Nov 05, 2014 08:52 AM
128009 Views
(Updated Nov 05, 2014 08:59 AM)
My wife purchased this handset a few days ago. We both were doubtful being a very recent product, how will it perform. But to our utter surprise, Grand Prime till now performed very well. I borrowed it from her and used(read tortured) it for 9-10 days. Like my previous review of Nokia X2, I will skip the specifications(they can be found in company website). For the convenience of readers, I will create a 10 point performance scale
1) Build Quality: Grand Prime(white color) is quite a looker. It certainly looks better in hand than in photos. Build is totally plastic though . But it is not a deal breaker as most of the Samsung fones are more or less ‘plasticky’. Volume Button is on the left and Unlock on right. There is a phycial Home Button under the display. Recent Apps and Back buttons are embedded in the body. All the buttons have very tactile feedback. Camera and Flash are in the back along with the Speaker Grill. Mouthpiece and USB Charging port are in the bottom part. 3.5 mm Audio Jack is on the upper part. Earpiece, 5mp Front Camera and some sensors are above the display.
Prime has good build quality and the phone is easier to grip than my previous Galaxy Grand or my wife’s previous fone(Micromax Canvas HD).(8/10)
2) Display: 5” display has approx 220ppi resolution. Though it is somewhat lower than HD display, you will not feel any significant difference for normal use. Viewing Angles are pretty good…and I mean it. Colors are vibrant. There is no Gorilla Glass Protection, so it is better to immediately purchase a good screen guard. Sunlight visibility is ok, and not at all bad. The fone doesn’t have any Auto Brightness Adjustment facility.(8/10)
3) Touch: It is like Project Butter. Absolutely smooth touch. I think it is better than my newly purchased Grand 2. OMG!(9.5/10)
4) Voice Calling: Clarity of the voice calls are reasonably good through earpiece, no complain here as well.(8/10)
5) Signal Reception: Good. In my office, (which is the near blackout zone for every cell phone tower of any company) I experienced a few call drops, but that is normal because none of the phones I have used till now could hold their signal properly in my office premises. Grand Prime is Dual Sim supported. And the dual sim functionality is a typical Samsung affair like Galaxy Grand etc.(8/10)
6) Speaker: Ringtone volume is loud enough but in some heavily crowded places, one can miss some calls. Anyway, Vibration is fairly good.(8/10)
7) Battery: It has a massive 2600 mah battery to juice it up. I got approx 5.5-6 hrs screen time with regular to heavy use. Stand-by time is nice too. Casual users can easily get 1.5 days back up.(8/10)
8) Software interface: It is armed with Android 4.4.4 Kitkat out of the box. Also it has Qualcomm Sanpdragon Quadcore Processor coupled with Adreno 306 GPU. Subway Surfers, Hay Day, Candy Crush Saga etc. run pretty well. Interface is BLAZING FAST. I could not believe my eyes when there was only 70 mb RAM free out of 1gb and still the fone was up and running(like Farhan Akhtar, if not Milkha Singh). Fone never hanged. Neverslowed down. Comparing it with my Grand 2 with 1.5 GB RAM, it is like the contrast between a rabbit and a turtle, respectively. We all know how Samsung fones struggle and thrive for more ram, but this is an exception. This speed gain is mostly due to the lack of Samsung bloat-wares, which results in near stock-Kitkat experience.(9/10)
9) Audio-Video: Surprisingly, there is no Samsung music player, only Google Music is there. But don’t panic, you all know about Poweramp, just download it(better purchase it coz it is the best music player in any mobile-software platform money can buy) Sound clarity is very good but you have to use 3rd party headphones(read Creative EP630, cheap and best and my personal favorite). Nearly all music formats are supported. Video playback is also trouble free. I did not play full hd videos, but there should be no problem. Videos looked very good in the display.(8/10)
10) FM Radio: Reception is ok. Sound clarity is nice. FM recording supported.(8/10)
11) Connectivity: Bluetooth, 3G and Wi-fi were pretty good. Through WI-fi, Youtube videos ran well. PC connectivity was smooth.(8.5/10)
12) Storage: 8 GB is the internal storage(16gb should be the norm today as hd games take lot of space) out of which you should get approx 4.7-4.9 gb on first boot. You can move some apps to sd card. External memory card is supported, and I am using one 16gb.(7/10)
13) Back Camera: 8 mp camera takes very good pictures in broad daylight. Macro shots look nice with enough details. HDR mode is there. Camera interface is changed from Jelly Bean and more fluid to use. Night shots with flash struggle though(it is better than Canvas HD, Xperia M, Nokia X2 but inferior to Nokia Lumia 630). Full HD Video recording is supported and the videos came out with good details(if not spectacular) in daylight with 29-30 frames/second. Sound recording in the videos was not that good but ok considering the price tag of the fone. While recording videos, Continuous Autofocus is supported and unlike some other fones, the focus system is quite stable here. Overall, Prime has a very capable rear cam, in my opinion.(8/10).
14) Front Camera: Selphie is the buzz word today and this a selphie fone. Don’t just go for the ads, the front cam is good but certainly not the best. Colors are not that vibrant and there were less details in the pics considering the megapixel count. But hey, don’t get frustrated, it is still better than most of the phones in its price range, as of now. Surprisingly, the Videos captured were much better than the still images.(7/10)
Samsung advertised it as the selphie fone; of course it is, but the fact is front camera is not its strongest point, speed is. My previously used Grand, S2 etc were not that fast like Prime. Its price is around 15000/- in Kolkata. I will not argue whether it is better or worse than Moto G 2nd Gen or legendary Xiaomi MI3….it must be better in some departments and must be inferior in some aspect(you know the bottomline….no fone is absolutely perfect), but considering its price, it is a very very good performer. I don’t know the fate of this gadget in the long run, but till now it is running nicely.
I will highly recommend Grand Prime.
