Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime Hands-on, Initial Review: The Best J Series Phone?

Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime Hands-on, Initial Review: The Best J Series Phone?

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While phone manufacturers like to show off their latest flagship phone, they’re all aware that the real money-makers are phones in the budget segment. Samsung is keenly aware of this, and have been slowly strengthening their J-series lineup to cater to more budget-conscious buyers. The newest member of the J-series family, the J7 Prime, looks to bridge the divide between premium-ness and affordability. Does it deliver? We’re about to find out.

Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime specs:

  • 5.5-inch full HD TFT display, Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection, 1920 x 1080 resolution
  • 1.6GHz Exynos 7870 octa-core processor
  • Mali-T830MP2 GPU
  • 3GB of RAM
  • 32GB of expandable storage
  • 13-megapixel rear camera, f/1.9 aperture, AF, LED flash
  • 8-megapixel front camera, f/1.9 aperture
  • Dual SIM
  • 3G, LTE
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, Fingerprint scanner
  • 3300mAh battery
  • Android Marshmallow, TouchWiz UI

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Initial impressions: Looks and feels premium, with a fast processor to boot

Just like with most mid-rangers today, the Galaxy J7 Prime sports a metal build that gives the phone that unmistakable sense of premium-ness in its build and design. Unfortunately just like it’s older brothers, the Galaxy J7 Prime still has the same old design cues that Samsung’s famous for, namely, rounded corners and edges as well as a physical home button. It’s a design language that’s unmistakably Samsung but we feel it’s getting a little bit long in the tooth.

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The front of the phone features a 5.5-inch TFT full HD display, which is a big departure from the Super AMOLED panels that Samsung has used in the past. Right below that is the physical home key which also doubles as the fingerprint scanner, flanked by capacitive Android navigation keys, a long design staple of Samsung. Right on top of the display is the 8-megapixel f/1.9 selfie camera.

The rear of the phone bears the 13-megapixel, f/1.9 aperture rear camera with LED flash. While the rear of the phone is metal, there’s two plastic strips on the top and bottom of the J7 Prime that houses the antennae of the device. Overall thickness of the J7 Prime is around 8mm making it chunkier than its contemporaries.

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Going around the the phone, you’ll see the lone speaker grill on the topmost right side of the phone, with the power button right below it. On the left side sits the volume rocker as well as the two SIM slots and microSD slot. That’s right – you no longer have to choose between two SIM cards or a SIM card plus microSD expansion.

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Moving on, you’ll see both the USB port and 3.5mm jack on the bottom of the phone. We’re a little taken back with the side-mounted speaker of the J7 Prime, but the placement isn’t too bad, as the phone managed to pump out decent sound from that oddly placed speaker.

Going back to that IPS LCD display. It’s an oddity for sure, since Samsung likes to use its homegrown Super AMOLED panels in its phones whenever possible. Despite that, the display looks bright, has good viewing angles and color saturation. This may be good or bad, depending on your preference for Samsung’s sometimes over-saturated Super AMOLED displays.

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The embedded fingerprint scanner on the J7 Prime worked well enough, but sometimes required us to press down a bit longer than we would have liked.

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Moving on to the hardware, the Galaxy J7 Prime is equipped with Samsung’s Exynos 7870 octa-core processor, running at 1.6GHz on eight Cortex-A53 cores. That’s complimented with a Mali-T830MP2 GPU, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage.

It’s our first time to encounter the Exynos 7870, which was announced earlier this year. The new processor is built on Samsung’s 14 nanometer FinFET process, which makes it more efficient than comparable processors that’s built on the older 28nm process.

The Exynos 7870 processor isn’t a performance-driven chipset, evidenced by its respectable AnTuTu score. However, the phone performed well during our brief time with it, with the phone exhibiting zero lag during navigation and general use. Gaming on the J7 Prime is acceptable – it’s not the best but it’s not the worst we’ve seen either. We’ve yet to see the performance of the phone in regards to battery endurance, but we’re sure the large 3300mAh will help in that regard.

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That’s pretty much it for the Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime. The phone will hit Samsung stores on October 29, and will have a price of Php 13,990.

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