A few days after they are accepting pre-orders, Samsung Mobile Philippines already made a formal intrroduction on the new Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro
Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro has 1.6 GHz Exynos 7870 octa-core processor with Mali T-830 GPU, Android 7.0 Nougat, 5.5 inch FHD Super AMOLED display, 13 MP main cam with LED flash and f/1.7 aperture, 13 MP secondary cam with f/1.9 aperture, 3 GB RAM, 64 GB ROM, LTE, dual nano SIM, LTE, Bluetooth 4.1, WiFi, GPS, OTG support, front-mounted fingerprint sensor, micro SD support up to 256 GB and 3,600 mAh built-in Li-ioN battery
Like in their previous J2 Prime campaign, they brought back Kapamilya actress Liza Soberano as their ambassadress to this new phablet from the Korean brand that will capture the night.
Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro SRP for the Philippine market is at Php 15,990. The pre-order is now ongoing as I previously mentioned. It will hit the stores this July 15. As I checked the demo area, they also indicated add-on items that will fit on the J2 Pro which solds separately like the dual layer cover for Php 599 and the 5,100 mAh slim battery pack worth Php 1,699
And now for some hands-on
Front and back views of the J7 Pro. I already saw the online picture of it's gold version which the antenna reminds me of a clipboard (not a bad idea for me). For this one in black edition, the antenna lines were less visible. The pics were not lying as the phablet had almost bezel-less sides which is quite outstanding for a midrange Samsung device.
The left side has volume buttons, dedicated micro SD tray and dual nano SIM tray. On the right, the power/unlock button and single speaker
On the benchmarks, the J7 Pro scored at over 47,000 on Antutu. It has 7 out of 9 working sensors including gyro. On camera sensors, the main cam used Sony IMX 258 while the selfie cam was from the brand's own ISOCELL sensor - SLSI_S5K3M3_FIMC_IS to be exact with 2.53 mm. focal length
Glad to know as to compare with a smartphone with the same price range, the J7 Pro has FM radio. Samsung Experience UI is quite thick for my liking based when I checked the RAM's reaction as they usually gave me 1.2 GB remaining over it's 3 GB RAM. A big downer for me was the very weak Bluetooh as I had to went thru 3 J7 Pro units just to get some benchmarks and camera samples.
One of the highlights of the J7 Pro is the low aperture on both cameras which really gives more light capture like this one in the ceiling of Solaire Grand Ballroom which is quite dark in reality. On selfie camera aside from good output, it also gave that auto focus which almost made some blur on my potential photobonmbers. If there is one bad thing on the main camera is the lack of options on the pro mode (it only has ISO, EV and color temperature options.) Here are some of the camera samples taken on a low light environment captured at the event venue.
Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro rear camera sample
Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro front camera sample
As this phablet is trying to target a selfie-centric smartphone (or smartphones), it has some potential based on the camera, bigger battery capacity plus the 14 nm processed Exynos 7870 but I never had an experience yet on it's potential power to do some heavy lifting. The Bluetooth issue is a big concern for me.
Definitely, it will be one of my main targets for review so stay tuned on this blog. Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro is priced at Php 15,990