Galaxy J7 Duo hands-on: Dual camera, fast processor, removable battery, and more

The Milky way J7 Duo is a dislocated smartphone. Well, perhaps that's a deliberate move on Samsung's part to make sure the J7 Duo is able to stand apart from the tough competition in the upkeep segment in Republic of india, only this telephone is an odd mix of the new and old. The Galaxy J7 Duo comes with a dual rear camera with the Live Focus feature, Samsung's capable new Exynos 7884 processor (an underclocked version of the Exynos 7885 that powers the Galaxy A8 and A8+), and – look for it – a removable battery!

Information technology'due south been some time since we've seen a budget Milky way phone with a removable battery in the same price range every bit the J7 Duo (which costs Rs. xvi,990), and once again, it looks similar a deliberate move that might help the J7 Duo stand up out in the bounding main of metallic budget phones that accept permeated the Indian market. Add to that the fact that it runs Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, and the J7 Duo has some impressive credentials. Sure, Xiaomi'due south smartphones, which are the primary contest for Samsung in Bharat, still offering more than you can wait for the price tags they acquit, but Samsung's latest J7 variant isn't without its fair share of attractive features.

Fifty-fifty an AMOLED display is making a improvement, every bit Samsung has been oddly not bad on equipping all of its Galaxy J spin-offs in India with LCD displays in the terminal year or and so. Other specs include 4GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel and v-megapixel rear camera pair, an viii-megapixel front photographic camera with a selfie flash, a 3,000 mAh battery, and 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded with a microSD card.

The Exynos 7884, meanwhile, has the same setup as the Exynos 7885. Two Cortex-A72 cores are accompanied by six Cortex-A53 cores, but with a lower clock speed. Loftier-operation processor cores have arrived on Samsung's upkeep lineup for the start time, and it's maybe the biggest upgrade offered by the J7 Duo. Just similar the Exynos 7885 finally allowed a Galaxy A lineup smartphone to offer the kind of experience ane expects from these "premium mid-range" phones, the 7884 should negate what has been the well-nigh significant issue with Samsung'south budget devices: Stutter, lag, and poor long-term performance.

Whether this upgrade volition come to the mainstream Galaxy J lineup with the Galaxy J8 (or whatever the new device for 2018 will cease up existence called) remains to be seen, merely for now, let's talk well-nigh what we feel about the Galaxy J7 Duo after the initial few hours of usage.

Galaxy J7 Duo hands-on impressions

My showtime order of business after setting up the phone was to attempt out a couple of high-end games to meet what kind of deviation the Exynos 7884 makes. Thanks to the 720p resolution, Modern Combat 5 runs without hiccups at the optimal graphics settings (there is no high quality option, which might be an artificial limitation set up by the game for what is an unknown SoC at this fourth dimension), which made me heave a sigh of relief. I tried some other loftier-end title, Batman: The Enemy Within, which is a point-and-click adventure game that is also bachelor for consoles and PCs. Here, the frame rate isn't e'er every bit smooth as I'd similar, simply it runs miles better than how it does on Samsung's weaker budget and mid-range phones.

Clearly, the Exynos 7884, despite its low clock speed (1.6GHz, while the A8 runs at 2.2GHz for the A73 cores), is proving helpful here. The general user interface is polish and quick as well, but that's the example on lesser Galaxy phones as well when you've barely started using a device, so I'll exit a verdict on the full general software experience for another time. I also don't encounter equally many Android 8.0 Oreo features that the Samsung Experience 9.0 UX brings to the flagship phones, but basic Oreo features such every bit more helpful and customizable notifications and app shortcuts are nowadays. Equally firmware for the J7 Duo had revealed, the J7 Duo comes with the January 2018 security patch in Republic of india, and at that place was no update available at the time this hands-on was written.

Let's talk virtually the pattern and that removable back encompass and battery. As y'all can tell from the photos, the J7 Duo doesn't await any unlike from other Samsung phones without the xviii:5:9 Infinity display. On the blackness variant, information technology manages to expect bonny, with the dual rear camera adding more charm to what is otherwise a basic rear end. The removable cover is made of plastic and doesn't feel likewise flimsy. But I found it rather hard to put the embrace back on later on removing it and had to resort to almost beating the cover into submission, though it's difficult to say if this is just a trouble with our unit of measurement or a general issue. The battery, thankfully, comes off easily and goes dorsum in without tantrums, though it's unfortunate that the battery must ever be removed to admission the SIM cards.

Now, nearly that AMOLED brandish: The 5.5-inch panel looks good, and the 720p resolution is fine for regular usage. The pixelation is easy to detect inside games and fifty-fifty within the camera, simply about folks are likely to be unfazed by the not-then-high screen resolution. Sadly, Samsung has once once more skimped on a brightness sensor, and the same goes for backlit capacitive keys, so y'all volition exist left fumbling at times to make the screen legible and miss hitting the navigation keys in the dark.

I also tried out the Live Focus bokeh feature on the photographic camera. Since the 2d rear camera is a standard 5-megapixel sensor, yous have to move in close to a subject to take Live Focus pictures. That's in contrast to the dual camera on the Samsung flagships, where the secondary camera is a telephoto lens and hence zooms in on a subject. It's both a disadvantage and an advantage on the J7 Duo, I call back. Since Alive Focus doesn't zoom in, you need to motion shut to a subject for the feature to work properly. Merely it too means y'all don't take to e'er movement back from a subject field every bit is the case with the flagship cameras. I but managed to accept 2 Alive Focus photos so I won't say how adept the camera can be, so you lot'll have to await for our full review for a determination on the J7 Duo's imaging capabilities. The two photos are attached below for your viewing pleasure.

Well, our full review will also tell you how the Milky way J7 Duo fares as an overall smartphone, and then make sure you check back on SamMobile afterward this calendar month for our consummate verdict. For now, check out the photos of the Galaxy J7 Duo and allow us know what you call up about the phone.