking was decent on the phone, we ran multiple apps in the background including games and there was close to 1GB of RAM available. The phone supports 4G LTE and has dual SIM card support. The call quality on the phone was decent and we didn’t notice any issues with calls. The speaker output was just average for a mid range phone.

The phone comes with 16GB of internal storage and out of which close to 12GB was available in first boot. You can also expand the storage via micro SD card.

One of the disappointing aspects of the phone is the lack of fingerprint scanner which is now a basic feature in this segment.

Camera:

Samsung has opted for a 13MP sensor for the rear camera and a 5MP front-facing selfie camera which is what the competition offers in this price point. The camera interface is exactly the same as that of J series and comes with auto mode, pro mode, panorama, continuous shot and beauty shot. You can also take photos with effects. The interface offers decent features for a budget smartphone.

Talking about the camera performance, the On7 camera is a quite a good performer and has good quality overall in the daylight shots which we took. The colors have come pretty good and so is the sharpness and overall detailing of the photos looks great in close-up shots. Even when you zoom in there isn’t too much loss of clarity. Overall, the daylight photos are good 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 and not really comparable to the competition which offers much low light abilities. The phone can record videos in 1080P and the quality is again average.  Here are some of the samples taken with the phone.

Battery Life:

Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro features a 3000mAh battery similar to the On7 and this is good capacity for a budget device. The phone does give good battery life in normal usage which includes calls, browsing, email, casual gaming and social networking apps. We tested the battery on multiple instances and found that if you are an average user, you can easily get a day or more with the battery on this device with Android Marshmallow.

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 11,190, is the Galaxy On7 Pro value for money? It is tough to recommend the Galaxy On7 Pro at that pricing when the competition offers much better devices in the form of Redmi Note 3, Moto G4, Honor 5C, 5X and more. There is also Samsung’s own Galaxy J7 at a slightly higher price. Samsung has downgraded various aspects on the On5 including the TFT display, lack of sensors, and also poor build and design.