Now that the first-generation ‘Galaxy On’ devices are getting a bit long in the tooth, Samsung knows that it needs to upgrade the hardware in order to retain its online market share against the onslaught from mid-rangers like the Moto G4, Moto G4 Plus, Redmi Note 3 and the Vibe K5 Note, not to mention the upcoming ZenFone 3 range from ASUS. The South Korean company has already attempted to refresh its aging Galaxy On lineup in a quintessential Samsung way by introducing ‘Pro’ versions of the Galaxy On5 and Galaxy On7 last month with a few tweaks here and there, but if latest developments are anything to go by, the next-gen Galaxy On7 is apparently well on its way towards an official launch at some stage in the not-so-distant future.
A Geekbench listing has now seemingly outed a new variant of the Galaxy On7 (2016), after an earlier report had suggested that the next-gen Galaxy On7 (model number SM-G600F), may ship with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 under its hood. According to the latest listing, the new model (SM-G610F) is powered by an Exynos chip and will be sold in India once the final little modalities are sorted out. This particular version will be powered by an Exynos 7870 chip, which has an octa-core ARMv8 application processor clocked at 1.59 GHz. The device will ship with 3GB of RAM and have Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow pre-loaded. While the rest of the specs remain unknown for now, a recent listing on an Indian import-export tracking site, Zauba, suggests that the phone may well come with a fingerprint scanner, which would make it the first Samsung device at this price range to have that feature.
Samsung launched its online-exclusive Galaxy On5 and Galaxy On7 handsets last year in an effort to better compete against companies like Xiaomi, ASUS and Motorola, who’ve already made a significant niche for themselves by selling high-quality smartphones at pocket-friendly prices exclusively through online channels like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal in India. Which is one of the reasons why market leaders like Samsung and Micromax have lost significant market shares in the country over the past couple of years. The two devices, for the first time, brought decent and usable hardware from Samsung at the lower mid-range, where the company’s earlier offerings like the Galaxy Y and the Galaxy Core had become the butt of all jokes on online message boards and social media.
