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Samsung Galaxy J5 review

 Review: August 2015  
 

Last updated June 2016

Rating: 4 stars

In a nutshell: Samsung's affordable and popular Galaxy J5 is a mid-range smartphone with a very attractive slimline design and good performance. Its best features are its impressive HD AMOLED screen, decent camera and outstanding battery life.



 

Samsung J5 review: Design & looks

The Samsung Galaxy J5 looks very much like a classic Samsung phone. It's available in Black or White, and has a familiar but attractive rectangular style with rounded corners. It's very slim for a mid-range phone, measuring under 8mm in thickness, and weighing in at a solid yet not too heavy 146g. The phone feels good in the hand, and isn't too big to use single-handedly.

The screen is a very nice size for a mid-range phone. Measuring 5 inches, it's large enough to enjoy photos, videos and games, yet not so big that you struggle to slip it into your pocket. It's a HD display with a pixel density of 294ppi, making it fairly nice and sharp. It's one of Samsung's high-quality AMOLED screens, with plenty of brightness and contrast too.

Design-wise, this is exactly what we want from a mid-range phone, and the trade-off between size, screen quality and materials used is just right.

Good mid-range specs

Running Android 5.1 Lollipop, the J5 has a quadcore Snapdragon 410 processor as its beating heart. This runs at 1.2GHz and has 1.5GB of RAM available, giving it good mid-range performance - significantly better than the Samsung J1.

Perhaps less impressive is the meagre 8GB of built-in storage, which doesn't offer a lot of room for apps, videos and music. You can add a microSD memory card for up to 128GB of additional storage, but we feel that the basic 8GB is rather tight for comfort.

13 megapixel camera

The standard camera configuration for a mid-range phone in 2015 seems to be 13 megapixels with HD 1080p video recording, and that's exactly what the J5 has. It's a competent camera that does what most other smartphones at this price also do.

The front camera has a 5 megapixel sensor, and is just right for selfies and video chat.

4G connectivity

No surprises here. The J5 has all the connectivity options that every similar smartphone has - 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB and a headphone jack. To find your location, the phone has access to A-GPS, GLONASS and Beidou positioning.

Impressive battery life

The phone has a large 2,600mAh battery, which can provide up to 18 hours of talktime and ought to be good for two days of moderate use. It's an area that many low-end phones get wrong, and the J5 seems to get it right.

Conclusion - solid performance at a low cost

The price of the Samsung J5 is competitive, and it does what a mid-range smartphone ought to do, without any nasty surprises, making it a very safe choice.

One of its best features is its slim, elegant design, and if you've used a Samsung Android phone before you'll feel immediately at home. The screen is a good size and is of good quality. The camera takes decent pictures, and the processor is up to the job. Battery life is strong. The one area of compromise is the 8GB of storage, but you can extend this at low cost with a memory card.

The new Samsung J5 (2016) offers a more upmarket design with some enhanced features.


Samsung Galaxy J5 features include:

User questions

Sorry - questions and comments on this page are now closed.

What colour can you get in Samsung galaxy j5?

Asked by Alice Salt from Leeds on 20th Nov 2017
It comes in three different colours and it is more faster to do things then a Samsung j3 and it has got a bigger screen and I am going to be on it next year and my old Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 📱 I am not going to be on it much longer and I have asked for a new phone 📱 and my parents agree that I get one and I am getting my Samsung galaxy j5 in blue and I would love ❤ it

I'm using a dual SIM, then I can't access my sd card. Is it because I have two SIM cards In the phone or is it something else?

Asked by Mmaphefo from Rsa on 27th Jun 2017

Reply by George from UK on 27th Jun 2017
I'm pretty certain that the sd card holder doubles as the second sim slot.

Hi I don't have reminders on my phone.. it's there but doesn't show on phone the time something should be reminding me?

Asked by Sabrina from Ireland on 19th Jun 2017
J5 one week old.

See all 52 questions

Samsung Galaxy J5 user reviews

Sorry - reviews and comments on this page are now closed.