Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime - With Latest Features on Market

Past few months have not been the best for Samsung Mobiles with the entire Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco. The company was forced to recall the flagship device and the “safe” Galaxy Note 7 devices had the same exploding battery issues which made the company discontinue Note 7. However, things are much better in the mid-range section for the company. It announced the Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime in August this year and released the smartphone in September for the consumers to buy the smartphone.

The entire timeline of Note 7 problem eclipsed the announcement and arrival of Galaxy J7 Prime in the market and it has been unfortunate for the device. But let us see what the Galaxy J7 Prime has on offer

Build and Design:
 
Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime comes with the same old traditional Samsung design with rounded corners. There is no deviation from the design philosophy, and it can be mistaken for any other Samsung smartphone. Overuse of the same design has made Samsung mid-budget smartphones dull and uninteresting from the design perspective.

Galaxy J7 Prime sports a plastic build on the front with a non-removable metal back with plastic top and bottom edges. Despite the plastic front, top and bottom, the smartphone surprised me with its sturdy build quality. There were no loose or squeaky parts and the device felt solid despite being a mid-range smartphone.

The top area on the front houses the proximity sensor, front camera and the earpiece speaker. The bottom area houses the “Recents” button on the left, “Home” button in the middle which includes the fingerprint sensor to quickly unlock the smartphone and a “Back” button on the right. The buttons are not back-lit and have icons inscribed which remove the possibility of reprogramming them.

The device sports a power button on the top at the right side and volume up and volume down buttons on the left side of the smartphone. Furthermore, Galaxy J7 Prime includes the primary SIM slot in the middle portion of the left side of the device with the bottom portion adding a separate slot for second SIM and microSD card.

The company has labelled the SIM slots for easier understanding of which slot is the primary slot.

Features:

Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime comes equipped with a Samsung Exynos 7870 chipset which has an octa-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz along with Mali-T830MP2 GPU. The smartphone is equipped with 3GB RAM and packs 16GB internal storage along with a dedicated microSD slot to expand the storage up to 256GB. Also, it sports a 5.5-inch Full HD LCD IPS display covered by Corning Gorilla Glass on display.
Galaxy J7 Prime comes along with a 13MP camera sensor with an f/1.9 aperture, autofocus and LED flash on the back and an 8MP front facing camera with an f/1.9 aperture for selfies. It can capture up to 1080p Full HD videos.

The smartphone offers a number of options regarding connectivity options, ranging from Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, GPS with GLONASS or BDS, microUSB v2.0 port with USB On-The-Go support, 3.5mm headphone jack and FM Radio support along with dual-nano SIM card slots. The device supports fingerprint scanner, accelerometer and proximity sensors.

Display:

Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime has a 5.5-inch Full HD display with an effective resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels with 401ppi pixel density. The display has an IPS LCD panel which may not be amazing on paper, but the display seems better in day-to-day usage. The screen is very reflective and you may need to change your orientation when outside, to eliminate the direct reflection from the sun or any other direct source of light.

The LCD IPS display provides decent viewing angles despite seeming a bit dim regarding brightness when viewed from sides. But overall, I had a good time while reading, web browsing, gaming or watching videos on display. The colours, contrast and vibrancy of the screen was fairly decent at all times.

Samsung has added an “Outdoor” option in brightness settings to improve the visibility of the content on screen when outside. Once you switch the option on, it cranks the brightness of the screen to a level higher than the one offered by Maximum brightness offered under “Display” settings. Samsung gives you the option to change the Font style and size system-wide under “Display Settings” along with a “Themes” section to change the default theme of the smartphone.

Software: 7/10

The Galaxy J7 Prime comes with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow based TouchWiz Skin out of the box. Samsung has not changed much in the software department when compared to other smartphones in its kitty. But one thing to note is that I received two updates from Samsung during my review which is impressive for a mid-range device.

TouchWiz does not provide a stock Android experience, but it brings a balanced doze of Android and Samsung goodness. The device is preloaded with S Health, S Planner, S Secure, Samsung Notes My Galaxy and Galaxy Apps. Also, Galaxy J7 Prime comes with Microsoft Apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype and Opera Max out of the box.

The company has kept interesting addons like Easy Mode and FM Radio with recording, along with the integration of Flipboard to make sure that users get features that are increasingly ignored by Smartphone companies all over the world.

Smart Manager and Galaxy Apps are two things that you will not find in any other smartphone with Galaxy Apps being a homegrown app store that Samsung is trying to push to users since many years. Smart Manager, on the other hand lets you do tasks such as cleaning trash, optimising RAM, checking battery life and so on.

Performance: 7/10

Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime performed respectably well, without any sign of lag for the duration of the review. The overall UI animations by Samsung were not instant but more gradual. This may be deliberate attempt by the company to make sure that users don’t detect the stuttering and slowness in the animations.

Otherwise, Exynos 7870 coupled with 3GB RAM zipped through all the tasks, music, gaming, web browsing and photo editing. The call quality of the device was good with a decent amount of sound and clarity. The loudspeaker option during calls had adequate sound for a group to actively participate in the call.

One thing to note is that the performance of Fingerprint sensor was slow and inaccurate at times. Sometimes the sensor failed to recognise the fingerprints and other times pointed out that there was no match. It sometimes registered the incorrect fingerprints 4-5 times, temporarily locking the user out for 30 seconds. Even with correct finger orientation, there was nothing amazing about the sensor and the time from putting the finger on the sensor to unlocked home screen varied from 0.8 seconds to 1.4 seconds.

The smartphone scored 4647 in the PCMark ‘Work performance 1.0’ benchmark along with scoring 669 in Single-Core and 3160 in Multi-Core benchmarks in Geekbench 4. Galaxy J7 Prime surprisingly did not heat up considerably during extended gaming sessions and held admirably to heavy games like DeadTrigger 2, Modern Combat 5 and Asphalt 8. The temperature of the device did reach 42-degree Celsius during gaming, but it was in a small area and did not heat up the entire device.

It scored 6855, 5102 and 8489 in IceStorm, IceStorm Extreme and IceStorm Unlimited benchmarks respectively.

Camera: 6/10

The camera has always been the Achilles heel for mid-range devices offered by Samsung. Despite the 13MP sensor, the rear camera on the device is bad. The photos are decent provided decent lighting conditions and dive to blurry mess in less than ideal conditions. The front camera is no respite and delivers blurry and sub-par photographs.

Low light shots are just painful and filled with noise and chromatic aberrations. The company needs to improve the camera experience offered in its Mid-range devices in addition to the excellent quality offered in its flagship devices.

The camera app does provide different modes like Auto, Pro, Panorama, Continuous shot, HDR Rich Tone, Night Mode, Beauty face, Sports and Sound & Shot. But they do little to improve the overall camera experience. One funny thing to note in “Pro” mode is that it only lets you change the Exposure Compensation, ISO sensitivity and White Balance of the camera without any options to control the shutter speed. The “Sound and Shot” mode works like live photographs without the ‘live’ photograph part and instead of adding a sound clip to a still shot.

Battery: 8/10

The Galaxy J7 Prime comes with a 3300mAh battery and the battery life is probably the strong point of the device. During my extensive testing, the smartphone performed admirably well. The battery lasted a little over 6 hours during my typical day which consists of always being connected to the internet through Wi-Fi, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp throughout the day in addition to 40-50 minutes of music, 35-40 minutes of gaming and installing and testing new apps.

J7 prime lasted 9 hours and 59 minutes in PCMark ‘Work battery life 1.0’ which is an intensive test. Things like the introduction of Power saving mode and Ultra power saving mode further extend the battery life.

The smartphone also offers to reserve battery for calls, and you can set the conservation mode to kick in once the battery drops to a certain percentage. Even though the performance drops once the Power saving mode is activated, still the fact remains that I would much rather use my smartphone in a reduced performance state rather than a dead smartphone.

However, two major things missing in the offering are the USB Type-C port and fast charging. It is almost criminal for people to wait for two hours to wait for their smartphone to be charged from 0 percent to 100 percent, in 2016.

Verdict and Price in India

Samsung J7 Prime is a good smartphone. But despite the decent attempt, there is no way that I would suggest this smartphone to anyone, for its Rs 18,790 price tag. I would never pay this much money for a smartphone that is uninspiring in design and does not have key essentials like good camera and fast charging.

There are much better offerings in this price category in terms of raw performance, camera quality and design. The Exynos 7870 offers performance numbers in the same range as a Snapdragon 650 / 652 or thereabouts. But now, you get Snapdragon 820 sporting smartphones in the Rs 20k price range. As an alternative to the Galaxy J7 Prime, you could at the Lenovo Z2 Plus which comes for Rs 19,999. If you can extend your budget, you can get the Xiaomi Mi 5 as well. If you are keen on the Galaxy J7 Prime, then I would suggest waiting till it gets a price drop closer to the Rs 15,000 range.

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Nokia Lumia 920 A Windows Phone 8 Launched

Nokia made what I think is its best case for you buying a Windows Phone. No, wait, that’s not quite right. It, along with Microsoft made the case for you adopting the Windows Phone ecosystem: powerful, innovative hardware, tens of thousands of apps, and a flexible, people-centric OS that’s married to a much, much larger ecosystem of desktops, laptops and, soon, tablets.

The Nokia Lumia 920 running Windows Phone 8 is the full realization of Microsoft’s mobile platform. It meets or beats many competitors on a wide variety of key hardware features, including wireless charging, NFC pairing, a large high-def screen and, perhaps most notably, powerful image-capturing hardware and software.

The operating system is rich, customizable and different at a time where uniqueness counts. One byproduct of Apple winning its patent battle with Samsung is that a judge and jury have proven Apple and Samsung mobile products are more alike than not. In a world where the same starts to blend together, the unique will stand out.

Being different is not enough to make Windows Phone and Nokia successful. If it were, then simply saying the opposite of whatever someone else says would make you the most successful guy in the office (I believe George Costanza once tried this). It can work for a little while, but not as a long-term strategy.

Nokia Lumia 920 - Techin-hub.blogspot.com

Surface Changes

Coincidentally, on the day Nokia unveiled its first Windows 8 phones, Google’s Motorola unveiled a handful of new Droid Razrs. The Droid Razr HD is a big (4.7 inches) LTE device running, for now, Android Ice Cream Sandwich. It sounds like a decent phone, but also an iterative upgrade to the previous Razr.

Though a little bigger, Nokia’s Lumia 920 is, on the surface, at least, an iterative update, too. It looks a lot like the 900. Plus Windows Phone 8 is, at a glance, not a lot different than Windows Phone 7. But these are all surface judgments. Rip open the 920 and you find things like the spring-encased optical image stabilization, a powerful dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, an NFC chip that can ease Bluetooth pairing, wireless charging smarts and a high-resolution, hyper-sensitive capacitive touch screen that’s built to stand up to direct sunlight.

Much of that hardware prowess would not be possible without Windows Phone 8, which finally supports high-resolution screens, NFC and multi-core CPUs. Windows Phone 8 is every bit as rich and powerful as Android and iOS, but with the added benefit of Windows platform. The consistency consumers and developers will find across Windows phones, systems, tablets and even the Xbox gaming platform makes it one of the most comprehensive ecosystems in the space. Apple comes close with iOS, but lacks the standalone gaming platform (aside from the one built into its mobile products). Google’s ecosystem is fractured as it continues to develop the Chrome OS alongside the Android mobile OS.

The question is whether or not consumers notice or care.

Not too long ago I went smartphone shopping. My wife and teenage children all needed new phones; they were making the big switch from texting feature phones to smartphones. My wife wanted an iPhone. My children both asked for Android phones. When we went to Best Buy, there were people crowded around the iPhone table and another group floating around the overloaded Android phone section. There was a small space for two Windows 7 phones, the Lumia 800 and 900, and no one was standing anywhere near them.

I wondered what it would take to get my family to consider a Windows Phone. What if I was carrying one? What if one of their friends had one?

More importantly, I now wonder what it will take for the phone buying public to, as Nokia encourages, “Switch to Lumia”? Doesn’t the Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8 ecosystem have everything a consumer could desire in a smart phone? I suspect that the 920, like the 900 before it, will be well reviewed. Is that enough to drive consumers to a new platform?

Switching Platforms

When the iPhone arrived, it was different and asked much the same thing of consumers: drop your old platform and hardware and adopt a new one. It even asked them to give up physical keyboards. It arrived during the heyday of the once powerful Palm (remember the Palm 700p?). It was also a platform and even had apps.

At the time, however, more consumers were using app- and platform-free feature phones — many of them interestingly enough, from Nokia.

The iPhone’s arrival was perfectly timed for 1) former leaders like Nokia and Palm to stumble, and 2) Consumers to start trading up to more powerful data phones.

Even the late arrive of Android may have coincided with a second wave of smartphone adoption.
Smartphone coverage in the U.S. is now somewhere around 80%. Can we expect a third wave? Probably not. The good news for Microsoft and Nokia is that along with the Smartphone adoption craze has come another unusual and unexpected behavior: the two-year upgrade cycle. Consumers change Smartphone like they do very expensive underwear and are happy to drop one phone for another every 24 months (most, I think would do it sooner if their contracts allowed it).

Switching hardware, especially if it means new features, is now part of the Smartphone continuum for most consumers. Switching platforms, however, is not.

Consumers purchasing Smartphone usually have a tablet or are thinking of buying one. The number one tablet is still the iPod and it is part of the iOS ecosystem. That marriage has a magnetic pull on consumers and steers their Smartphone buying decisions.

Microsoft’s decision to sell its own Windows 8-based tablet is a move intended to counter this impulse. The problem is that no one is currently using a Windows tablet.

They are, though, often running Windows (at least 80% of them are). Windows 8, with its Metro ‘Windows Design” interface helps tie together the Windows ecosystem. The problem is that most won’t be running Windows 8 this year or most of 2013. Will they see enough of the ecosystem benefits through Windows 7 to wish they had a Windows Phone 8 device?

Microsoft has made it clear that they’re willing to be patient, but I do wonder how long they and their partners can afford to play the long game. I have no vested interest in Windows Phone, but I think it’s good enough to deserve a seat at the mobile phone market table. 

The X-Factor here is, as always. you. So tell me, are you finally ready to buy a Windows Phone? Take the poll and let me know.

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iPhone Mobile Applications Scans for Skin Cancer

The iPhone apps available can do some pretty amazing things and are only getting better as time goes on. While there are a lot of apps you can explore, there is actually one that can help improve your health. The Skin Scan download is well worth the $4.99 it costs. This scans moles on your body to determine whether or not they show signs of cancer. If you want to take the guess work out of inspecting moles on your body, this is a great app to have.

How does Skin Scan work?

When you use this app you will simply open it up and take a picture of your mole with it. If you already have a picture, you can load that in so you don’t have to take a new one. From here, the mole will be analyzed so you find out everything you want to know about it.

Things you can learn about your moles include: if there is a risk, what size it is, what spots are worrisome and if you should keep track of it. If you do need to keep an eye on it, you can easily track it through the app. Over time you can see how the moles on your body change and then show that to your doctor when you go in and visit them.

What if a mole is at risk for cancer?

If you do end up having a mole that looks cancerous, go see a doctor. Skin Scan will actually help you find a skin care doctor that is close to you. This will use your zip code or GPS so you don’t have to search around online. From here you can make an appointment so you can have the mole looked at by a trained professional.

What are the benefits of using Skin Scan?

When using this app you will be able to take the guess work out of inspecting moles. You won’t have to look at pictures to compare the size, shape, colors or anything else. This app knows what to look for in cancerous moles and can alert you to potential problems.

If it does end up finding something that doesn’t look right, you can go see your doctor. Skin cancer is not something you want to let linger. The earlier you catch this cancer the easier it will be to treat. By having this app and using it regularly you will be able to make sure you have healthy and benign moles.

What should you keep in mind when using this app?

Although this app is extremely useful and great to have around, don’t replace it with advice from your actual doctor. It’s still important to have your moles inspected on a regular basis so you will be able to ensure you are healthy. Skin cancer is becoming an increasingly large issue, so you never know if you might have it.

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Google Nexus 7 Is Now Available in France, Germany And Spain

The Nexus 7 is now available on the Google Play store in France, Germany and Spain. The 8GB and 16GB models are both available for €199 and €249 (respectively $249 and $312, sales tax included). Google is the only seller of the 8GB model as the 16GB model will be available in selected retailers as well on September 3.


As in other countries, the tablet comes with €20 ($25) of Play store credit to buy apps, movies and books.


Yet, in those three countries, magazines and music are still not available on Google’s content store. So far, the razor-thin margins on the Nexus 7 are compensated by purchases of music, books, magazines, movies and apps. It will be harder to rake in profit in the three European countries.

Google Nexus 7 - Techin-Hub.Blogspot.com

By releasing the tablet a week earlier, Google is enticing customers to buy the tablet through its online store in order to avoid retail margins. The tablet is now available in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Germany and Spain.

Even though the Play store is incomplete in those countries, Google might be releasing the Nexus 7 in Europe as quickly as possible before an Amazon press conference on September 6, where a new Kindle Fire is expected, and a hypothetical Apple conference in late September or early October, where the iPad Mini could be unveiled.

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