? WHAT IS THE SAMSUNG GALAXY J3
The Samsung Galaxy J3 is an affordable phone, the sort of handset you might buy outright to avoid signing up for a contract lasting longer than some marriages. It can be had for less than £150, but still includes a few higher-end features such as an OLED screen
The problem is that it neglects some of the basics, resulting in a patchwork of the rather good and really quite bad. The Motorola Moto G offers a far more consistent experience for similar money
SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 – DESIGN
The Samsung Galaxy J3 is what you’d get if you set out to make a Samsung Galaxy S7 with about a third of the budget. Where an expensive handset might use glass or metal, here you'll find plastic
The J3 isn't flashy, and the thin plastic battery cover feels like a trip down memory lane: Samsung used to use these in almost all of its phones, even the pricey ones. None of this matters when we’re talking about a £150 handset, however; a cheap phone feeling a little cheap is no disaster
However, there are several strong parts to the Samsung Galaxy J3 design too. It’s slim, light, and its footprint is similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy S7. This is a comfortable and practical shape and size
Samsung has directed some extra pennies towards making the central select button feel good too. It’s one of the few metal parts on the device, and shares the ultra-pronounced click experienced on Samsung’s top-end phones
Also a standout feature is the inclusion of NFC, although this could easily have been omitted from the phone without the budget audience even noticing
There’s only 8GB storage, however, which is already strained by the preinstalled Office suite. Within only a few days, I had run out of storage. I’d much rather have 16GB storage than NFC in a phone of this price, and as we’ll see, questionable priorities are a theme of the Samsung Galaxy J3
Note that the phone does feature a microSD slot beneath the back cover, so limited memory isn’t a reason to dismiss the J3 altogether
If you don't attach all the back panel clips, it will lead to a bumpy exterior such as this
SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 – SCREEN
The most annoying hardware omission is an ambient light sensor; almost every phone has one of these nowadays. It sits above the display, providing the phone with information on the ambient light level, so it can boost or dim the screen backlight accordingly. Without one you have to flick up the brightness as you head outdoors, then manually dial it down once indoors again
What the Samsung Galaxy J3 offers instead is an "outdoors" mode, which sits where you might normally see the Auto brightness button. This boosts the display to let it deal with super-bright days – and it works brilliantly. I’ve been using the phone alongside the LG G5, and this handset is far better at dealing with bright, direct sunlight
It’s all down to four little letters: OLED. Almost all phones costing less than £200 include LCD panels, but the Samsung Galaxy J3 has an OLED one. These screens feature emissive pixels and tend to provide richer colour, always delivering better contrast than LCD panels
Samsung is a master maker of OLED phone panels, so it’s no surprise to see such an addition in its pocket money handset. Specs-wise, though, the Samsung Galaxy J3 screen is fairly ordinary
It’s a 5-inch 720p-resolution display, matching the Motorola Moto G. Since it uses a PenTile architecture, there’s a certain fuzziness to the screen that isn’t apparent in a rival LCD. My eyes became accustomed to this fairly quickly, though
The J3's display is pretty decent when it comes to performance. Colours have a pop that you don't often see on budget devices, and while they're oversaturated to begin, the Samsung Galaxy J3 includes the same set of screen customisation modes seen in top-end Galaxy models
Switch to "Basic" and you'll achieve a relatively natural colour tone, although calibration doesn’t have the accuracy of a Note 5 or Galaxy S7
Contrast is excellent, and since it’s an OLED panel, the Samsung Galaxy J3 will look great in dark rooms, which tend to show off the limited blacks of all but the best LCDs
On the downside, however, the panel isn't made of Gorilla Glass, as seen in the Motorola Moto G. This is a tough, scratch-resistant glass that is increasingly commonplace in handsets these days. Although Samsung's cheaper alternative seems adequate; I haven't managed to scratch the panel too badly yet
SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 – SOFTWARE AND PERFORMANCE
The Samsung Galaxy J3 runs Android 5.1.1 and TouchWiz, the long-standing Samsung custom Android skin. If you owned a Samsung a few years ago, you should be pleasantly surprised by how it looks and feels in 2016
It’s simpler and prettier than it used to be, because Samsung has let go of its original “add as many features as will fit, then add some more” approach. These days, the top layer of TouchWiz looks clean and attractive – far more so than what LG slops out
Dig a little deeper and there’s plenty to satisfy the nerd core crowd too. You can add folders to the apps menu, change its arrangement and use themes to reskin the phone. Unlike the early days, most of these are available at extra cost, but there are plenty of freebies too
Those reading carefully will already have spotted that the Samsung Galaxy J3 doesn't use the latest version of Android. Since the phone has a UI that takes over how the phone looks and feels anyway, the biggest difference here is the lack of Google Now on Tap
In the Samsung Galaxy S7, you can long-press the main select button to make Now on Tap scan the screen for relevant topics it can look up online. Is it a big deal? While I was quite impressed by Now on Tap when it arrived with Android Marshmallow, I don't use it day-to-day. Sorry, Google
However, whether a result of its hardware or dated Android software, the Samsung Galaxy J3 isn’t a particularly fast phone. While not routinely plagued by lag, apps take slightly longer to load than is the case with rival handsets, occasional stutter is evident, and performance drops when background activities such as downloads are in progress
I experienced a few frustrating moments – the phone equivalent of a car stalling – and as a result I’d rate the Samsung Galaxy J3's performance as only just acceptable for the cash. The 2GB RAM Moto G feels faster, as does the Oppo F1
Samsung uses lower-end hardware than both of those phones. The Galaxy J3 has a Spreadtrum quad-core 1.2GHz processor, using cores of the aged Cortex-A7 32-bit architecture, alongside 1.5GB of RAM
It isn't a fast chipset, and its SoC doesn't appear to be as reliable as the more common Qualcomm alternative – the Snapdragon 210 – either. I’ve had a number of problems with the Galaxy J3 failing to connect to Wi-Fi, which may be down to conflicts between the Wi-Fi chip and the Netgear router I use. Such problems when using chipsets from the big manufacturers are rare
The Galaxy J3 scores 1,258 points in Geekbench 3 – which is lower than the latest Moto G – and 26,076 in AnTuTu, which is significantly lower than the 31,071 of rival Oppo F1. The J3 will do the job for higher-end games, but the top visual settings (where applicable) will likely be locked off. Dead Trigger 2 lets you use only "medium" visuals, for example, and there are some frame rate hitches even at that setting
It's possible to get significantly faster phones for the money. Also note that unless you invest in a microSD cars, you'll have to juggle games – storage is exceptionally tight here
SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 – CAMERA
There are many important areas in which the Samsung Galaxy J3 makes compromises compared to what you'll find elsewhere for the price
In terms of the camera, the J3 includes an 8-megapixel f/2.2 on the rear, where several phones at this price now offer decent 13-megapixel cameras. This is an entry-level setup, but in practice it still provides better results than those handsets offering the same on paper
The Samsung Galaxy J3 suffers from only slight shutter lag when shooting normal photos, making this quite a fun camera to use. Similarly, focusing speeds won’t blow your mind, but they won’t annoy either
This phone also includes similar camera software to the Samsung Galaxy S7, although some of the decent parts have been left out. Its Manual mode is stripped down to the basics, and there’s no Auto HDR mode either
A few years ago, this would have been an excellent budget phone camera. These days, it doesn’t quire reach the heights of the 3rd-gen Motorola Moto G, which has a 13-megapixel sensor used previously in much more expensive phones. These include the OnePlus One and Nexus 5
The J3 takes less detailed shots that lack punch and display much worse dynamic range. However, it remains acceptable in this category as features such as metering and white balance are fairly reliable. Low-light photo quality is poor, but there is an LED flash on hand to offer assistance at night
It's an uninspired camera, but not an awful one
Metering is fine here, but the blown-own highlights show the limits of the J3's dynamic range
In decent conditions you can get some perfectly nice pictures
On the whole, photos taken at night are dreadful
Like several budget handsets of the moment, the Samsung Galaxy J3 appears to put in a little more effort into its front camera. A 5-megapixel sensor is relatively high-res for a phone of the price, and it's capable of taking fairly natural-looking selfies
SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 – BATTERY
The Samsung Galaxy J3 has a removable 2,600mAh battery, which is decent given the phone’s specification. However, I’ve had mixed experiences in terms of its stamina
In many of the straight battery tests I’ve tried, it's performed fine. A half-hour of Minecraft drains 9% of the battery, suggesting that it will manage around five and a half hours of gaming. Streaming video over Wi-Fi skims 12% off the battery in an hour, which is again a fairly standard result
In general use, however, I found that the Samsung Galaxy J3 consumed power far quicker than rivals such as the Moto G 3rd-gen or the Oppo F1. Most days, I needed an emergency top-up before bed time
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, since the J3 doesn't include an auto brightness setting, for much of the time the screen will be brighter than is needed, and therefore drain more of the battery. While a slightly over-bright display will look fine, a slightly dim one will probably prove annoying
Also at fault could be the Spreadtrum SoC, which may be less adept at juggling connections effectively when compared to the solutions of big-name chipset makers. It could be a mix of the two, even though the J3 has zero problem with overheating. It runs cool
SAMSUNG GALAXY J3 – SOUND QUALITY
The Samsung Galaxy J3 has a reasonable speaker. It sits on the rear, so will be blasting sound away from you unless it’s sitting face-down. The quality of the sound is just fine for an entry-level phone, though
Sound doesn’t distort, the max volume is pretty decent and it’s neither too sharp or muddy
???SHOULD YOU BUY THE SAMSUNG GALAXY J3
Where the Moto G series is all about providing the best possible experience at the price, the Samsung Galaxy J3 is all peaks and troughs
That it manages to feel like a relative of the Galaxy S7 is great, and the software is about the best you can get outside of vanilla Android. However, a slow CPU, annoying display and mediocre performance quite simply mean there are better options available – even at this price
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