Seemingly running out of letters for its naming convention, the Korean giant decided to take on prepositions as another line of budgeted smartphones hit Philippine shores.
This is the full review of the Samsung Galaxy On5 2016.
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Table of Contents
Design
This mid-ranger is made up of metal backing with plastic caps on the top and bottom portion. Its rounded corners make it a lot easier to navigate with one hand. Looking at the back, you will find the flushed rear camera and LED flash beside it. Nothing can be seen up top, while the bottom portion contains the micro USB port, the main microphone, and, the 3.55mm headphone jack. The button placements on both sides are the same with the J7 Prime as well as the side-firing speaker at the right side above the power button. The volume rocker can be found at the opposite end. The chin will be housing Samsung’s iconic home button that functions as a fingerprint scanner to boot flanked by two capacitive keys.
Veering away from its plastic body from the previous versions, Samsung made the On5 2016 a budget-friendly premium feeling device. The build is good and the bezels on the screen are thin, this is basically a smaller J7 Prime in your hands.
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Display
The 5.0-inch 720p TFT LCD HD display of the Galaxy ON5 2016 is good enough for casual use. Natural colors are maintained considering the choice of going for an LCD display instead of the AMOLED. In totality, it provides good viewing experience though using under broad daylight will be a task as an ambient light sensor will not be present making fumbling with the screen brightness slider a poke in the dark, figuratively.
Camera
The 13MP rear camera of the device handles images well in day-lit conditions and captures shots decently fast. Captured photos defined smooth details with a touch of underexposure, however, using HDR mode will improve on the overall quality of the image, if by a bit.
Should you wish to shoot indoors with decent lighting, it will be no problem for this phone with overexposed bright areas in certain conditions.
Low-light scenarios produce noise on the image but with the addition of LED flash, it performed decently with a smooth touch on the image. Shooting at night will only capture lights and a few objects.
The rear camera can take up to 1080p @ 30fps videos with decent sharpness overall when doing so in broad daylight.
The 8MP front shooter did fairly well in an environment with decent lighting, as seen in the image, the face is detailed with a touch of overexposure in bright areas.
Performance
Comparing to the previous On5 and On5 Pro, the 2016 version revamped its internals by using a Snapdragon 617 SoC octa-core CPU paired with 3GB RM and achieving 44 thousand points on Antutu.
The extra 1GB RAM and four cores prove that the new and improve budgeted devices can breeze through different applications meant for daily casual use. For a mid-range tier phone, playing NOVA 3 was handled fairly well with smooth frame rates but the device gets a bit warm. Testing the On5 2016 on something more intensive, Real Racing 3, was a task for the meager specifications and proved that it was almost unplayable.
Battery
The 2600mAh juice pack of the On5 2016 does not come with any Quick Charge or fast adaptive charging. It will take about 2hrs 40mins to fill its tank. During our battery test, we were able to squeeze out an average 3.5 hours screen-on-time with almost 21hours of stand-by-time. For power users, you might have to use a power bank to last throughout the day.
Audio
The mono side-firing speaker on the right is good enough to fill a small room with clear audio output especially when the volume is maxed out.
Pricing and verdict
The Samsung Galaxy On5 2016 is expected to retail around Php12K pesos or $240. The 2016 version of the On5 is a clear step away from being a budget phone to a mid-range contender. If you are looking for a Samsung phone that has decent camera quality and good performance without breaking the bank, then this is probably a good buy for you but you might have to bring a power bank if you want to last throughout the day.
What do you think of the Samsung Galaxy On5 2016. Let us know in the comments section below.
Mabuhay, Manila.
Samsung Galaxy On5 2016 Official PH Price, availability, release date, specifications
| SPECS, PH Price | Samsung Galaxy On5 2016 |
| Display | 5.0-inch 720p TFT LCD, 294ppi |
| Size | 8.1mm thick, 143g weight |
| Design | Metal, antenna lines, plastic caps |
| Colors | Black, White and Gold |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 617 octa-core |
| Processor | 8x ARM Cortex A53 1.5GHz |
| Graphics | Adreno 405 GPU |
| Memory | 3GB RAM, 32GB internal, expandable up to 256GB via microSD slot |
| Main Camera | 13MP with LED flash, autofocus |
| Multimedia | 1080p@30fps, 720p@30fps, Auto HDR |
| Front camera | 8MP selfie camera |
| Connectivity | GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz HSPA+ : 850/900/1900/2100 MHz 4G LTE , WiFi b/g/n, Bt 4.1, GPS, GLONASS, FM Radio |
| OS | Android 6.0 Marshmallow |
| Software | TouchWiz UI 3.5 |
| Battery | 2600mah |
| Ports | micro-USB |
| Official Price | Php12,000k ($241) |
| Availability date | Early 2017 |
| Where to buy | Exclusively available online |
