Galaxy Grand: The Pros and Cons of New Samsung Jelly Bean Phablet at Rs 21500

Samsung has penetrated deep into the Indian (world as well) handset market with a wide range of devices. The South Korean tech giant has taken all the advantage of the high-growth opportunities in the nation by coming up a plethora of offerings that would leave no segment untouched.

Not to forget,Samsung was the first one to come up with phablets - devices with 5 inch to 7 inch display. After the success of original Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 2, the world's largest smartphone vendor recently entered into the budget phablet segment with the launch of Galaxy Grand, alongside its dual SIM variant Galaxy Grand Duos in December 2012.

Consequently, the dual SIM handset has been released in India at a special event on January 22, 2013 in New Delhi to cater the premium consumer's need looking for affordable large screen devices. Samsung has priced Galaxy Grand Duos at Rs 21,500 and was released in the market in the first week of February.

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Key Specifications

As far as specifications are concerned, Galaxy Grand Duos features a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, 1.2GHz dual core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB onboard storage, micro SD card slot supporting up to 64GB additional storage, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a 2,100 mAh battery.

Galaxy Grand - The Pros and Cons

By launching a Jelly Bean phablet with 2MP front camera and other attractive options, Samsung might have pleased many consumers, but, it can be said that the vendor has compromised on the specifications in order to cut the price.

For those who are looking forward to buy a phablet with Jelly Bean OS and pocket friendly price tag, Gizbot has come up with the good and bad traits of Galaxy Grand - the only international and affordable phablet available in the country currently.

Display - Bad

While Micromax has launched A116 Canvas HD with a 5 inch HD display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, Samsung has come incorporated a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution in Galaxy Grand, which is quite annoying. An HD display for the phablet could have been a better option.

Exclusive Software Features - Good

Galaxy Grand Duos being an hybrid to S3 and Note 2 has borrowed all the software features that were exclusive to these handsets including Smart Stay eyetracking feature, Direct Call, Smart Alert, Popup Play, S Voice, Face & Voice Unlock and multi-window feature.

Smart Dual SIM - Good

Galaxy Grand will get unleashed features the latest Smart dual SIM technology, which will allow users to manage two phone numbers with the automatic forward functionality. If the user is busy attending a call on one SIM and a call comes in, it would automatically be forwarded to another SIM ensuring efficient management of personal and work commitments.

Processor & RAM - Average

Though Galaxy Grand comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, the handset is equipped with a low processor and a not very impressive RAM capacity. Hence, the likes of Android Jelly Bean OS may not be fully available to the consumers owing to the low spec combination of processor and RAM.

Preloaded Applications - Good

Galaxy Grand comes with a wide range of preloaded applications including ChatOn, which is Samsung's unique cross-platform communication service and several other applications like Games Hub, My Services that will offer myMovies, myMusic, myMobileTV, myStation, myReader and myEducation.

Freebies - Impressive

As an introductory offer, Galaxy Grand will come with an original Flip Cover, with preloaded My Services from where users can download music and movies through worth Rs 8,000 for free, 50GB free Dropbox cloud storage space and 2GB Vodafone 3G data download free per month for 2 months.