While most of the news regarding Samsung still revolves around the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, the low-end Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016) has quietly made its way to Canada. The Galaxy J1 may not be the device of choice for most buyers, but Samsung is hoping to entice those first-time smartphone buyers looking for a bargain and those that prefer to dabble in the prepaid market. Samsung is also pushing the Galaxy J1 in India by catering to that entry-level to the mid-range sector that the buyers there seem to crave. The Galaxy J1 will cost you $150 off contract and is available at Telus today. It will make its way to Bell on April 13, and it will be available in Black.
While this second-generation of Galaxy J1 (2016) is an ultra-affordable device, it also means the Galaxy J1 is also ultra-light in the performance department, but still, if you want an everyday driver and not looking for performance, the Galaxy J1 may be exactly what you need. It sports a 4.5-inch Super AMOLED HD display, which means a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and only 245 pixels-per-inch (PPI.) The brains behind the Galaxy J1 is a Samsung Exynos 3475 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz and comes with a Mali-T720 GPU. With only 1GB of RAM, do not expect blazing performance or look to play the latest games – however, to surf the web, do your Facebooking, send out a few tweets or every day texting and emails, the Galaxy J1 will be just fine. It comes with 8GB of internal memory, but that can expand to 128GB via a microSD card so you will have plenty of room for your pictures or your favorite musical tunes. 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.
For those interested in the Galaxy J1’s photo proficiency – the main camera comes with a 5MP lens, a f/2.2 aperture, autofocus, LED flash and a quick launch feature to make sure you can capture that shot before that special moment slips away. 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. It is no surprise that there is no NFC or fingerprint sensor in this entry-level device. There is also no quick charge for its 2,050mAh removable battery.