Samsung Galaxy J5 Price in South Africa & Specs

Samsung released its update of the Galaxy J5 and it is all shade of brilliance, targeted at people who want an incredible phone with stylish looks of its flagship without spending a fortune.

Being a budget smartphone, it does have its drawback but it is a massive improvement on its predecessor as it sports better features to give users real value for money. Apart from its chic design, the camera, processor, battery, body build and more were all updated. Let’s get into the review in details.

Samsung Galaxy J5 Price in South Africa

The Samsung Galaxy J5 Price in South Africa sold for around R3000 at launch but now goes for R2500 to R2900. Price variations are due to several factors like exchange rate, location, the season of purchase, discounts and so on. To get the best deal, we recommend you check the price at two or more stores in the country.

Samsung Galaxy J5 Specs

Release date: 2017
Network Technology: GSM / CDMA / HSPA / WCDMA/ LTE
Body Dimension:2 x 71.3 x 8mm
Operating System: Android 5.1 (Lollipop), upgradeable to 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)
Display:2 inches, 720 x 1280 pixels
RAM: 2GB
SIM: Nano-SIM
Internal Memory: 16GB
Processor:2GHz Quad Core Processor (Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410)
Networks: 2G, 3G & 4G (GSM, HSPA, CDMA, LTE)
Camera: 13MP Autofocus LED Flash (Main), 13MP (Selfie)
Battery: 3, 000 mAh Li-ion Battery (non-removable)
Other interesting features: Accelerometer, Proximity, Light Sensor, Barometer, Noise Cancellation.

Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017) Review

Design & Body

It’s really difficult faulting the Galaxy J5 on aesthetics because Samsung added notable changes to its design, even though the button placement and ovoid home button are still on the new model. There’s a little difference about them though: the home button now doubles as a fingerprint reader. Coming to the changes on the design, the chunky camera bump was removed and it now sits with the case, lowering the chances of the lens getting scratched.

Another improvement many users will certainly be pleased with is its all-metal unibody design which makes it more luxurious than the previous model’s plastic casing while the rounded edges make the phone sit comfortably in the hand. It’s exactly what you’d want: a flagship feel at a fraction of the price.

Moving on, this model makes room for two SIM card slots and a micro SD card slot. The volume buttons and power button are positioned on the chrome metal band that runs around the edges of the phone. And to add, the positioning of the buttons, as well as that of the 3.5mm headset jack, makes it easy to operate the device with one hand. Wondering what the drawback in terms of the features? Not much; but don’t expect to find USB-C charging on the Galaxy J5.

Colours

The Samsung Galaxy J5 is available in four colour options namely: blue, black, gold and pink. Based on previous trends, chances are that the black colour variant may sell out faster than others.

Display

Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017) stands in a class of its own from other budget phones with a 1280 x 720 HD resolution and a pixel density of 294 pixels per inch. For most smartphone enthusiasts, this is pretty low but it’s hard to deny that it’s still a great display for its price, all thanks to the Super AMOLED panel which makes it really vibrant. However, we think the smartphone is quite bright too as its auto-brightness mode peaks at 756cb/m2 to guarantee readability.

Based on the OLED screen, the contrast ratio is ideal for the screen size as the panel covers 88.5 per cent of the sRGB colour gamut which makes watching films and playing games a dream. You certainly won’t find anything else in this price bracket that’s anywhere near as good as the Galaxy J5, not even the Moto G5 Plus which pulls up 73.4 per cent in comparison. The colour, contrast, black depth and brightness are all decent, except that you may encounter slight issues using the smartphone under direct sunlight. In all, this is an incredible display.

Battery

Most low-cost phones have chipsets that perform terribly which negatively impacts the battery performance but it appears Samsung has got it right with the Galaxy J5. It is powered by a 3,000mAh battery unit with the support of its dual-core Exynos 7870 and 2GB RAM. Putting up a respectable performance, the Galaxy J5 has enough battery juice to guarantee 18 hours usage which is way better than its predecessor. Recall that its predecessor rocked a 2,600 mAh battery which delivered a little above 12 hours battery usage. And even more interestingly, the Galaxy J5 performs better than the Galaxy J8 which delivers only about 16 hours.

Camera

The camera is another aspect that is often compromised in cheap phones as they often have several issues like poor resolution, too much exposure to light and so on. With Galaxy J5, you have nothing to worry about as many consider the smartphone to have one of the best cameras outside and we readily agree. It features a 13MP resolution for the rear camera with a slight aperture bump of f/1.7.

The images are clear and crisp, with much-improved colour reproduction alongside minimal visible noise. It also handled low-light situations well but the images aren’t as good as daylight shots.

Processor

As earlier mentioned, the Galaxy J5 comes with Exynos 7870 with eight cores which clocks at a speed of 1.6GHz. The chipset was able to sustain the demands of most of the games we played on the device, ensuring smoothness all through. If you’re a heavy gamer, we recommend you look elsewhere for a smartphone that has the capacity to meet your needs.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy J5 might not be the best smartphone on the market but when placed side by side with its contenders, it’s a solid performer that has everything the average user will want on in a smartphone. We consider it a great bargain despite its limitations.

South Africa Facts

Samsung Galaxy J5 Price in South Africa & Specs

Samsung Galaxy J5 Price in South Africa

Samsung Galaxy J5 Specs