The Samsung Galaxy J5 is a low cost quad core powered smartphone from a well known brand. The J5 comes packed with added features and also missed out some features but with the price tag of ₹11,999 they have managed it really well.
Galaxy J5 unboxing
Inside the box you will find the J5 handset, user guide, warranty card, data cable, good quality earphone, travel charger (5V ~ 1A) and battery of 2600 mAh capacity. SAR Value: 0.808 W/kg (max).
Design and Display
The Samsung Galaxy J5 has got a good build quality. Body is made of plastic, and typical Samsung design with some minor changes – top and bottom sides are slight bend inwards. I got the white colour version for the review.
Handset is flat on the rear, curvy on the sides and the camera module is slightly out. J5 is comfortable to hold and operate. Power button is on the right side, volume rocker on the left and audio jack + micro USB port at the bottom. Weight with battery is 147 grams and dimensions are 71.98 x 143.39 x 8.08 (mm).
This is a dual SIM handset there are two micro SIM slots and a micro SD card slot. 4G works on both the SIM slots. If you have switched the SIM and getting 2G network, you might want to check the Network mode and change that to LTE/WCDMA/GSM.
J5 sports a 5 inch super AMOLED screen supporting 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. There is no light sensor and you will need to manually adjust the brightness, when outdoor under the sun you can use the outdoor mode that will increase the brightness to the max for 15 minutes after that it will automatically switch back to the manual brightness mode that you had been using before enabling the max brightness option.
Colour reproduction, viewing angles and touch response is very good. There is no LED notification, dedicated buttons do not light up and there are just 2 sensors – accelerometer and proximity. Native video calling is supported.
Memory, Storage and OS
The J5 is loaded with 1.5GB RAM and 8GB storage. There is micro SD card slot that supports up to 128GB external cards. On the first boot you will get 652MB free RAM and about 4.2GB free space. Apps are getting installed on internal storage but there is option to move to external SD card. OTG works.
Galaxy J5 is running 32 bit Android Lollipop 5.1.1 with TouchWiz UI.
Performance
This handset houses the well known qualcomm snapdragon 410 64 bit 1.2GHz quad core processor (cortex A53) coupled with Adreno 306 GPU. Performance is smooth, lag free and surprising part is that the handset doesn’t really heat up much. For this full review the temperature was well under 35 degrees, even the handset did not feel too warm.
Benchmark
| Benchmark App | Score |
| Quadrant | 14334 |
| Antutu (32 bit) | 1st – 21252 , 2nd – 21489 |
| Nenamark 2 | 53.9fps |
| Multi touch | 2 point |
Gaming
This handset supports 2 point multi touch that is kind of disappointing and you may face issues on some games that support more than 2 point touch. I played Asphalt 8. There was a mild lag when playing this game in high visual quality mode but the game played really well in medium visual quality mode. This game got installed on the internal storage.
Camera
There is 13MP AF camera on the rear with flash and a 5MP camera on the front with front flash. Camera quality is above average however the handset is not able to properly focus close up object. If you check the sample images (the similar kind that I shoot for all review) you will find that for the same close-up distance the shots are blurry. Apart from that there are no other issues.
Rear camera as well as front camera can shoot 1920 x 1080p videos.
Others
Sound volume I felt was slightly lower than as compared with other Samsung smartphones but still louder than most handsets. No other issues found with 4G, 3G, GPS (lock was instant), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Battery
This dual SIM handset gets power from a removable 2600 mAh battery. Battery performance is excellent. You can expect about 5 to 6 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage on a full charge. I have been / still using the handset while composing this review and battery backup is amazing – it has been over 2 days and still waiting for the battery to drain.
| Performance | Time | Battery drop % | Battery Max Temp |
| Benchmark | 12 Minutes | 3% | 33 degree |
| Gaming (Asphalt 8) | 19 Minutes | 6% | 34 degree |
| FHD movie play with full brightness + Wi-Fi on | 33 minutes | 8% | 34 degree |
| Wall Charge (on standby) | 3 hours. | 10% to 100% (wall charge) | 30 degree |
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy J5 is powerful using the 64 bit hardware but running 32 bit Lollipop. Performance is very smooth and handset hardly heats up. The key attraction is the super AMOLED screen and the battery backup that is really excellent.
The J5 price tag is also pretty impressive considering the brand value. This handset is definitely a very good buy for this price and considering the brand value.
Samsung Galaxy J5 is available on Flipkart for ₹11,999.
Image Gallery
Rear Camera Sample
Front Camera Sample
Samsung Galaxy J5 video review