Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Review

Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 looks like a really good smartphone when you first look at it, but like they say looks can be deceiving. So, i dove further into the phone to see if its just looks or does it really has something which makes it unique? Let me give you a hint, the answer is not surprising. You can read all about it below and also the video review of this phone turned out to be pretty long. So i am thinking just to make things up for that, i am going to keep this written review a little short and mostly concentrate on important points and things that i liked and things about the phone that i didn’t.

Hardware & Design

First up is the hardware. The hardware of this phone is just like any other Samsung sub 15,000 Rupees. Pretty solid build, made of plastic. About design, there’s nothing special about it, that plain old simple, elegant slim design. Not bad but not good either. It has some kind of glass on top of it not sure if it’s Gorilla Glass. It is a complete fingerprint magnet and for some reason this screen is a little more sticky rather than slippery unlike the screens that i have used before. It’s kind of difficult to remove smudges and fingerprints from it. I must give Samsung this, that it feels expensive than it actually is because of its build quality.

Display

It now has a little bigger screen than the original Galaxy Grand. It’s 5.25 inches to be exact and it is very good display. It is of 720p HD resolution and it is like the best screen that i have seen around this price range. Viewing angles are good too. Maybe now i know why people like high end Samsung smartphones a lot and also why their LCDs are so famous. The screen is very bright in sunlight and outdoor visibility is no problem at all. Even at medium brightness the screen is easily visible and not just visible it still looks beautiful outside. The colours just pops out of it every time you look at it.

Calling & Messaging

Yes you can call from it. It’s a phone after all. It supports dual sims or rather it is a dual sim only phone. So, that’s a plus point for it especially in India. The sound is clear and microphone is pretty good too. About messaging, for people with small hands, one hand typing might raise some problems. But of course you can always use it with two hands. And it has lots of keyboard options in settings for single handed operation.

Music & Videos

You can see this in action in the video below but i will tell you anyway. First thing i noticed a song on it that its speaker is pretty loud. Mostly phones this slim don’t have that kind of speaker. Or maybe i have just not used Samsung smartphones a lot. It plays 1080p videos by default on its native video player, you don’t have to download any app from the Play Store for that. It supports most of the formats. Audio player supports equalizer, album art and such things. It has FM radio too. Now most phones have all this but they don’t have is the speaker like this one have so that is its specialty.

Camera

The 8 megapixel camera of this phone phone is pretty good it takes very good still photos in both bad and good lighting. You can check the photos below. I didn’t check that thoroughly and like i always says i am not a photographer so i can’t go too technical, i depend on my eyes. If i like what i see then it’s good enough for me. It has lots of presets called “Modes” like that can automatically enhance the picture taken by you. You can see more of that in the video below. It can record video upto 1080p and for photo light it has a very bright single LED flash. Video quality is very good.

Performance

Now this is the most important part at least for me. Performance is what makes a smartphone. Camera, music, video all the phones even feature phones have them but what they don’t have is performance and that comes from Processor and RAM. Now we are in a age of smartphones in which just like with laptops and desktops one buys these things by looking at the processor and performance. At least that’s what i like to do.

In terms of Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 it has Snapdragon 400 processor with Quadcore Cortex A7 processor that can go up-to 1.2Ghz and Adreno 305 GPU. Now, the CPU is good but the GPU could’ve been better of this phone. This CPU coupled with a good GPU like Power VR SGX 544 it can perform even better. But this one is coupled with Adreno 305, because of this weak combination the smartphone suffers a lot in performance especially in gaming and multitasking and on top of that it has to run a HD screen which is its another downside. This phone would have been really honestly better if Samsung had put a Snapdragon S4 or the same chipset that Xperia SP has. Mind you Xperia SP is still cheaper that this but then again it has its own downsides like its green is not good at all. Nothing is perfect in this world and right now is the perfect time to say that saying. Check out gaming and benchmark for more.

OS & Memory

It runs on Android JellyBean 4.3 with Samsung touchwiz interface. Which is a very resource heavy UI it really needs a lot of processing power and RAM to operate properly without stutering and slowing down and of course lagging. Galaxy Grand 2 has one of them the RAM it has 1.3GB available RAM out of which more than half is consumed by the OS itself and that lefts you with around 500MB free and that’s not bad but due to the weak processor and HD screen multitasking suffers a lot. Although it didn’t freeze for me but the slowness was there. It has 5.2GB internal memory for apps and other stuff and you can expand it further with micro sd card. It does supports move to SD i.e, currently the most wanted feature in any android phone.

Battery Life

It has got 2600 mAh battery and the battery life of this phone is pretty good, if you use it with a little less than medium brightness then it will save the battery even more and on normal use it will last you a day easily. On heavy use you can expect something around 6-8 hours average. 6 for constant gaming and that too with wifi and other data services off. If you just use it for web browsing only then 8 hours. Screen consumes the most of its battery so keep the brightness low and you will easily be able to squeeze more out of it.

Money to Performance ratio

This phone has some rights like its beautiful screen, build quality, camera and solid Samsung support. But it has some wrongs too like weak processor and low memory. Because of weak processor it doesn’t live up to to it’s price. Most people want decent performance if they buy a phone at such price. I just don’t like phone phones that costs more and perform less.

Conclusion & Choice

Now this is where it comes to choice no one can force you to buy something, unless of course they put you on gun point. Mandatory just joking. No, but seriously i can not suggest this phone for this price. You can buy it if you are a Samsung loyalist and or likes galaxy line up in general you can even buy it for its beautiful screen itself.
But then you have to sacrifice the performance. After all it has the same processor as Sony Xperia M which is available for around half the price of this. If you like big beautiful screen and decent camera and ok performance then you can look into it. It’s available for around 22,990 Rupees in India and you can get it at much cheaper than that if you buy it online by using coupons/deals/discounts. By the time this phones’s price comes down, i think the Indian market is going to be flooded by octacore phones and that too below 20,000 Rupees. So i don’t think it would be worth it even then. You can ask me anything about this phone in the comments below. I will try my best to answer and help you.

Warning: A very long and casual review video below.