Samsung Galaxy J2 (2016) preview

Introduction

The 2016 Galaxy J2 is Samsung's latest budget Android device. It is the successor to last year's Galaxy J2 and improves upon it in several areas, most predictably in the specification department. However, Samsung has also added some new features, such as the Smart Glow, a unique ring LED notification light around the rear camera that lights up in various colors, and also S Bike mode, and something Samsung calls Turbo Boost Technology.

Samsung Galaxy J2 (2016) at a glance:

• Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
• 5.0-inch 720p Super AMOLED display
• Quad-core 1.5GHz Spreadtrum SC9830 processor
• 1.5GB RAM, 8GB expandable storage
• 8 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, 5 megapixel front camera
• Dual SIM support
• LTE Cat4 150/50 Mbps with VoLTE
• Smart Glow, Turbo Boost Technology, S bike mode, Ultra data saving mode courtesy Opera Max
• 2600mAh battery

The phone runs the latest Android with a clean UI, which Samsung doesn't call TouchWiz, but instead refers to The New User Interface. The Ultra data saving mode is more than welcome however and the mobile data saving technology has been integrated on a system level so it can potentially work for all apps - not just for web browsing.

Will all this be enough for the phone to survive in the fiercely competitive budget Android phone market? We took a quick look at the device to find out.

Design and build quality

The J2 looks similar from the front to most recent Samsung phones, with the familiar physical Home key at the bottom flanked by capacitive keys. The corners are bit more curved on this device, which makes it more comfortable to hold. The edge around the front is slightly raised over the display and has a chrome-like finish.

The back of the phone, however, is all new and, unlike any other Samsung phone. Although the camera, loudspeaker, and flash are in familiar positions, there is a striated band running across below them with the Samsung logo on it. The lines then bend near the edge and run across the sides.

 

The key design feature, however, is the Smart Glow LED ring around the camera. While we will talk about the software side of it later but from a design point of view, the ring sits flush with the back of the phone with only a gentle bump for the camera lens. There are four LEDs hidden into the ring, and they can light up with any color from the RGB spectrum.

   

While it does look fancy, the Smart Glow LED ring's main purpose is to serve as a notification light. The problem with that is its location on the back of the phone. As you can already guess, you can't readily spot it when the phone is lying on the back, which is usually the normal way to keep your phone.

The only way to see the LED ring light up is by having the phone face down. It's worth noting that this is the only notification system on the phone, as there isn't an LED on the front, and the phone doesn't support Ambient Display mode.

Aside from that, the build quality and finish on the phone are a bit disappointing. The phone feels overwhelmingly plasticky, and the plastic also flexes a bit around the back, particularly around the flash. This isn't a premium device, but it doesn't even try to hide its price category.

Having said that, Samsung phones are known to be reliable despite their plasticky appearance, so you probably don't need to give it the kid glove treatment.

Display

The J2 has a 5.0-inch 1280x720 Super AMOLED display. Resolution aside, the display is quite nice. The colors and contrast are great, and so are the viewing angles. It also gets reasonably bright. Samsung ships it with its four display modes so that you can adjust the color to your liking. 

Software

The Galaxy J2 (2016) ships with a new version of Samsung's skin running on top of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. It has what Samsung calls 'Turbo Boost Technology', which is a combination of lighter native apps and services, proactive app management, and intelligent memory control that all combine in an effort of improving the user experience.

The launcher has been updated with a new app drawer, which is now a vertically scrolling list, just like in the Google Now Launcher. Samsung has dropped many of the app drawer features here, such as the ability to create folders and manually rearranging apps.

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy J2 (2016) runs on the Spreadtrum SC9830 SoC, with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU clocked at 1.5GHz and Mali-400 MP2 GPU. You also get 1.5GB of RAM and 8GB internal storage, which is expandable with microSD or OTG device for media files only.

In terms of connectivity, there is dual SIM (micro) support with LTE and VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and A-GPS. The phone misses out on NFC (so no Google Pay). There is not even a magnetometer or a gyroscope so using VR tech such as Google Cardboard would not be possible.

As for the actual real-life performance, Samsung's claims fall flat. You realize the performance enhancement features aren't a luxury but more of a necessity to mask the inadequate hardware. The truth is that the Spreadtrum chipset just does not have enough power. This shows in the phone's performance, which often stutters in several places in the UI.

To give you an example, the phone is almost unusable with Snapchat's extremely popular camera filters, as the processor simply does not have enough power to render the real-time virtual effects.

Gaming is also a no-go, unless you are into light 2D gaming, and even then you might see an odd stutter here and there.

Samsung also had to employ some aggressive app management to make up for the limited 1.5GB RAM. But there is nothing they could do to make up for the lack of storage. The phone has 8GB internal storage, of which only about 1.4GB is available to the user. You then have a measly amount of storage left for your own apps. Even though there is microSD support and the phone runs on Marshmallow, you cannot format a memory card as internal storage to extend the storage space, so you really are stuck with the 1.4GB for your apps, which runs out faster than you can spell out the phone's full name.

Camera

The Galaxy J2 (2016) has some fairly standard cameras, with an 8 megapixel shooter on the back and a 5 megapixel sensor on the front. There is an LED flash on the back but there isn't one on the front like some of Samsung's other budget phones.

The rear camera quality is passable. At first glance, the images look decent, good even. Upon closer inspection you realize there is not much detail in them, as it's mostly smeared by the noise reduction algorithm. This leaves the images looking very soft when you zoom right in. The dynamic range is also not impressive and there is no HDR mode available. Fortunately, the colors look alright and the autofocus also works reliably most of the time. The camera is also quick to start thanks to the universal double tap Home button gesture.

Battery Life

The 2016 Galaxy J2 has a 2600mAh removable battery. We didn't do a full battery life test but in our usage we got around one full day of use with 4-5 hours of onscreen time. The phone lacks fast charging and takes about three hours to charge completely.

Verdict

The 2016 Galaxy J2 seems like it was designed for a market where the competition does not exist. But unfortunately for Samsung, it does exist, and it has never been more aggressive. In vacuum, the J2's flaws would be passable but compared to the competition such as the Redmi Note 3, which is only slightly more expensive, the J2's flaws are inexcusable.

The fact that there are so many flaws doesn't help its case. The Smart Glow feature was supposed to be the main attraction here, but as we explained before, it's got limited use and it's positioned on the wrong side of the phone.

The hardware on the device is also outdated and outclassed by the competition. The cost cutting is blatant, with Samsung dropping things like ambient light sensor and oleophobic coating from the feature list. The camera and battery life are also nothing to write home about.

It almost seems Samsung has lost track of where the budget Android phone market has moved to and is stuck in pre-2014 era when you could slap a few bargain basement bits together and call it a day. The competition is now offering metal bodies, fingerprint sensors, and powerful chipsets whereas here we are struggling to see through the smudges on the screen and fit more than ten apps on the J2.

It's 2016 now and the consumers deserve better, and Samsung really needs to up its game or prepare to fade into irrelevance in the lower spectrum.