Samsung’s J series is an extremely popular budget segment with lots of devices in the J5 and J7 series. Samsung has recently announced an affordable phone in this series, the J7 Nxt. The J7 Nxt was launched in India for Rs 11,490 and competes with extremely popular Redmi Note 4 and Honor 6X. The J7 Nxt has a 5.5 inch SUPER AMOLED HD display and is powered by Exynos 7870 Octa core processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage.
So how does the Galaxy J7 Nxt perform in this segment? Let’s find out in this detailed review.
Design:
It is quite disappointing to see Samsung hasn’t done any work in terms of the design for their latest J series. The design of the J7 Nxt looks dated and has the same look of the phone released in 2015. It comes with a pattern on the rear panel which is made of plastic material and is removable. It comes with a metallic chassis, but the build quality is pretty average. The glossy finishing on the sides of the device looks a bit cheap. The phone has rounded corners and curved edges. The power key is on the right side while the volume keys are on the left. The bottom panel houses the charging slot and 3.5mm audio jack.
The front panel has the physical home button and two touch button very similar to other Samsung phones. There is 5.5 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 which is disappointing for a mid range phone. The touch buttons below the display are not backlit. There isn’t a drastic change in terms of the dimensions of the device. It is high time Samsung did something new for their budget devices in terms of design.
Display:
Samsung Galaxy J7 Nxt comes with a 5.5 inch HD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280X 720p. The display does not come with any protection. While the display is an AMOLED panel, it is an HD in this price segment. Quite a lot of popular phones ship with full HD in this price segment. The display quality looks quite good and it is a vibrant and colorful display. At times you even feel the display is a bit saturated. The viewing angles are quite good and so is the touch response.
The outdoor visibility is also decent, but the most important aspect missing from the device is the light sensor. So each time you step out of your house, you need to increase the brightness slider or use the outdoor mode.
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 the 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 an option to change the layout of the toggles.
The phone comes with a bunch of additional settings which includes the 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 a 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.
Performance:
Samsung Galaxy J7 Nxt is powered by the Exynos 7870 Octa Core processor and is coupled with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The Exynos 7870 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 device was a 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 were no heating issues on the phone.
The phone comes with 16GB of internal storage and you get close to 10GB of storage on first boot. There is also an option to expand the storage using the dedicated SD card slot available. The call quality of the device was good, but the speaker performance was quite average. The phone does not come with a fingerprint scanner and we feel this is a major omission for a phone in this segment. Also, the device misses out on many other sensors like Gyroscope, light sensor and also a magnetic sensor.
Camera:
The phone packs a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and 5MP front camera for selfies, again with a flash. The camera interface is quite unchanged from what we have seen on J7 Max (review) and comes with good options like HDR, PRO mode etc. There are also a handful of filters included. The camera samples taken with the rear 13MP camera was quite disappointing with colors being washed out in most outdoor photos. The sharpness levels were also on the lower side. We have seen many good camera smartphones in this segment including the Honor 6X. The close-up photos had much better color reproduction and was quite good. The low light performance was also just average for a phone in this segment. The selfie experience was again average at its best. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.
Battery Life:
Samsung J7 Nxt packs a 3000mAh battery, it does not support any form of fast charging. The battery performance of the device was quite decent and with moderate usage, you can get through almost a day of usage easily with the screen on time of around 3- 3.5 hours. This is quite decent for a budget device.
Verdict:
Priced at Rs 11,490, the Samsung J7 Nxt doesn’t impress much with average specifications, poor camera performance, and outdated design. While the device does come with a Super AMOLED display, it is just an HD panel and comparing with the competition it falls short on many aspects like 2GB RAM and 16GB storage offered in this price segment. If you are looking for a Samsung phone in this segment, J7 Nxt makes sense, else give this device a miss, there are better alternatives available.
