Today I’m going to review of Samsung Galaxy On5 which was recently launched. It’s an 8GB Black version. After using it for nearly a month I can say it has kinda lived up to my expectations as a budget phone from Samsung. It costs less for the configuration you get if Samsung brand is to be taken into account. Although it won’t be my only choice if I need to reconsider being my secondary phone. By budget phone I compare the price tag of the phone to its performance.
Body/Built/Design
First of all it’s a decently sized phone with the screen size of 5 inches that is narrow enough for fairly comfortable use, and it’s not too thick either as compared to its sibling On7 which is a 5.5 inch phone. 5 inch phones have become a standard in phone industry and it feels good to hold in the hand compared to phones with larger displays. It has thicker somewhat flatter body & more importantly the back bezel is curved that actually help you grip the thick phone without any discomfort. It weighs around 149g and it doesn’t put a crease in your pocket.
It comes in only two colors white & black. Both the front panel and back panel is black in color and sides are silver with glossy edges. The side of the phone is flat which merges with the back panel curved bezel giving it a rounded look. The buttons, power button to the right, volume rocker to the left and the home button at front are relatively clicky and decently tactile. However the Volume Up button was a bit difficult to press & didn’t provide a proper feedback. The back panel is flimsy, with faux- leather texture, though, is deceptive, as the plastic on the back feels cheap which is always the case with Samsung but it performs quite well. Overall I felt this design to be out-dated by light years & build quality not up to the mark making you wish to go a decade into past and feel good about the phone.
Screen
Upon the front of the phone is beautiful crispy 5 inch 720p resolution Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen. The display is slightly brighter with pinkish hue, high color saturated with good viewing angles. This is definitely not the best display out there but one can work with it. There is no auto brightness adjust sensor present and neither is any LED light.
The screen is flanked on its top by a 5MP camera, sensors and the ear piece. The sound from the ear piece is pretty good and you can easily hear out the other person during a call.
On the bottom of the screen is the home button with capacitive buttons on its sides which don’t light up on being touched.
Performance/Config
This is a 4G enabled Dual Sim phone but one one sim can be used for 4g at a time, has 1.3 Ghz quad core cortex a7 CPU, Mali T720 GPU & Exynos 3475 chipset. Internal storage is 8Gb with a micro-SD card slot and has 1.5GB of RAM. This configuration translates into a smooth experience. I throw a lot at phone and I can easily notice when they hang up or stutter/start feeling dizzy or slows down, for this phone I can say that it didn’t hang for whatever I threw at it but sometimes it did slow down a bit and that’s quite normal. Other than this multitasking, opening/closing apps, gaming was pretty smooth.
Battery Life
Battery life on this phone is pretty good. We all know that it has 2600mAH battery and considering that it has 5inch display and decent specs don’t expect it to get the longest battery life but it does pretty well. I have got somewhere around 4.5 hours of screen on time and will give it a rating of B-. But it’s not the screen on time that counts here it’s the standby time. You can sometimes end the day with 20% of charge still left. On using 4G it drains the battery pretty fast.
However there is no Quick Charging or Wireless Charging which is quite a bummer for some people. I personally have started getting used to Quick Charging.
Speakers
The phone is equipped with back firing speaker which is not loud enough. You consistently need to keep the hand behind the speaker to make the sound reflect towards you. In noisy environment it is nearly impossible to listen to the speakers however in quiet locations they perform nicely but you miss lots of details in the sound. A front firing speaker is always a good choice. I wonder why Samsung don’t opt for front firing speakers.
Camera
The rear camera is 8MP and can be used for casual photographs. You cannot rely on it if you want the photos to look great. Otherwise it is a decent capturing camera. It is an autofocus camera with a flash and double tapping the home button gets you into with even if the phone is locked. The capturing speed is slow as the camera takes time to autofocus. The photos themselves are quite nice during daylight. You get sharp photos but some details are missing from them. The software removes some grain from the photos making them lose detail. There is a pro mode in the camera where you can adjust metering, ISO & White Balance. However there is no HDR. You can also use “Continuous Shot’ mode in the camera to take quick shots in succession. Low light grain & blur can be seen in photos if hands are shaky. Overall the camera is really not that bad.
It has a 5MP front facing camera which can be used for video chats and selfies and it gets the job done.
Gaming
This phone sometimes get warm on playing games but the heat dissipates quite nicely and doesn’t hamper with the experience. Performance has been somewhat clean and smooth and it can play many games without a hitch. But you need to keep an eye on the storage as it quickly goes down on installing large games. A microSD card comes handy for that purpose. So this phone will help you pass your free time with some good games.
Software
It comes preloaded with Android Lollipop 5.1.1 with no news about update to marshmallow yet. I love clean stock android and this phone didn’t disappoint me on that aspect. Yes it has TouchWiz but we are used to it now. No bloat wares from Samsung for this phone and that’s a nice thing.
Conclusion
So at the end of the day I felt pretty good with the performance the phone gave me. I would have liked certain things to be seen in this phone but considering the price you pay, it’s loaded with everything you need. It obviously can’t be a daily driver for me but if you are short on budget and don’t mind the performance; you will be having a good time with it.
Now would I recommend it for buying? Heart wise: NO but brain wise: YES. A low price tag with decent specs, backed up by Samsung, It’s a good package and value for money. Today in market we see a lot of phones in this price range with much better specs but being a Samsung device you can get some peace of mind.
This phone might disappoint you sometimes in some ways; I think it’s still going to be a good budget phone in the market.
