Samsung Galaxy J1 mini prime is the latest addition to Samsung’s entry level line up. The phone is perfect for the people who want a Samsung phone but do not want to spend a lot of money.
Samsung Galaxy J1 mini prime Key Specifications:
- 4.0 inches TFT display with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels.
- 8 GB internal storage, 1 GB RAM, Micro SD card slot.
- 5 MP, f/2.2 camera with no autofocus, LED flash.
- VGA front camera.
- 720p@30fps video recording.
- Spreadtrum SC9830 chipset.
- Quad-core 1.2 GHz CPU.
- Mali-400MP2 GPU
- 3G compatible.
- No Fingerprint sensor.
- 1,500 mAh battery.
- Android OS, v6.0 (Marshmallow).
Check out our short video review of the Samsung Galaxy J1 mini prime.
Design and Display
The Samsung Galaxy J1 mini prime has a 4.0-inch TFT LCD display with 256K colors and a screen resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. This resolution feels really nice on a display this small. The former flagship, Samsung Galaxy S2 had the same resolution on a 4.3-inch display.
The phone is small in size (121.6 x 63.1 x 10.8 mm to be exact) and feels really good in the hand. Single handed operations are easier to perform and all the hardware buttons can be pressed easily without moving your hand up and down like on bigger phones.
The phone is mostly made of plastic. The plastic back is scratch proof and has a really nice feel. The camera is mounted on the top back with a single LED flash on the left side of it. Loud Speakers are present at the left side of the camera.
The headphone jack is present on the top side of the phone and there is a Micro USB 2.0 port at the bottom of the device for charging and syncing.
Hardware
The phone comes with Spreadtrum SC9830 chipset with Quad-core 1.2 GHz CPU and Mali-400MP2 GPU. It has 1 GB RAM. The RAM this less comes in very few phones nowadays, but considering the price, it’s good. The phone weighs 126g.
Internal storage is 8GB (3.9 GB user available). If you feel that it is not enough for you, it supports a Micro SD card up to 256 GB which is more than enough for a device of this category.
Camera
The phone comes with a 5 MP fixed focus camera with a LED flash. The front camera is VGA which can capture an image of maximum 640 x 480 resolution.
We tested the cameras both outdoor and indoor. The camera performed well in daylight but failed to impress us in low light conditions. Overall the main camera is below average to take everyday photos. The front camera is even worse. It performed poorly even outdoor. But you can’t expect better than this from a phone priced below $100.
Here are some of the sample images from Samsung Galaxy J1 mini prime camera both indoor and outdoor:
Surprisignly, the J1 mini prime records excellent videos. Maxium supported video resolution is 720p@30fps and it looks really good.
Here is the outdoor video sample of the main camera.
Performance
As mentioned earlier, the phone comes with a Quad Core processor. It does not feel laggish in general performance. You can open 2-4 apps without feeling any lag in the performance but opening more apps at the same time will make the phone slower.
We tested the popular side-scroller game Limbo on this device and the performance is above average. The most demanding games like Mortal Kombat X and Injustice: Gods Among are also playable on decent framerate.
We also tested its AnTuTu performance. It scored 21,181 which is good enough for an entry level phone. Here are some screenshots.
Battery and Other Features
Samsung Galaxy J1 mini prime comes with a 1,500 mAh battery. We tested the battery properly. It hardly lasts a day on normal usage and 3-4 hours on heavy usage and gaming. So you might want to get a power bank if you are planning to get this phone.
It comes with Ultra Power Saving mode. Ultra Power Saving mode suspends all applications and allows you to make phone calls and send texts, that’s all. You cannot play games, use the camera or watch videos when Ultra Power saving mode is active.
The phone comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box and there is no chance that it will receive Android 7.0 Nougat update. The phone costs PKR 9,999 ($95 USD) and can be purchased from local markets.