You’ve probably owned a Samsung device before. You know the brand’s trustworthy, which is why giving the Samsung J7 (2018) a little attention is great.
The phone’s pretty good, but before you make a decision, why not give our review a go? You’ll learn quite a bit.
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The phone has been discontinued and is not available brand new. The price mentioned is for used phones that are available on local ecommerce sites.
The J7 is a cheap phone. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to hide this. It comes with a plastic back that easily gives this away. The silver lining is that it feels great in your hands. What’s more, it’s shiny, so at an angle, it’s almost glass like.
The fact that its rear is plastic is a shock when you realize that the J7 (2017) has an aluminum unibody.
The phone has some bezel action going on. Thankfully, the bezels are only on the top and bottom of the screen. They’re not that thick as well. And the sides of the display pretty much mesh with its frame.
There’s a tactile home button for you to play with. It’s so tactile that it makes a noise when pressed. There isn’t a fingerprint sensor on it though. Get ready to be disappointed as the device doesn’t have a fingerprint sensor, at all.
Near the home button are the home and back keys. I was disappointed that they weren’t backlit. Not only would this have made the phone easier to use, but would’ve made the phone more premium looking.
Speaking of feeling premium, the device has a heft to it. This is strange considering it’s pretty much plastic. It’s around 181 g in weight.
Overall, the curved edges make the J7 easy to use. This is great as some phones like to stab.
The phone has a 5.5 inch screen. Compared to the 2017’s J7, the 2018 version has a less than great screen to body ratio. The newer one has a ratio of 71.4% while the 2017 one has a ratio of 73.1%.
The screen is Gorilla Glass 5, so it can take quite a beating. In 2020, Gorilla Glass 5 is pretty good.
The display is LCD and FHD+. For a phone at this price point, this isn’t surprising. However, when you realize that the 2017’s J7 came with a Super AMOLED display, you end up wondering what happened.
The newer J7 has a PPI of 267 while the older models one is 401. This means the latter has a more detailed display.
This doesn’t mean that the 2018 J7’s screen is bad. It’s certainly vivid, but at times, videos have a blueish tint.
What’s appreciated is its ambient light sensor. This wasn’t in the older model, and it helps you adjust the screen’s brightness to a range of settings.
The J7 uses a 3300 mAh battery, which isn’t the largest battery out there. However, it can last up to 13 hours with heavy use. Expect about a day if you’re moderate with the device.
Once your phone goes out, you’ll have to wait a bit over 2 hours to fully charge it. This isn’t too bad considering the phone’s price tag.
Having a plastic back, you might be wondering if its battery is non removable. The answer is yes, it can’t be removed.
The phone runs Android Pie. Unfortunately, no, it won’t be getting Android 10.
The J7 comes with 16 GB of storage. This is bad, but you can expand it with a microSD card to well over 128 GBs. It comes with a 32 GB variant as well, which a microSD card can be used on.
In terms of its processor, the J7 runs the Exynos 7870 chipset. The 7870 chipset is great as it’s pretty smooth. However, once you start multitasking, the phone starts to stutter if many pages are open.
For comparison, the 7870 chip is more powerful than the Snapdragon 625 which is in more expensive phones.
With extensive game play, expect lag and frame dropping.
2 gigs of RAM come with the J7. The phone isn’t high end, so you can’t be too mad about this.
The J7 has a single camera on its rear. It’s 13 MP, and doesn’t come with manymodes. Although pictures are detailed in well-lit environments, they can be blurry and a lot of the time, over exposed. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t capture a lot of detail though.
In low light, it tries but its pictures tend to have a blueish tint. You can really see from its low light shots that the J7 is trying. They come out over focused, which we’re not fans of.
It has a 8 MP camera on the front. Its ability to capture detail is alright, and we’d say it’s better than the rear camera.
Although cheap, it’s clear that the J7 packs a punch. This is why its alternatives are worth looking at. So, what’re you waiting for?
Although its predecessor, in many ways, the 2017 version is better than the newer J7. First of all, the older J7 comes with an aluminum unibody. This means it’s pretty premium looking and feeling. What’s more, it feels great in the hand due to its soft metal.
Like the newer J7, it has rounded edges.
The phone also comes with a 5.5 inch display, but the thing is, it’s Super AMOLED. This means everything pops, especially as it has the better screen to body ratio.
Unfortunately, it won’t be getting the Android 10 update. Something else the two phones can bond about is their battery power. They both have 3300 mAh batteries, but the 2018’s J7 performs better in this category.
And, they both rock the Exynos 7870 chipset.
This is where the similarities end as the older J7 has 3 gigs of RAM, which means you’ll face less lag.
You get a 5.5 inch screen with the Nokia 6. Similar to the J7, the screen is FHD+. They both have a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is quickly becoming dated.
Its processor is less than great as the Nokia 6 runs the Snapdragon 430 chip. You get 32 GBs of storage with the device. This may not be enough for some of you, which is why you can use a microSD card with it.
And no, the Nokia 6 isn’t going to get the Android 10 update either.
What’s great is the gigs of RAM it has. The device either comes with 3 or 4 gigs.
Battery wise, the J7 does a better job.
You need to know that the Nokia 6 has horrible charging. It takes hours to get fully charged, which makes the J7’s 2 hours nothing in comparison.
Before we forget:
The phone rocks an aluminum unibody, similar to 2017’s J7.
The A6 is a much lighter device. It’s 162 g, which basically makes it a feather when compared to the J7 (2018). We can all agree that a bit of heft is needed to make a phone feel premium, which makes this a bad thing.
Although true, know that it comes in an aluminum unibody. This is way better than a plastic back.
The device has a smaller screen. This sounds disappointing, but it’s only smaller by 0.1 inches. What’s more, it has a better screen. The A6’s display is Super AMOLED. IF this wasn’t enough, it has a better screen to body ratio, at 75%.
Both phones have batteries on the smaller side. The A6 has one that’s 3000 mAh, which isn’t the greatest.
You may be wondering what type of processor it has. Similar to 2018’s J7, the device comes with the Exynos 7870 chip.
The Samsung J7 is a phone you need in your life. For its price point, it’s a device that doesn’t disappoint- isn’t this what you want?
It comes with a great battery, and a charging speed you can’t be mad at. What’s more, the phone has a soft plastic back that feels great in your hand. That being said, plastic is cheap, so keep this in mind.
The phone’s camera is good, and it comes with a processor that’s fit for more expensive phones. But keep it in mind that it only has 2/3 gigs of RAM.
The device has 16 GB of storage, but there is a version that comes with 32 gigs. At the end of the day, microSD cards are a thing.
it’s clear that the 2017’s J7 is a more superior phone, even though it’s an older model. If you’re not interested in the 2018 model, why not give the older one a little attention?
