Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime Hands-on, First Impressions

Samsung has just launched in the country the latest addition to their J7 line-up of mid-range premium Android smartphone. Dubbed as the Galaxy J7 Prime, this handset features a metal unibody design unlike its siblings although there are some trade-offs that come along with it. Here’s out first impressions of the device.

Let’s begin by saying that the J7 Prime’s design is more premium than its siblings. It somehow resembles a Galaxy S7 but with a more square-ish body. The front has a 5.5-inch Full HD display which is an upgrade from a 720p panel. Although, Samsung opted for a muted TFT panel rather a vibrant AMOLED to keep the cost down. No worries as there’s Gorilla Glass 4 protecting the display.

There’s an 8MP selfie camera up top and the usual Samsung navigation buttons below. It’s nice to see a fingerprint scanner embedded in the physical home button just like the other flagships.

To the right side of the handset are the power/lock button and the loudspeaker. It’s rather unusual for Samsung to place the speaker on the side but it’s a welcome change over the back-firing one with other J series.

The left-hand side is quite busy to look at with the two buttons for volume up and down plus the card trays for the SIM and microSD cards. You get two trays to pop out as the J7 Prime has a dedicated microSD card tray rather than a hybrid allowing users to enjoy two networks at once while having more storage at up to 256GB.

The top side is completely blank while the bottom end of the phone sports the micro-USB for charging and data connectivity, 3.5mm headphone jack, and the microphone.

The metallic back plate of the device features the main 13MP camera that’s equipped with an f/1.9 aperture to help with low-light photography. There’s also an LED flash on its side. The camera is flushed to the panel, so no bumps and humps when laying the phone on the table.

The J7 Prime is powered by a home-baked Samsung Exynos 7870 which is an octa-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz and is paired with a Mali-T830 to handle graphics. It’s got a generous 3GB of RAM and 32GB of expandable storage. It runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow skinned with the usual TouchWiz UI and loaded with exclusive Philippine content.

Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime specs:
5.5-inch Full HD TFT display, 401ppi
2.5D Gorilla Glass 4
1.6GHz Samsung Exynos 7870 octa-core CPU
Mali-T830 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD card, up to 256GB
13MP autofocus rear camera w/ LED flash
8MP wide-angle front camera
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.1
GPS w/ A-GPS, Glonass
Fingerprint scanner
3300mAh battery
Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow w/ TouchWiz
151.5 x 74.9 x 8.1 mm
167 g

We’ll be taking the J7 Prime for a full spin to see how it fares as an everyday smartphone. For now, you can pre-order the device through Lazada, Abenson, and Memo Express. Pre-order is until October 23 only and it comes with freebies such as a pair of Level Active earphones and a premium back cover. Official availability starts on October 29 with an SRP of Php13,990USD 238INR 20,210EUR 227CNY 1,736.