Samsung’s J series phones priced below Rs 20000 have been quite popular in India and recently Samsung announced two new devices, the J7 Max and J7 Pro. The J7 Max features a 5.7 inch Full HD display and is powered by Meditatek MT6757 Helio P20 Octa core processor with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The phone runs on Samsung’s new Touchwiz UI and has Android 7.0. The device is priced Rs 17,999 and available in all retail stores. So how does the phone perform in this segment? Is it a device worth buying? Let’s find out in this detailed Samsung Galaxy J7 Max Review.
Here is the video review of the phone:
Design and Build:
Samsung hasn’t done any major changes to the design language of the J7 Max when compared to J7 Prime. The front panel looks exactly similar to J7 Prime with fingerprint scanner integrated with home button. There are two touch buttons for back and recent app which are not backlit. Above the display is the 13MP selfie camera, sensors and also LED flash for selfies. Samsung hasn’t excluded any basic sensors on this device which is definitely a good step. The power key and the speaker unit is located on the right side, while the volume keys are SIM card slots are on the left side. The bottom panel houses the micro USB charging slot and 3.5mm audio jack.
The rear panel has the 13MP camera, LED flash and the Smart Glow around the camera unit. Smart Glow was previously available on J2 (2016) and this feature provides notification light in different customizable colors for apps and calls. Below the camera there is Samsung logo. While the phone does not have any thing new to offer in terms of design, it is good in build quality with metal unibody design.
Display:
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max comes with a 5.7 inch Full HD TFT display with a resolution of 1920 X 1080p. The display comes with 2.5D curved glass but unfortunately there is no protection offered on the display. While the display is a TFT panel, it was quite surprising that the display looks quite good although it is not as good as the AMOLED panels available on other Samsung phones. The viewing angles are quite good and so is the touch response. The outdoor visibility is also impressive. Overall, we feel the display is quite good on the J7 Max and should be good enough for media consumption.
Software:
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max comes with the new UI from Samsung which was available on S8 and S8+. The new UI feels a lot better and looks fresh. It has a custom UI with option of having multiple home screens without an app drawer or you can even switch to app drawer from the home settings. The settings panel is also has a custom UI. The notification center and quick toggles have also been changed and there is option to change the layout of the toggles.
The phone comes with a bunch of additional settings which includes ability to lock and hide apps, one handed UI, multi window, quick launching camera, smart alert and more. The phone also features Dual Messenger feature which is basically the dual apps on other OEMs. Here, you can run two instances of messenger apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype etc. The list of supported apps will be available when you install the app.
The phone also comes with panic mode where you can make an emergency call or sent SOS. It also features Samsung’s existing options like Easy mode and support for themes, wallpapers and icons.
J7 Max also features Samsung’s security apps like S Secure and Secure folder which are found on all Samsung phones for privacy and locking apps. You can also use the fingerprint scanner to lock apps.
Performance:
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max is powered by the Mediatek MT6757 Helio P20 Octa Core processor and is coupled with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The Helio P20 is a decent mid range chipset and we have seen it on quite a few devices released in India. In day to day tasks, the P20 was response and there was hardly any issues, but when you push it a bit harder with heavy tasks running in the background, you can some minor hiccups. But nevertheless the performance was quite good on the phone. The gaming performance of the device was also good and there was no heating issues on the phone.
The phone comes with 32GB of internal storage and you get close to 25GB of storage in first boot. There is also option to expand the storage using the dedicated SD card slot available. The call quality of the device was good, but the speaker located on the right side was average in performance. It was not loud enough for music playback.
Camera:
Samsung Galaxy J7 Max sports a 13MP rear camera with f/1.7, auto focus, LED flash and a 13MP front camera with f/1.9 and LED flash. The camera interface on the device is mostly similar to what we have seen on Galaxy S8, but few features are missing. It comes with good set of options and social camera where in you can quick edit the pictures and upload it to your favorite social site right from the camera interface. The front camera also comes with wide selfie, sound and shot and also the social camera integration.
Talking about the camera quality, we found the day light shots taken with the camera to have good detailing and great sharpness levels. The overall clarity of the photos looked good. The close up images also came out well except for the focusing issue which is not a major con but there is some issues in focusing. The low light images taken with the device also was decent quality and with f/1.7 the overall clarity was good. The selfies takes with the 13MP front camera was impressive and had good colors and also decent dynamic range and overall we feel this is definitely one of the good selfie cameras in this price segment. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.
Battery Life:
J7 Max packs a 3300mAh battery capacity and we tested the battery life in daily usage with calls, browsing, gaming, using the camera and also for social networking. With mixed usage we could easily get through a day of usage with almost close to 4 hours of screen on time. While the battery performance is good, it could have been even better if Samsung had used a power efficient chipset like the Snapdragon 625. Unfortunately there is no fast charging included in the device even with bigger capacity battery.
Verdict:
Priced at Rs 17,999, the Samsung Galaxy J7 Max is a good overall package with good display, software, decent performance, good camera and also availability of 4GB of RAM which helps in decent gaming experience as well. While the phone has some minor cons like lacks of display protection, no fast charging and old design, it is still a worthy package. This device could have been a great value if Samsung had priced around 15-16k, nevertheless if you are looking for a Samsung branded mid range phone, the Galaxy J7 Max is a good device to buy.
Samsung has launched a lot of mobile this year
I am too much impressed with the phone specs but just waiting for price to come down under 15K. Does Samsung On Max has any major different between J7 Max or its same gadget which has been placed low price as compared to J7 Max.
Samsung has focused on the camera as well and it would be interesting to see whether how well it performs when compared to other camera-centric smartphones present in the market