With the Galaxy J8, Samsung aims to bring its popular ‘Infinity Display’ smartphones to the masses.
With the cut-throat competition in the mid-range market, Samsung is really pushing its boundaries to be the top vendor in the Indian smartphone market. And since Xiaomi has launched devices with great imaging capabilities, Samsung is now introducing smartphones that are pitted directly against Xiaomi's portfolio by focusing on camera and user experience. Giving this cat and mouse game a new twist, Samsung has launched the J8, which, according to the company, offers the ‘best ever camera and user experience’ in its price segment.
We reviewed the device for a period of 15 days, and here is what we’ve to say about it . . .
Design and Display
Samsung Galaxy J8 breathes a new life in the mid-range segment with the introduction of ‘Infinity Display’. The device is wrapped under a polycarbonate body and feels durable and sturdy. The two cameras – a 16MP primary camera and a 5MP secondary one – at the back are aligned vertically, and the fingerprint scanner is located right under the camera set-up.
The Samsung Galaxy J8 comes under the Infinity Edge umbrella of smartphones, featuring an edge-to-edge display like the flagship “S” series of devices. The J8 comes with a Gorilla Glass protected 6-inch Super AMOLED screen, which has a resolution of 720x1480 pixel and an aspect ratio of 18:9. There is no always-on display functionality.
In the world of full-HD, the J8 has an HD+ screen, but it offers vibrant colour reproduction with deep contrasts. Indoors, the visibility is great, and to help users work on the device comfortably under direct sunlight, the company has introduced Outdoor mode. When switched to this mode, the brightness of the screen is enhanced. And if the phone is inactive for 15 minutes, Outdoor mode automatically switches off. There is also Blue light filter mode, which reduces eye fatigue by limiting the amount of blue light emitting from the screen. It’s quite helpful when the device is used for a long period.
Performance
The Samsung Galaxy J8 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor, which is paired with 4GB of RAM. It has 64GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded via micro-SD card. While the performance of the phone is fine, it’s slightly disappointing that the company has used a slightly old processor in a device that costs Rs 18,999.
Although the device is not suitable for high-end gaming, but you can definitely enjoy medium- and low-end games. During the test, we also noticed a slight heating up of the device on prolonged use. It’s 3,500 mAh battery lasts for around nine hours – during our test, it lasted for 9 hours and 10 minutes, to be precise – takes a significant amount of time to charge.
Coming to its software, the Galaxy J8 runs Android 8.0 operating system with a customised layer of Samsung UI, which has its own share of bloatware. Along with the Samsung apps, the device comes bundled with Amazon shopping and Prime Video app. One thing that I like about the J8 is its storage management app, which saves users a lot of memory space by automatically storing all the videos and images on the external storage device and deleting duplicate images received via social media apps, such as WhatsApp. For shopaholics, the phone has Samsung Mall, which allows users to find products using photos from e-commerce websites.
The Samsung Galaxy J8 comes with a dual rear camera setup, consisting of a primary 16MP sensor with f/1.7 and a 5MP secondary sensor with f/1.9. It has a 16MP front shooter with LED flash for capturing selfies in low light. And like other Samsung budget smartphones, the Galaxy J8 did not let us down and offered a pleasant camera experience. With the help of ‘Live Focus’, you can adjust the level of background blur both before and after capturing an image. Apart from this, the camera also offers portrait backdrop and portrait dolly features.
With the portrait backdrop, consumers can add different effects to the background, and with Portrait Dolly you can zoom out of the ordinary for a livelier image. The images captured through this phone has sharp colour reproduction and plenty of detailing, both outdoors and indoors.
The phone also offers multiple shooting modes, including night, panorama and pro.
The 16MP front camera captures more realistic selfies compared to Oppo and Vivo smartphones. However, if you feel the need to enhance your selfies, you can always use Beauty mode.
Verdict
The Samsung Galaxy J8 is a well-designed phone with the added advantage of Infinity Display, which at this price is bound to attract people’s attention. But, the use of an older processor makes it hard for the J8 to justify its cost in the highly competitive mid-range segment.
