When it comes to recent Samsung news, all of the talk surrounds the new Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge – rumors, announcements, release, reviews and many, many articles about its design, performance and camera. It looks like Samsung is ready to step away from its flagship Galaxy S7 though, to give Canada some news about a new Samsung smartphone trying to puncture the entry-level prepaid market in the form of the new second-generation Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016). Our source received news that the Galaxy J1 will be available in Canada on April 7 at Bell and most other Canadian carriers, although our source got pricing and availability on the Telus network for April 7 for $150.
The first generation Galaxy ‘J’ series smartphone has already been out in other countries around the world for about a year, but not the US or Canada. The Galaxy J1 model is Samsung’s attempt to recapture some of the prepaid markets in developing markets such as India and China. Being an ultra-affordable also means the second-generation of Galaxy J1 is also ultra-light on the performance end of the spectrum. It sports a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED HD display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and 245 pixels-per-inch (PPI.) The brain is a Samsung Exynos 3475 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz and comes with a Mali-T720 GPU. The Galaxy J1 has only 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory that can be expanded to 128GB via a microSD card. The J1 is running Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and there is no word on whether Samsung will upgrade the J1 to Marshmallow. It measures 132.6 x 69.3 x 8.9 mm and weighs in at 131 grams.
Covering your photo opportunities, the main camera comes with a 5MP, f/2.2 aperture, autofocus and LED flash. The Galaxy J1 uses a 2MP front-facing camera (FFC) for selfies and video chatting. It has the usual suspects – WiFi, Bluetooth v4.1, GPS, an FM radio and a microUSB port v2.0 for charging and data transfer. There is no NFC in this entry-level device or fingerprint sensor. There is also no quick charge for its 2,050 mAh removable battery. While 1GB of RAM is not that much these days, for the price, you cannot expect much more – the Galaxy J1 is not designed to run sophisticated games…just your normal Facebook, Twitter, email and texts, and for those functions, the J1 should do just fine.