Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime smartphone is a budget smartphone on steroids - priced at about $130.00 on Amazon.
Although the smartphone era have been around for a decade already, I bought my first smartphone just about 2 and half year ago, phone that worked great, and actually still does.
I'm the person who needs a phone for a few simple reasons - to call and receive calls, debug and test mobile aps and responsive design, use for administrative tasks (Google Analytics, AdSense, AdWords, Linode Server management) and sometimes to play some simple strategy based game (Age of Civilizations for example). Here is the fun fact I have been developing mobile apps even before I had an actual device to test with. Yup, I know - I'm a geek. Why I need two sim cards? I travel forth and back a lot.
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My old phone wear Samsung brand. Phone I really loved - two sim cards, large enough touch screen. I bought it for about $200 back in 2014.
Until recent day old smartphone accidentally felt on tiles and glass were broken. I took the phone to the local phone masters in Tbilsi, they did a quick glass replacement for about 50 GEL ($20) - I thought great - I will use this phone for the next two more years.
Unfortunately after about 2 weeks, when tried to order a taxi by using mobile app, the glass cracked again without any reason. I felt stressed - seriously, just two weeks instead of 2 years? Damn. I was left with two options - get back to the phone masters, order a new glass or to buy a new phone. I opted for the second option, and decided to buy one in my upcoming trip to NYC during Christmas time.
Probably I was affected by the madness of last weeks Black Friday and following Cyber Monday, and instead of waiting for couple of more weeks I just bought a brand new Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime smartphone today. For a price of GEL 349 ($136)
Today I went shopping to the local Tbilisi Carefour store and wondered a lot next to the smartphone stand - I felt distracted by the wide choice of the offer - iPhone' s, Samsung's, Lenovo' s, Huawei's, HTC's and even ASUS models were featured. Prices varied a lot, starting from $100, ending $2000... Seriously, there are people nowadays paying two grands for a thing called phone? My DSLR gear costs less.
All I wanted - a fast phone, large screen and two sim cards, and of course a reasonable price - all the rest is just details. That's how I ended with Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime. Now it' s just a matter of installing a tripod and try to make a decent product photography (at which I'm not very good)
Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime
Here is what comes out of the box - a phone, USB cable and an electricity cable for faster charger. The model I bough today in Georgia, seems is manufactured for market of Russia and CIS, thus Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime series seems are an international (I'm bad at gadget model numbers). This model is quite new, not to say fresh from the production lines. As it had been released just in November 2016.
Technical details:
| NETWORK | Technology | GSM / HSPA / LTE |
|---|
| LAUNCH | Announced | 2016, November |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Available. Released 2016, November |
| BODY | Dimensions | 144.8 x 72.1 x 8.9 mm (5.70 x 2.84 x 0.35 in) |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 160 g (5.64 oz) | |
| SIM | Single SIM (Micro-SIM) or Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by) |
| DISPLAY | Type | Capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 5.0 inches (~66.0% screen-to-body ratio) | |
| Resolution | 540 x 960 pixels (~220 ppi pixel density) | |
| Multitouch | Yes |
| PLATFORM | OS | Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow) |
|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Mediatek MT6737T | |
| CPU | Quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 | |
| GPU | Mali-T720MP2 |
| MEMORY | Card slot | microSD, up to 256 GB (dedicated slot) |
|---|---|---|
| Internal | 8 GB, 1.5 GB RAM |
| CAMERA | Primary | 8 MP, autofocus, LED flash |
|---|---|---|
| Features | Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection | |
| Video | 720p@30fps | |
| Secondary | 5 MP, LED flash |
| SOUND | Alert types | Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones |
|---|---|---|
| Loudspeaker | Yes | |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes |
| COMMS | WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
|---|---|---|
| Bluetooth | v4.2, A2DP, LE | |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS | |
| Radio | FM radio, RDS, recording | |
| USB | microUSB v2.0, USB On-The-Go |
| FEATURES | Sensors | Accelerometer, proximity |
|---|---|---|
| Messaging | SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM | |
| Browser | HTML | |
| Java | No | |
| - MP4/H.264 player - MP3/WAV/eAAC+/Flac player - Photo/video editor - Document viewer |
| BATTERY | Removable Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery |
|---|
| MISC | Colors | Black, Gold |
|---|---|---|
| Price group | 3/10 |
| TESTS | Performance | Basemark OS II: 360 / Basemark X: 1683 |
|---|---|---|
| Loudspeaker | Voice 67dB / Noise 64dB / Ring 75dB | |
| Battery life |
Endurance rating 67h
|
Table source: Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime
Now, as long as this model can handle two sim cards, and offer fast browsing experience + a decent battery life, fine with me all the written above.
Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime
Yup, there are two slots for a micro sim cards, and one slot for microSD card. I inserted 32GB microSD card and all went smoothly.
Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime
Blazing fast. WiFi and 4G networks available. Awesome. Oh, yes, you can turn this device as a mobile hotspot as well (really neat feature for digital nomads, like me)
Speaking of photography - there is a rule of thumb I basically advocate - don't use phone for photography, and if you still want - note the photograpgy with this model is bad. Here is the test photo I made with Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime.
Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime photography
Blurry and pixilated. There is an option to adjust ISO settings under PRO settings, but that' s more an illusion. Probably you will get decent pictures in daylight at least.
Old and new
Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime is an excellent budget / entry level smartphone with blazing speed. Get one on Amazon.
Speaking of me - I would love this cell phone to serve me next two years!
