With pre-paid connections steadily gaining in popularity in the U.S., mid-range and entry-level smartphones are getting more attention from customers than they did during the era of subsidized handsets. Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, is generally known for premium devices such as the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge, although the company also happens to have a solid grip on the entry and mid-range segments in the country. That being the case, the company is now believed to be prepping the launch of an all-new entry-level device called the Galaxy J3 Emerge, which is expected to be a successor to the company’s first-generation Galaxy J3 handset that was released earlier this year as the Galaxy J3 (2016).
According to reports, the upcoming device is expected to be available at Sprint and two of its pre-paid brands – Boost and Virgin Mobile – from January 6th. The Galaxy J3 Emerge, as the new smartphone is now being called, seems fairly similar to the rumored Galaxy J3 (2017) in terms of their hardware specifications, although it isn’t entirely confirmed at his point in time whether both of them are the exact same device or if they have some minor differences between them. Either way, the new smartphone is a definite step-up over the Galaxy J3 (2016), although just like its predecessor, the Galaxy J3 Emerge will also feature a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. Another area where the upcoming device and its predecessor will have striking similarity is in terms of the battery capacity, which too, will apparently remain unchanged at 2,600mAh.
Under the hood, however, the new version comes with some solid improvements, including a Snapdragon 430 processor and 2 GB of RAM. The previous version came with just the 1.5GB of RAM and depending on the variant, was powered by either a Spreadtrum SC9830 or an Exynos 3475. The device will also have 16GB of internal storage, but there’s no word on whether there will be a microSD card slot for storage expansion. The upcoming handset will reportedly come with a 5-megapixel fixed-focus camera on the rear and a 2-megapixel selfie-shooter on the front, neither of which sound particularly interesting. In terms of software, the Galaxy J3 Emerge will apparently come with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out-of-the-box. There’s no word, sadly, on whether Samsung will even consider updating the device to Android 7.0 Nougat going forward.