Samsung Galaxy J7 vs Galaxy J5: First Impressions and Specs Comparison!

Samsung today launched the Galaxy J5 and its mightier variant, the Galaxy J7 in India. The phones will be available in an online only sale model, for which Samsung has partnered with Fipkart.

The company has priced these phones aggressively at Rs. 11,999 and Rs. 14,999 respectively, in order to beat the competition it feels from the mid-rangers offered by Chinese payers that have already created ripples in the Indian smartphone market as well as from the domestic ones.

PROS

• Samsung Galaxy J5: Samsung's own 13MP rear- and 5MP front- cameras with flash
• Android Lollipop
• Samsung Galaxy J7: Samsung's Exynos octa-core chipset
• dual SIM support
• Samsung's own 13MP rear- and 5MP front- cameras with flash

CONS

• Samsung Galaxy J5: Mediocre design
• Samsung Galaxy J7: Mediocre design
• low RAM

With the Samsung Galaxy J5 and Galaxy J7, the company has hit the right note, be it on the pricing front or the specifications, especially when compared to the likes of Sony and HTC.

The Samsung Galaxy J5 and Galaxy J7 have been touted as gaming smartphones, instead of being promoted as camera-focused phones even when these bring 13-megapixel primary snapper and 5-megapixel camera with LED up front. Their placement as gaming phones could however be justified by Samsung's partnership with Gameloft to offer in-app purchase credits for use on Gameloft games, including the pre-loaded ones, on these newly arrived smartphones.

Additionally, the phones come bundled with Airtel plans, under which new as well as existing Airtel customers can avail double the 4G LTE data that they pay for, over a six-month period, among other benefits.

We got to have a hands-on experience of the Samsung Galaxy J5 and Galaxy J7, and both of them looked and worked almost similar. Here are our first impressions of the Galaxy J7 and J5.

Design and Display:

The Galaxy J7 and Galaxy J5 follow the design language common to most of the other Galaxy series of smartphones. So you get a plastic body with a removable back panel, and a metallic rim running across the edges to separate the front from the rear. The front has Samsung's standard home button sandwiched between two capacitive keys, while the back features the slightly-protruded squarish camera with flash and speakers, and Samsung moniker. Both phones look identical. They have a sleek finish overall and offer good grip in hands.

These phones mainly differ in terms of display size and processor. Speaking of display, the Galaxy J7 comes with a 5.5-inch HD display while the J5 flaunts a smaller display at 5-inch with similar resolution. As for the display quality, Samsung is unarguably good at displays, and the phones meet its standards. The display produces colors well and offer good viewing angles.

Processor and memory:

The Samsung Galaxy J7 boasts more power than its smaller variant J5 which is powered by Qualcomm 410 quad-core chipset. The Galaxy J7, on the other hand, runs on Samsung's own octa-core Exynos chipset, though both phones have 1.5GB of RAM. Considering that these have been touted as gaming phones, we tested some games on the phones and were pretty impressed. The games did run the games pretty smoothly, during our short rendezvous, however considering that the processor performance cannot be judged in just about a few minutes of testing of the phones, so we reserve our take on the performance for the full-fledged review of the phones.

As for storage, they come with 16GB internal storage, which can be expanded up to 128GB on microSD card.

Camera:

The Galaxy J5 and the Galaxy J7 sport 5-megapixel wide-angle front-facing cameras, equipped with a front-facing single-LED flash. Both smartphones adorn Samsung-made 13-megapixel rear camera with f/1.9 aperture, and 1080p video capabilities. During our hands-on, we took some images that came out well, while some were just about fine. It would be unfair to pass an opinion on the camera performance as of now. Wait for our review of the phones.

Software:

The phones run on Android 5 Kitkat out of the box, with Samsung's native UI on the top. The phones will receive OTG updates, however only through the OTG cable, as there is no over the air support for updates.

Conclusion

Overall, the Samsung Galaxy J5 and the Galaxy J7 phones look good, pack in good features and specs, and have been placed pretty well in terms of price. However, these phones will be closely pitting against the likes of Xioami Mi 4i and Lenovo K3 Note smartphones which too boast good specs and features. It will be interesting to these how these phones will do in the highly competitive market like India.