Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime review: Premium looks, outstanding battery life

Samsung's Galaxy J7 Prime is a J-series phone trapped inside an A-series phone's body. There's no other way of putting it. A J-series phone -- before the Galaxy J7 Prime came along -- was synonymous with all-plastic build, mediocre specs and affordable pricing. The Galaxy J7 Prime has none of these and yet it is a J-series phone.

On a regular day, the Galaxy J7 Prime would pass of as Samsung's A-series phone. You know, with all that metal and all that jazz, it's really hard to tell the difference. But, that's precisely what has happened. Samsung has finally decided to give its J-series -- which, for the record, is doing a fabulous job in the Indian market -- a much-needed premium treatment. Whether or not, the move would set cash counters ticking for Samsung is yet to be seen. After all, it is always a gamble to up the premium quotient and price tag of a phone -- out of the blue -- that buyers generally expect to be practical and more affordable.

Also Read: Galaxy J5, J7 Prime quick review: Samsung's J-series finally gets the premium treatment

Clearly, the J-series is doing well, and Samsung is ready to take the plunge. To recall, it is also doing something similar with its A-series phones now. It has started building them with all the more premium materials -- glass and metal -- bringing them closer to its S-series line-up. The lines between Samsung's high-end S-range, its mid-level A-range and its affordable J-range are blurring by the day. Call it signs of changing times.

Design and build quality

The Galaxy J7 Prime boasts of an all-metal unibody design -- top and bottom ends being plastic with brushed metal finish to accommodate the antennas -- with curved 2.5D glass on the front. In typical Samsung fashion, the phone comes with a front-mounted physical home button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner. The home button is flanked by touch-based capacitive buttons which are non-backlit. The design is generic at best. You know, most smartphones at under Rs 20,000 tend to look the same these days. In Samsung's defence, the South Korean company's phone doesn't look like it's trying to copy someone else. It is, but, a very original Samsung design only that such a design (and build) was previously reserved for its higher mid-range and top-tier phones. The Galaxy J7 Prime clearly changes many notions.

A J-series phone -- before the Galaxy J7 Prime came along -- was synonymous with all-plastic build, mediocre specs and affordable pricing. The Galaxy J7 Prime is better and yet it is a J-series phone

The flat back panel and rounded corners make this 5.5-inch phone easier to handle and operate. It can be a tad slippery and also being all-metal means, the Galaxy J7 Prime comes with a non-removable back cover, and obviously a non-removable battery. That is a small price to pay for all that premium looks you're getting. Build quality is outstanding, which is again a big break from Samsung's previous J-series phones which were mostly awful and clunky in this regard. At 167 grams, it is a little on the heavier side of things and at 8mm it is also easily among the slimmest phones in and around its price category.

What really sets the J7 Prime apart from other J-series phones (and phones in general) is its screen-to-body ratio. Samsung has done a pretty neat job with the bezels here, so you get more real estate in comparison to phones like the Moto G4 Plus and the Oppo F1s.

The dual-SIM phone has two separate slots for SIM -- and not hybrid slot which is fast becoming the industry norm - and a separate slot for micro-SD on the left. The volume rocker also lies on the left, while the right edge houses the power button and the speaker out.

Display

The J7 Prime comes with a 5.5-inch Full-HD IPS LCD display with a 1080x1920 pixels resolution which roughly translates to 401 ppi pixel density. The phone has just the right amount of pixels, without going overboard, which means it has a pleasantly sharp display and good viewing angles. There's no option to manually correct the colour saturation, but the phone does give you an Outdoor Mode option to manually up the phone's brightness levels for when you're out in direct sunlight.

Speaking of which, the screen of the J7 Prime can get really bright, brighter than most phones in and around its price category. Samsung is not using an AMOLED panel here, which means, colours don't necessarily end up popping out from all corners but then, on the positive side, the J7 Prime ships with a more neutral colour palette which is soothing to the eyes.

Software

The J7 Prime runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow-based TouchWiz UI. It is still far from perfect, the TouchWiz, but at least Samsung is trying really hard to cut down on bloat or unwanted apps now more than ever. It's safe to say that it's moving in the right direction. Software inside the J7 Prime is a pretty standard Samsung affair, but what sets its J-series phones apart from its other phones is a set of extras that it incorporates to make the life of an average user more 'innovative' and 'meaningful'. At least, that's what Samsung calls it.

Samsung is banking on two key features to sell its new Galaxy J phone: S Power Planning and S Secure. The S Power Planning is essentially a battery saving feature that allows users to reserve the phone's battery for calls by allocating a certain percentage of the battery for calls and messages. It also allows users to extend the phone's battery time to up to twice the current available time and also forward calls when it is running low on juice. Of these the last one is particularly interesting. The forward calls feature lets you feed in a number that you would want your incoming calls to be forwarded to when your phone runs out of battery. Usually, when such is the case, you get a message from your telecom operator that says you missed so and so call next time when you power up your phone. Using Samsung's forward calls feature you can re-route that call to a different -- a spare, perhaps -- number and carry on with your conversation even if your primary phone is out of juice.

The S Secure feature on the other hand allows users to lock and hide their applications, secure Wi-Fi thereby encrypting all data which is being transferred and create a separate secure folder for images and applications.

Performance and battery life

The Galaxy J7 Prime is powered by a 1.6GHz octa-core Exynos 7870 processor clubbed with 3GB RAM and 16GB of internal memory which is further expandable by up to 256GB via microSD card. The dual-SIM phone supports 4G LTE (VoLTE-ready) and USB OTG. The phone comes with separate slots for two SIM cards and one microSD.

The J7 Prime is a very capable performer, spearheaded by a mid-range processor (built by Samsung itself) which also focuses on efficiency and 3 gigs of RAM that can be quite a handful at its price point. This is, again, one more instance where Samsung has tried to up the premium quotient of this J-series phone. The J7 Prime is fairly well powered for its price unlike previous J-series phones that served mediocre specs to buyers.

Basic tasks are handled well with occasional lag or stutter which is more a TouchWiz issue than something creeping out of processor constraints. At the same time, the phone is able to handle hard-hitting tasks (and multitasking) quite efficiently most of the time. While basic games are handled well, graphical intensive games like Asphalt 8: Airborne can be prone to some lag especially at mid and high settings when playing for longer periods. Overall, the J7 Prime does well in all-round performance. More importantly, it does all this without losing its cool. There is some heating when you're pushing it to the edge but nothing that is alarming. Also, it is pretty quick to cool down so that's a plus.

The mono speaker on-board the J7 Prime gets pleasantly loud with little or no distortion at peak volume. Voice quality during calls made with the J7 Prime was also excellent.

The phone has a credible screen and capable performance. There's very little overheating and battery life is fantastic

The phone is backed by a 3,300mAh battery which is non-removable. Battery life is fantastic. Moderate to extreme usage saw us cross the one whole day barrier with ease. Extreme usage scenarios got us close to 14 hours on the J7 Prime. Samsung has practically overloaded the phone with fancy power-saving features, and some of them actually work well in extending the battery life considerably, even when it is dangerously low on juice. Sadly, the phone doesn't support Samsung's adaptive fast charging technology.

Camera

The Galaxy J7 Prime sports a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with f/1.9 aperture, autofocus and LED flash. On the front you get an 8-megapixel camera, also with LED flash.

First things first, I was pleasantly surprised with the phone's rear camera, especially its quick focus locking and shutter speed. The rear camera on-board the Galaxy J7 Prime is really fast, even in indoor lighting conditions. As for picture quality, well, the J7 Prime can take some really good photos in outdoor good lighting conditions. Photos shot in such situations come out well with lots of detail and colours that are mostly true to source. Images clicked in tricky light situations also boast of enough detail, although some noise does creep in as the intensity of light decreases.

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As for the front camera, well, it clicks some well-detailed selfies in good light, which will be more than a handful for all your Facebook and Instagram posting needs. Selfies clicked in low light have lots of noise and substantial loss in detail.

Should you buy it?

While meaningful innovations still form the backbone of Samsung's new J-series phone, the Galaxy J7 Prime is a different breed altogether. It is more premium and comes with a heftier spec-sheet. And it costs more. The Galaxy J7 Prime will cost buyers Rs 18,790. But it isn't just a paper tiger. It's quite good at what it does actually. While design is subjective, a little bit of premium is always a plus to have and grab. The phone has a credible screen and capable performance. There's very little overheating and battery life is fantastic. Of course, the cameras could have been better (especially in low light) and the software could have been lighter. But, there will always be a 'what if' with any smartphone. The J7 Prime, like most smartphones, isn't perfect. But it does the job, and it does the job quite well.

I understand there would be many, who would be turned off by the pricing, especially those who have for long considered the J-series as one that is relatively affordable. At the same time, there would be buyers, who were for long looking for a premium phone -- at under Rs 20,000 -- from the likes of Samsung. These are the kind of buyers who wouldn't want to invest (more) in something like the Galaxy S6 or the S7, but, would definitely want to try out something more premium should Samsung bring something of that sort. The Galaxy J7 Prime, in that case, would make so much more sense. It doesn't have to be perfect, but at least, it looks and feels premium, and won't burn a noticeable hole in your pocket.

Also Read: Samsung Z2 quick review: This can be your first smartphone

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