The Philippines' first DTV-enabled smartphone with AMOLED display is officially here thanks to the guys of Samsung Mobile Philippines as they brought it in the Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV.
In a media event earlier, we went first for a ride to test the Galaxy J2 DTV signal from EDSA Shangrila to the venue at Romulo Cafe in Makati which I will tell my asssessment later. Samsung Mobile PH knew the growing DTV signal here in the country which they are targetting the commuters which now you can catch your fave TV shows on the road.
As we checked in, the official specs of Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV here is 1.3 GHz Exynos 3475 quad-core processor with Mali T720 GPU, Android 5.1 Lollipop, 5 MP rear cam with flash, 2 MP front cam, 4.7 inch qHD Super AMOLED display, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB ROM, dual micro SIM, LTE, micro SD slot, DTV and 2,000 mAh removable battery. When I asked their officials on the possible Android Marshmallow update, it is now on the pipeline.
And for my first impressions. They are selling both the black and gold versions.
The black variant reminds me of a classic and a bit smaller Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which is my preferred version. The gold one easily gave me an impression like their recent Samsung Galaxy On7. The still typical Samsung feel are present to the J2 DTV and I love the curves of the sides which does not look cheap at all. It has a removable back cover.
At the left, you can see the volume rocker while on the right, the power/unlock button.
At the top, you can have the 3.5 mm. audio jack while at the bottom, OTG capable micro USB port and the already attached retractable DTV antenna
The Touchwiz UI on Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV. Yup, it is lighter. Out of 8 GB ROM, you can put in 4 GB for apps which is very good. It was my first time to play a smartphone with the said SoC and I have no complaints in going some multi tasking and back and forth in a number of apps.
On Antutu, it scored at almost 25,000. Galaxy On7 will be ashamed on this device as it has 5 point multi touch. Only 3 sensors are present and the internal storage was supplied from Hynix.
While we are waiting for a possible review unit, I went straight to it's main atrraction, the DTV. For me the J2 DTV is the most commuter friendly DTV phone mainly coz of the 3 options to view it. Fullscreen on landscape option, half screen on landscape with channels and options on the side and half screen and channel & options on portrait mode which is not present yet in existing competitors (just imagine me in SRO mode in a commuter bus, the 3rd viewing option is a big help). In comparison with a local DTV phone which I previously reviewed, this one has the edge in terms of reception as it got the rare DTV signal of PTV. By the way, the phone has ISDB-T DTV standard inside.
The DTV app has 3 options to get signal, the autpmatic switch which will scan both full seg and one seg DTV channels, full seg channels and one seg channels only. I tried to rescan the channel using the Full Seg channels only and the number of channels reduced which is pretty effective. Of course, the phone can record TV shows thru the record button to be saved either on phone or micro SD. Upon testing as I did a 30 second record of ABS CBN Full Seg channel, it consumed 10 MB. Here's one big drawback for me which I hope Samsung Mobile PH will have an update for this. The video file is saved as .ets file and it did not play either on both decoders of MX Player or VLC for Android. Too bad that there are now available .ets to popular video formats on Windows freeware right now and you can play it using the saved files tab of their DTV app. How I wish the phone will also have an option to record and save it either via .3gp or .mp4 files.
Both cameras have f/2.2 aperture which I have no complains in terms of camera output for a budget Samsung Galaxy phone. Shots were taken inside the Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV Coaster.
Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV 5 MP rear camera sample
Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV 2 MP front camera sample
Two more things. I love the Super AMOLED display of this device even that it is only on qHD resolution. The screen brightness is good enough for travel and walking. On LTE, it only has GSM/WCDMA/LTE option (no LTE option) which also a bit of a downer for me.
Still, I am looking forward to do a full review of Samsung Galaxy J2 DTV soon. It is now available for Php 6,990
