Introduction
The smartphone jungle can be confusing, but the Samsung Galaxy J7 is surprisingly easy to decipher: J for "affordable price" and 7 for "big screen". This is the lite version of the Galaxy A7, offering semi-premium features but confined to the midrange. Another way to look at it is as an E7 Plus.
The attention-grabbing features start at the 5.5" Super AMOLED screen (Samsung's latest units have all had accurate colors and great sunlight legibility). There's also a 64-bit octa-core processor, a selfie camera with a dedicated LED flash and a main camera with a wide f/1.9 aperture and Pro mode.
The Galaxy J7 is one of those phones that care more about the size of the screen than its resolution and so it settles for 720p. The difference to Galaxy A7's 1080p screen is for the most part cosmetic but the practical difference is quite big - you get 20% more space for apps and web pages on the A7.
Key features
- Dual-SIM phone with LTE connectivity
- 5.5" Super AMOLED of 720 x 1,280px resolution, ~267ppi
- Snapdragon 615 version: 64-bit chipset, octa-core Cortex-A53 processor (four cores at 1.5GHz and four at 1GHz); Adreno 405 GPU; 1.5GB of RAM
- Exynos 7580 version: 64-bit chipset, octa-core Cortex-A53 processor (eight cores at 1.5GHz); Mali-T720MP2 GPU; 1.5GB of RAM
- Android 5.1 Lollipop with TouchWiz, theme support
- 13MP camera capable of 1080p video recording, 5MP front-facing camera, 1080p video
- 16GB of built-in storage
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, GPS/GLONASS, Bluetooth 4.1, ANT+, NFC (Exynos version only)
- 3,000mAh battery
Main disadvantages
- The design was tire1stretched a bit thin on the 5.5" screen
- No fingerprint, no NFC on some models and certainly no Samsung Pay
- No MHL (but USB OTG is supported)
The main camera is a 13MP unit - a pretty standard choice for the midrange - but the f/1.9 aperture elevates it above average and will make a difference at low-light scenes. The J7 is well-equipped for low-light selfies too, with a dedicated LED flash to help the 5MP front-facer.
The Galaxy J7 is a dual-SIM phone, Samsung didn't bother with a single-SIM version. No huge loss if you ask us, unlike the A-series this one has separate slots for two SIMs and a microSD. Fast LTE data can be used on either card, making the J7 practical for travel or getting the most out of two data plans.
Samsung Galaxy J7 official images
The Galaxy J7 comes with one of two distinct chipset models - Snapdragon 615 in some regions, Exynos 7580 in others. Both versions run Android 5.1 Lollipop on 1.5GB RAM (a bit of a tight fit), but the Exynos has a CPU clock advantage. We'll also find out how the different GPUs perform, both are OpenGL ES 3.1-enabled though so they'll be ready for new games to come.
The Samsung Galaxy J7 will lose to the Galaxy A7 in a beauty pageant but, after the novelty wears off, the A7 will have a fight on its hand. Well, time to kick the Galaxy J7 out of the nest and see how well it flies.
Unboxing the Galaxy J7
The Galaxy A series come in cyan box, while the J series come in orange boxes. That's a nice bit of color-coding to go with the letter codes. The box contents are fairly modest: a microUSB cable, a 5V 1.55A charger and a one-piece headset.
Orange A-series box • standard contents (including unimpressive headset)
The charger isn't powerful enough for Quick Charge, but it's the same that the pricier A series got. The headset is clearly cheaper though, it only has one button and uses simple earbuds compared to the in-ear headset of an A series phone.
Hardware overview
The Samsung Galaxy J7 measures 152.2 x 78.7 x 7.5mm (7.9mm on some versions), that's a good 1.2mm (1.6mm) thicker than the A7. It's also 30g heavier at 171g. This all gives it a bulkier feel and the all-plastic exterior gives away its lower position in the pecking order.
Samsung has been stepping up its design game and with the latest premium devices it has reached a level most people will call "beautiful." The Galaxy J7, however, belongs to the previous era, the one favoring practicality over looks.
If not for the size, the J7 may be confused for a Galaxy S III or other Galaxy phone
The ordinary design makes it a face in the crowd - is it a J7? E7? Some sort of Note Neo maybe? Grand something? The J7 does not aspire to individuality, instead it's content with helping the Galaxy line solidify the ranks in the midrange.
The hardware does have some standout features making this the smartphone equivalent of a sleeper car - you won't think much of it at the stoplight until it drives off with screeching tires. Well, okay with Cortex-A53 cores and 13MP camera it will only provide moderate amounts of squeal but you get the point - the Galaxy J7 performs better than it looks, it's the opposite of flame decals.
On the plus side, Samsung got ergonomics right haven't made major changes to the formula since. This will make upgrades from older Galaxys seamless while newcomers will adjust quickly.
The Samsung Galaxy J7 uses time-tested design and ergonomics
The phone's side and back are smoothly rounded so there's nothing poking at your hand while you're holding it. Having handled the slender Galaxy A8, the J7 feels a little chunky though its weight contributes more to that than its thickness. 7.5mm is still very good, though note that some versions of the phone are slightly thicker (7.9mm).
The back panel is made of matte plastic, which offers good grip. It's not the best hand feel we've experienced but it wards off fingerprints with ease. It comes in a choice of White, Black and Gold paintjob.
The top and bottom side of the phone are indented so that the four corners rise slightly. This offers extra grip for your fingers as you hold the phone horizontally to take a photo. Otherwise the smooth chrome-finish sides can be quite slippery.
The selfie flashlight is on the left of the earpiece • no fingerprint scanner on this Home key
In portrait orientation your thumb has the hardware Home key and capacitive App switcher and Back keys to play with below the screen. There's no fingerprint reader on this Home key, that's still a premium feature.
Above the screen is a much more interesting setup. The 5MP selfie camera is on the right, while its LED flash is on the left. In the dark, one side of your face is illuminated a bit more, which gives better definition than if flash and camera were closer together.
Of course, the usual suspects are all there as well: earpiece, proximity and ambient light sensors.
The sides of the phone accommodate the Power key and the Volume rocker. The keys are a bit thin but solid to press.
The Volume rocker and Power key on the sides of the Galaxy J7
The top side of the Samsung Galaxy J7 is bare, the interesting bits are all on the bottom - microUSB 2.0 port, audio jack and mouthpiece. The USB port does not support MHL TV out (leaving you with only wireless methods), but it does have USB On-The-Go.
The mic, microUSB 2.0 port and 3.5mm audio jack, all on the bottom
The back panel is removable, giving you access to the three card slots and the battery. The SIM1 and microSD slots are stacked vertically (SIM on the bottom), while SIM2 is off to the side, this makes it easier to swap out. Both cards are microSIM by the way.
A look at the battery and the three card slots (SIM1 and the microSD are stacked)
The battery packs 3,000mAh, putting it on par with the Galaxy Note5. Of course, its chipset isn't as efficient though it has the easy job of driving a 720p display so we'll see how the J7 does at that.
The back has the time-tested Galaxy S III arrangement of a slightly protruding camera (13MP), an LED flash on one side and loudspeaker grille on the other.
The 13MP camera barely protrudes from the back
3. Display, connectivity, battery life
The Samsung Galaxy J7 comes with a large Super AMOLED display. In recent years, these have become known for their accurate colors, great sunlight legibility and excellent quality though this particular 5.5" screen has only 720p resolution.
The 267ppi is enough from a practical standpoint, text remains legible even with small, thin type. It helps that this is an RGB type matrix rather than PenTile. Most of the time you may not notice the slight jaggies on diagonal and curved lines though you will spot the difference.
The colors are very accurate and again you have a choice of Basic, AMOLED photo and AMOLED video modes. We found that Basic gives the most accurate results, though many will prefer the other two modes - they combine a boost in saturation with enhanced contrast, which makes any image pop.
Viewing angles are very good, though the typical blue/green tint at extreme angles can be seen.
In general use, the display is dimmer than the best Super AMOLEDs but matched the pricier Galaxy A8. The Galaxy J7 screen managed around 360nits in normal mode though outside you can boost that to a more impressive 500nits for a short period (it automatically turns off after a while to preserve the screen and the battery).
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| 0.00 | 150 | ∞ | 0 | 358.00 | ∞ | |
| - | - | ∞ | 0 | 500.00 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 175 | ∞ | 0.00 | 349 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 221 | ∞ | 0.00 | 517 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | 169 | ∞ | 0.00 | 367 | ∞ | |
| 0.00 | - | - | 0.00 | 560 | ∞ | |
| 0.39 | 317 | 805 | 0.75 | 598 | 799 | |
| 0.16 | 183 | 1096 | 0.42 | 473 | 1108 | |
| 0.17 | 208 | 1197 | 0.52 | 705 | 1361 | |
In broad daylight, the screen remains perfectly legible. It's as good as say a Galaxy Alpha or a Galaxy S4. You can boost that even higher with the Outdoors mode, which lifts the Galaxy J7 screen to one of the best we've tested in this category.
Sunlight contrast ratio
Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy J7 only comes in a dual-SIM flavor and has 4G LTE. Both cards are the larger, microSIM standard. It's a dual-standby device.
Locally you get Wi-Fi b/g/n (on 2.4GHz only) and Bluetooth 4.1. You can also count on support for ANT+ sports trackers. NFC is region-dependent. However, even with NFC and KNOX on board you shouldn't expect Samsung Pay on the J7.
Interestingly, there's FM radio, which we don't see on many Galaxy phones these days.
Standard microUSB 2.0 handles the wired connectivity and charging. It does not have MHL or SlimPort TV out but you can attach USB accessories with USB On The Go.
Positioning is handled by GPS and GLONASS, Chinese Beidou is present on some versions as well (that system doesn't have worldwide coverage yet).
Battery life
The Samsung Galaxy J7 comes with a solid 3,000mAh battery, that's the same capacity as the Galaxy Note5. Of course, there's no high-resolution screen to worry about and the Cortex-A53 processor cores are quite efficient.
Note that we're testing the Exynos 7580 version of the Galaxy J7 rather than the Snapdragon 615. Also, this is a dual-SIM phone.
With just one SIM card active, the J7 lasted an impressive 91 hours, essentially matching the Galaxy Note 4 and Note5. It also improves the Galaxy E7 time by quite a bit. With a second SIM active the standby power draw increases, but you still get just over three days of standby.
The 18 and a half hours of talk time were not very impressive - with this battery it could have easily been 25+. Web browsing is pretty solid at 9 hours, a couple of hours behind the last two generation of Note flagships but excellent for a midrange phone.
Finally, the video playback is highly impressive, one of the best we've tested. The screen was set at 150nits (darker than usual).
As a reminder, we test standby power draw, which is taken into account for the Endurance calculation.
User interface: familiar TouchWiz, no split-screen
Samsung Galaxy J7 comes with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and the latest incarnation of TouchWiz. The software is very similar to what the higher-end Galaxy A8 we reviewed recently was running, except some of the premium features have been removed (and some not so premium).
The lockscreen follows Android trends with a list of notifications and a couple of shortcuts - dialer and camera. Like the Galaxy S6, you can double tap the Home key to quickly launch the camera.
The added weather info on the lockscreen is perhaps not standard Android, but it's useful enough.
The lockscreen shows notifications, but can hide them from prying eyes too
Unlike the new A8, the Galaxy J7 lacks a fingerprint reader so you get the traditional locking methods on - swipe, pattern, PIN and password. There's no Private mode either, even though Private mode can be set to use only a password.
Thanks to the new TouchWiz the Samsung Galaxy J7 can get new garbs at the theme store. The preloaded themes aren't that great, but the store has been progressively getting more variety lately. Themes can change the wallpaper and icons, but also some Samsung apps (dialer, contacts, messages) and the notification area. We wish there was a search function though finding a material theme wasn't too hard.
Extensive theme support
The homescreen is quite normal. You get the optional Briefing pane on the left, which pulls info from a selection of news sources on topics you find interesting. It's basically Flipboard in disguise. There's an option to change the screen grid between 4x4, 4x5 and 5x5, the smallest one is the default.
The notification area has one scrollable row of quick toggles with some have text underneath, like the name of the Wi-Fi network you are connected to. The only way to view all toggles is to hit the edit button.
The notification area looks the same but doesn't work the same • changing the brightness
The brightness slider is below the toggles. Instead of an Auto toggle it has an Outdoors mode that temporarily boosts the brightness (it will be switched off automatically later to preserve battery).
The Samsung Galaxy J7 had a screen worth of apps drawer. Samsung tucked away Google's mandatory apps in a folder and placed its home-brewed alternatives up front. You can disable apps you don't want (but can't uninstall the TouchWiz ones).
Pre-installed apps
Samsung has partnered with Microsoft so you get OneDrive (you get 100GB free as a gift), along with OneNote and Skype pre-installed. The 16GB of pre-installed storage can be a little cramped since around 7GB are taken up by the system.
Unlike the higher-end Galaxys, the Galaxy J7 does not have split-screen multitasking. We don't know if that's just the product strategy or a technical limitation (the A8 with 2GB of RAM had it, the J7 has 1.5GB).
Ordinary app switcher with no split-screen option
The Setting menu features Quick settings - a selection of the most used options you can use. Below that is the full list, though we prefer using the search function as the extensive features that Samsung has provided can be hard to track down among menus and submenus.
The Setting menu makes it easy to navigate the many options it offers
TouchWiz and Android were quite stable during testing, other than the Wi-Fi disconnects.
5-Camera
The camera UI is pretty unified among Galaxy phones, the Samsung Galaxy J7 even has Pro mode. It isn't as advanced as what you get on a Galaxy S or Note, all you get is sliders for ISO, exposure compensation and white balance but nothing on focus and shutter speed (the key settings for Pro mode, if you ask us).
Hitting the Mode button gives you access to other goodies like Panorama, Continuous shot, HDR, Sound & shot and a couple of others. One the viewfinder you also get some additional options including color effects and metering.
The Galaxy J7 camera is a 13MP shooter and impressively features an f/1.9 aperture - just like the Galaxy S6, Note5 and A8. Of course, it doesn't have their sensors, but this is the "premium budget" version we're talking about here (between the Galaxy A end E series).
The camera UI • mode selector • Pro mode • color effects
The front-facing camera is a 5MP/1080p shooter, which gets its own flash. While the Notes keep a more serious, business-like persona, the Galaxy J7 is down for some fun photography even in the dark.
The image quality of the main camera is quite good for a 13MP shooter, though photos have some blemishes. White balance is quite accurate (a bit cold), color saturation is a step above where it needs to be. The dynamic range is a bit short and photos tend to have either overexposed highlights or underexposed shadows.
The noise reduction does a good job of keeping images relatively noise-free and sharp, it even handles complicated detail like foliage quite well. The J7 photos aren't the sharpest 13MP shots we've seen but the camera shows excellent performance for the class.
Samsung Galaxy J7 camera samples
The HDR mode did a good job of bringing more detail to the sunny sky, without smudging up the rest of the image. It even shot at full 13MP resolution, unlike the Galaxy A8 HDR, which went from 16MP to 8MP.
HDR samples: off and on
The panorama mode is okay, just nothing like what the flagships have. Vertical resolution is around 1,200px, which isn't much. At least the stitching is quite accurate even if the post-processing oversaturates colors worse than the still camera.
Samsung Galaxy J7 panorama
The 5MP selfie camera is a key feature of the Samsung Galaxy J7, unfortunately is a not in the same class as the main camera. The dynamic range is unimpressive and the sky gets overexposed even when the sun is not directly behind you. Colors appear dull and the captured detail is below the best 5MP selfie cameras.
You can use Samsung's Selfie Panorama mode to capture 120° of the scene, a single shot usually captures 85°.
We also tried the selfie flash in a completely dark room. It's not very strong but it only needs to work at arm's length. Still, the camera does not like the dark (it has an f/2.2 aperture and even at ISO 800 photos were quite noisy).
Selfie shots: daylight • in a dark room
13MP is perhaps the most popular camera resolution in the mid-range market, here's how the Galaxy J7 holds up against some of the competition.
Photo quality comparison camera
Both cameras on the Samsung Galaxy J7 top out at 1080p video at 30fps. The main camera lacks high-FPS modes, even 720p @ 60fps would have been appreciated as it makes a real difference in fast-paced scenes.
On the upside, the 1080p video form the main camera is very good quality. It suffers from oversaturated colors and narrowish dynamic range like the still camera, but the 17Mbps videos look sharp and play smoothly.
The microphones capture good quality sound and the phone saves the best of it at 256Kbps bitrate. The mics aren't flagship level, but still get above average audio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEUqMg1gr2g
1080p is still the most popular choice, 2160p still hasn't made its way into the mid-range. Here's the Galaxy J7 against some other 10
6. Conclusion
6. Conclusion
Final words
The Samsung Galaxy J7 is a trusty workhorse, but a bit anonymous. It can get lost in the crowd of Galaxy phones, but given a choice we'd probably pick it before most of its lookalikes.
If you've fallen for AMOLED screens you'd scoff at the idea of going back to an LCD. Even after years of improvement, LCDs can look washed out compared to the rich, punchy image you get on an AMOLED. Unfortunately, there are very few options - it's Samsung and some up-and-coming makers that have picked up the slack from the established (and now struggling) makers.
The Galaxy J7 has optional dual-SIM (that has full use of its microSD card slot), a capable chipset and a good camera setup, with a penchant for selfies. The software is a bit more limited than what higher-end Galaxys get but is very comprehensive with Power saving modes and KNOX.
Key test findings
- Sturdy build quality, but the Galaxy J7 is not design-oriented;
- The screen has great colors, great maximum brightness and is very legible in all conditions, but the 720p resolution is spread a little thing on the large screen surface;
- Battery life is excellent (we reviewed the Exynos version) with an endurance rating of 91h;
- Samsung's TouchWiz functionality has been cut down - no split-screen multitasking and no advanced music player;
- The system files take up a lot of the on-board storage (north of 6GB), it's a good thing there's a microSD slot;
- Performance-wise, the Exynos version we're reviewing lags behind the Snapdragon 615 version in gaming;
- Audio quality is relatively good with the headphones plugged in and even better with an external amplifier;
- The single on-board speaker is somewhat on the quiet side;
- The main camera is excellent for the price range, but the selfie camera (which seemed the focus of this device) could have been better;
- No global availability makes this a niche offering;
The Samsung Galaxy J7 is in the middle of the €200-€300 price segment, the sweet spot for capable lower midrangers. Unfortunately, it may not see global availability, so far we've only found it in Asia. And there's a lot of tough competition there (from the aforementioned up-and-comers), but let's start with alternatives within the very Galaxy family.
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