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| Samsung Galaxy J3 2016: On Samsung Singapore Web |
J series are marketed as the Samsung budget smartphones series so they certainly won’t match up against any of the flagships out there. At the same time, with the advancing standards of mobile technology, budget line-ups are increasingly usable and impressive despite the budget prices.
Case in point, J series boast a 5" 720p super AMOLED display, quad-core 1.5Ghz processor plus Android 5.1 Lollipop, ensuring a decent day-to-day experience. A big mention also goes to the Quick Launch Camera feature, where double clicking on the physical home button will bring up the camera. This is one feature that I really like on my S7 Edge. Of course there are many ways to easily bring up the camera but this way certainly seem much faster and feels like a real camera in some ways.
Throw in a decent 8MP snapper and a back cover featuring a “Samsung Note 3/4” plastic leather-texture outlook, the J series seems to made for a group whom like the previous generation of Samsung design DNA on a budget.
Samsung J3 and J5, 5” and 5.2” respectively, possesses popular display sizes these days, making retail prices of S$268 for J3 and S$348 for J5 look fairly decent.
Unfortunately for Samsung and fortunately for consumers, at these budgets there are a whole brunch of options are out there.
Like Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro or not, Nexus 5x 16GB, OnePlus X, Asus Zenfone Series… Perhaps the growing export market in Singapore is giving consumers here more options, more than half of the list are export sets only. ie. parallel imports.
In fact, at the recently concluded PC Show 2016, I saw yet another Samsung budget with a 5” display. The Samsung On5.
Samsung released the On Series in China only as far as I know, and comes in two models, On 5 and On7, 5” and 5.5” display respectively.
Thus it complicates things a little for consumers whom aren’t savvy with the smartphones market where there are more than one option at a certain price point. Case in point would be Galaxy J3 and On5 (as well as J3 export sets!). They are very similar in specifications, barring the super AMOLED screen on J3 versus a TFT screen on On5. Big difference I would speculate.
Local warranty is the other noteworthy difference. Around S$70 higher, J3 would give a peace of mind with local warranty where else any warranty promised with a Samsung On5 in Singapore is really going to be a street shop warranty.
It could be easy to get lost while comparing the two, so here a table I use when comparing them.
It’s nice to have options though, especially when it comes to gadgets!
Link – Samsung Press Release: Galaxy J3 and J5 in Singapore
| Samsung Galaxy J3 2016 4G (SM-J320G/DS) | Samsung On5 | |
| Local set RRP S$268 Export set S$268 +/-20 | Price | Street price S$198 +/-10 |
| Local Set with local warranty | Warranty | Export Set only |
| Unclear what could the processor for the local set! Could be Snapdragon 410 or Exynos 3475 or … Quad-core 1.5GHz (Local set spec) | Processor | Exynos 3475 Quad Quad-core 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 |
| Adreno 306 | GPU | Mali-T720 |
| 1.5GB | RAM | 1.5GB |
| Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen 5.2”, 1280 x 720 | Display | TFT capacitive touchscreen 5.0”, 1280 x 720 |
| 8GB | Storage | 8GB |
| MicroSD | Expandable Storage | MicroSD |
| 8 MP | Rear Camera | 8 MP, f/2.2 |
| 5 MP, f/2.2 | Front Camera | 5 MP, f/2.2 |
| Dual SIM – 4G (1 slot support 4G at any one time) (export set may have only 1 SIM) | SIM | Dual SIM |
| Android OS, v5.1 (Lollipop) | OS | Android OS, v5.1 (Lollipop) |
| 2600mAh | Battery | 2600mAh |
| 142.3 x 71 x 7.9mm | Size | 142.3 x 72.1 x 8.5 mm |
| 138g | Weight | 149g |
