Samsung Galaxy J6 Review

Samsung Galaxy J6 Review

Once the market leader in the entry-level and mid-range smartphone segments,

Samsung has been lagging behind for the past couple of years thank to the influx of extremely affordable devices from the likes of Xiaomi and others. Now, in an attempt to freshen up its budget offerings, Samsung has unveiled the new Galaxy J6, which is its most affordable phone yet to sport an Infinity Display with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio.

While this new smartphone shares many specifications and UI elements with previous Samsung J-series and On-series models, the approach to design is different this time around. With prices starting at Rs. 13,990 for the variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, does the Samsung Galaxy J6 have enough under its belt to take on the might of the Redmi Note 5 Pro ( Review ) and ZenFone Max Pro M1 ( Review )? We find out in our review.

Samsung Galaxy J6 design

The Galaxy J6 has a refreshing design. With a tall display, comfortable grip and sleek body, this mid-range handset is quite the looker. It's 8.2mm thick, making it feel just about comfortable in hand. Added to that, as we noted in our mobile is slim and attractive

first impressions , the rear panel isn't quite matte or glossy, which means it doesn't pick up unnecessary smudges.

The front of the phone sports curved-edge 2.5D glass for the 18.5:9 Infinity Display. This is another plus point for this budget offering, as Samsung has used one of its own 5.45-inch Super AMOLED panels with an HD+ (720x1480 pixels) resolution. As is the case with AMOLED displays, the colours are crisp and accurate, the blacks are deep, and the brightness is decent, though some find the resolution to be disappointing.

There are definitely a few shortcomings though. In classic Samsung tradition, the Galaxy J6 skips the crucial ambient light sensor giving us no option of an auto-brightness toggle. Having to manually adjust the brightness level repeatedly during our review period was particularly frustrating.

Above the display, there's an 8-megapixel selfie camera, a selfie light and the earpiece. Below it, for the first time on a Samsung Galaxy J-series smartphone, is no physical button. Instead, the Home, Back, and Overview buttons are all on screen. Depending on which apps support the extended screen resolution, the buttons may or may not appear on screen at all times.

On the left, the Galaxy J6 has the volume buttons, one tray for SIM 1, and a second tray for SIM 2 and a microSD card. The right of the handset sports a lock/ power button and a small slit for the speaker. The Micro-USB port, microphone, and 3.5mmheadphone socket are placed at the bottom. Finally, the retail box includes a 5V/ 1A power adapter, a USB cable, a SIM ejector tool, a wired headset, and a couple of quick start guides.

Samsung Galaxy J6 specifications and software

The new Galaxy J6 is powered by Samsung's in-house octa-core Exynos 7870 SoC, which is one of the most disappointing aspects of this mid-range offering. This processor has been Samsung's favourite choice for budget models for the past couple of years now, with the segment begging for a refresh. We are reviewing the variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, but Samsung has also launched the Galaxy J6 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The latter is currently not available for sale in India, and Samsung's official website shows a "Coming Soon" banner as of filing this review.

Connectivity options include 4G VoLTE on either SIM at a time, so all compatible Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea SIM cards can take advantage of LTE calls. There's also single-band (2.4GHz) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, a 3.5mm headphone socket, and FM radio, but no NFC. Wi-Fi calling is also an option available in the Settings on supported network. As has been seen with previous Galaxy J and Galaxy On-series smartphones, Samsung has skimped when it comes to the sensors. This phone only has a proximity sensor and accelerometer, and no ambient light sensor or gyroscope.

In terms of software, the Samsung Galaxy J6 runs the Samsung Experience 9.0 UI on top of Android 8.0 Oreo, which we've previously seen on the company's most premium handsets. The Android security level patch is dated 1 April 2018. The home screen gets a default weather and time widget on top, the Google search bar, and shortcuts to apps from Google and Microsoft . Swiping to the left reveals the Bixby Home screen that has a plethora of widgets and apps showing Facebook trends, your schedule, reminders,

YouTube suggestions, weather information, news, and a lot more.

Samsung has an image recognition-based shopping app called Samsung Mall , which ships with the Galaxy J6. Having made its debut with the Galaxy On7 Prime earlier this year, Samsung Mall gave us fairly accurate suggestions for gadgets and clothing, and has improved significantly since its launch. It detected clothing patterns well, but often mistook the category. For instance, on scanning a checked shirt, the results displayed things like gloves and handkerchiefs. Samsung Mall redirects users to shopping sites such as Amazon and Flipkart , and you can't buy things directly within the app.

Another advertised feature is Samsung Pay Mini . As opposed to the NFC-based

Samsung Pay for physical transactions, Pay Mini is just a native Samsung app that can be used to make payments through UPI and mobile wallets. You could just use native apps, including, BHIM, Paytm , PhonePe , and Google Tez, if you're used to them. You cannot disable or uninstall the Samsung Pay Mini app. Fortunately, there are no preinstalled Samsung-branded video and music apps; instead these are optional downloads from Samsung's My Galaxy app store.