Samsung galaxy j5 review

The Galaxy J5 (2016) is the centerpiece of the company's mid-range portfolio for the year. With its predecessor becoming a huge hit in developing markets, the company really needs the 2016 model to come out good and help keep Chinese makers at bay.

A quick glance at the specs sheet shows that Samsung followed the "If it's not broken, don't fix it" saying to the letter. With the internals mostly unchanged, Samsung chose to focus on the design instead, hoping that the metal body will help its offering stand out.

You also get a bigger battery and the screen grew by .2", but that's mostly it with other changes being so minor that they mostly fall in the adjustments category. Here's the full scoop.

Key features

• Aluminum frame around plastic body with an exchangeable back cover
• 5.2" Super AMOLED display of 1280 x 720px resolution; 267 ppi
• Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 chipset; quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU; Adreno 306 GPU; 2GB of RAM;
• 16GB of built-in memory; microSD card slot (up to 128GB)
• 13 MP main camera with f/1.9 aperture; phase detect autofocus; LED flash; face detection; 1080p video recording
• 5MP front-facing camera with f/1.9 aperture; LED flash
• Cat. 4 LTE (150/50Mbps); Wi-Fi b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.1; GPS/GLONASS/BDS; microUSB; NFC
• 3100mAh Li-Ion battery, user-removable

Main disadvantages

• Entry-level chipset
• No noise canceling mic
• Only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi

The metal frame gives you a piece of mind as well as a nice feel in the hand. We'd certainly appreciate a bit of premium feel in an otherwise mid-range offering. However, it would mean nothing if it comes at the expense of proper smartphone experience. And since Samsung didn't feel the need to change the processing power from the previous generation Galaxy J5 we'd be sure to carefully check that. Perhaps supplying the newer Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and bumping the RAM to 2GB is all it took to keep the J5 (2016) relevant.

Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016) 360-degree spin

As we said, the Galaxy J5 (2016) packs a slightly larger display than its predecessor and this has resulted in slightly larger footprint. The phone stands at 145.8 x 72.3 x 8.1 mm, so the good news is Samsung managed to keep the thickness of the phone almost unchanged despite the increase in battery capacity.

Hardware overview

The Galaxy J5 (2016) comes with a much needed design overhaul - gone is the generic plastic, which was sturdy but not quite premium looking or feeling, to be replaced by a nicely crafted metal frame. In short, you wouldn't have bought the first-gen Galaxy J5 for its looks. The story with this new one is different.

The frame is chamfered at the front and back while the sides are finished in the phone's main color. They're also flat, for better grip. At first sight, you can't really tell that it's metal, though.

At the back, the plain plastic cover of yesteryear is replaced by one that imitates brushed metal. While there's a camera bump, it's not irritating. We like how Samsung tastefully designed the main speaker grille next to it, too. The LED flash on the right side of the camera has the same cutout like the grille.

Up front, the Galaxy J5 (2016) display is surrounded by some bezel, but nothing overboard. Below it, there's Samsung's traditional home button surrounded by a capacitive Task switcher on the left and a Back button on the right.

Above the display, there's a front-facing camera on the left with the LED flash unusually positioned on the opposite side. In the center, an earpiece, and a proximity sensor sit between them. Sadly, there's no ambient light sensor here.

  Handling the Galaxy J5 (2016) is a pleasure. Its metal frame and higher than average weight make up for a pretty nice feel in hand.