Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Review

Samsung Galaxy smartphones I don’t think need an introduction. The most popular and consumer satisfying Android smartphone manufacturer no matter how much you curse the design and build of the smartphone, but the fact is that this statement is true. Samsung yet launched an iteration to its Grand series with the launch of Galaxy Grand 2 in December 2013.

Samsung Galaxy Grand series is targeted for a specific class in the diverse Indian audience where we have demands for all kinds of handsets. Grand has been designed with a big screen and a specification set which lies between high end and mid-range smartphones. Galaxy Grand 2 costs about 22k INR which makes it above mid-range handset because this price can’t be called mid range considering the amount of money an average person is making in this country. We reviewed the Grand 2 from a daily user’s perspective, all thanks to Samsung India and we have penned down our thoughts on the same which can be read below.

Build:

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is quite an improvement comparing with the Galaxy Grand which was launched prior to this. Talking about the build first, Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has a faux leather back instead of the plain plastic which has been quite appreciated on Note 3. The front somehow has the same look as of any Galaxy handset with a physical home button on the front, power/standby button on the right and volume rockr on the left.

On the top it has a 3.5mm audio out port with a secondary microphone and the bottom houses a microUSB port with primary microphone.

Display:

Grand 2 sports a 5.25-inch 720p 1280×800 pixels resolution LCD display which is a lot better than that on Galaxy Grand. The display looks bright indoors though it is not failsafe when it comes to outdoor visibility.

Hardware:

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz under Cortex A7 architecture. It comes paired with 1.5GB of RAM and 8GB internal memory which can be further expanded up to 64GB via external microSD card slot. It comes with dual micro SIM card support with dual standby capability. On the connectivity front, it features WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, HSDPA, Bluetooth 4.0 and FM radio. It is backed up with 2600mAh battery which is pretty much sufficient to run it for the day.

Software:

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 comes powered by Android 4.3 Jelly Bean operating system with the Samsung’s in-house custom user interface named as TouchWiz. It comes pre-installed with some applications such as Samsung Storybook , Group Play and other Android specific applications such as Gmail, Google+ etc.

Camera:

Grand 2 has a 8MP rear camera which can shoot pictures up to 3264×2448 pixels resolution and videos up to full HD 1080p@30fps with stereo sound. It also comes with a 1.9MP front-facing camera which is capable of handling good video conversations.

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 smartphone with its specification set was able to provide a pleasent user experience. The operating system ran smooth with hardly any freezes or lags which is known to occur on Samsung handsets. While the trial period, there was an issue where I had to force reboot my device. This sudden freeze can be due to any number of reasons, in my case it was an app interfering with the performance. Monitoring the CPU and the RAM usage for a week, we found out the results to be suiting my personal daily usage which includes multimedia consumption in the form of video and audio, heavy social media interaction via Facebook and Twitter, 4-5 real time messaging apps and frequent internet browsing.

Verdict:

Samsung has been constantly working to improve the user experience using new innovations that are made inhouse or by others. Their aim is to reach every single segment in the Indian population diversifying on the basis of income and age. There are people who like to spend on their smartphones those who have passion, while others who just want a workaround to a high end and some who want simple feature phones. Samsung has been rolling out regional language support to get more support in countries like India with multiple languages.

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has been developed to give people a workaround to high end smartphone experience at a little affordable pricing. High end smartphones usually cost >30k which generally is over budget for most of the poeple. Samsung has tried to reduce this cost with a comparatively cheaper feature set yet an guaranteeing a pleasent user experience.

Galaxy Grand 2 as mentioned above is perfect for daily usage having decent looks, specifications, pricing but yet there might be options out there in the market which can offer somewhat same compromising the brand and the after sales. One exception here is Motorola Moto G, which though has a brand but after sales can be a pain observing the low number of service centres in the country.

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