By Radhika Parashar
New Delhi, Nov 14 (IANS) In an attempt to fend off competition from Chinese smartphone players in India, Samsung has been aggressively refreshing its mid-range smartphone portfolio in the country.
The South Korean company recently refreshed its "J" series and launched Galaxy "J6+" in the mid-range segment, priced at Rs 15,990.
Let's find out if "J6+" is convincing enough.
With rounded corners, the smartphone features a polycarbonate glass-finish design and is heavier to hold but undoubtedly gives a premium feel.
The Samsung logo is placed on the back, below the 13MP+5MP dual rear camera set-up and flash.
Since the cameras on the back sit flush with the phone, the device is less wobbly -- a relief for those prone to accidentally damaging their devices.
The smartphone comes with a side-fingerprint scanner, located on the right side (which could be uncomfortable for left-handed people).
The volume rockers are positioned on the left followed by two slots -- the first one houses the primary SIM and the second one dedicates space for the secondary SIM and the expandable memory card.
The top bezel of the body comes with an 8MP front camera, flash and sensors. What lacks on the top bezel is the notification LED, for keeping a tab on missed calls, messages and device charging status.
The camera is usable with options like Bokeh effect and "Portrait back drop option".
Despite the screen being bigger, the display is not as vivid and punchy as compared to its predecessor "J6" that came with Super AMOLED display.
The chip-set used in the smartphone is Snapdragon 425, which is a 2-year old quad-core chip. Samsung previously used Octacore XE 7870 chip on J6 which was priced at Rs 13,490.
The "Galaxy J6+" is backed by 3,300mAh non-removable battery that easily lasted us a day on heavy usage. We tested the battery by running several social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter multiple times a day, and some gaming.
The bundled charger in the package took a little over two hours to completely charge the battery.
The software worked well in maintaining the temperature of the device, preventing it from heating.
The distinguished SIM and SD-card slots is a relief because people can use a second SIM and simultaneously expand the 64GB internal storage up to 512GB.
What does not work?
The fingerprint sensor is not as snappy as expected. Use of an old chip did affect the overall performance. In spite of being a mid-ranged smartphone, J6+ does not come with a USB-type C charger.
Conclusion: The J6+ offers a basic Samsung experience. The loyal users could adjust comfortably to the hits and the misses but there are plenty of other options in the same price bracket to explore too.
(Radhika Parashar can be contacted at radhika.p@ians.in)
