The Samsung Galaxy On5, the budget smartphone with a quad-core processor and 8 MP back camera has launched and it may give competition to the smartphones in the price range of ₹10,000, but is it really a good buy in this price bracket or there are any better options available? We got a Black variant of this device for a review and there is one Gold variant also available. After the hands-on with Samsung Galaxy On5, let’s check out the Samsung Galaxy On5 review in detail.
In the box
- Samsung Galaxy On5
- Battery
- MicroUSB Cable
- Stereo Headset
- User Guide, Warranty Card, and other manuals
Samsung Galaxy On5 specifications:
- Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, TouchWiz UI
- 5.0-inch TFT display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution
- 1.3 GHz quad-core Exynos 3475 processor
- Mali-T720 graphics processor
- 1.5 GB RAM
- 8 GB internal storage, 128 GB expandable using MicroSD
- 8 MP back camera
- 5 MP front facing camera
- 4G LTE, Dual SIM support (GSM + GSM)
- 2600 mAh battery
- 149 grams weight
- 72.1 mm x 142.3 mm x 8.5 mm dimensions
The Design
While looking at the phone, it reminds me of the Samsung’s old design which carries the chrome-like bezels on the edges. The phone looks great in the hands and feels lighter (149 grams) and solid. It features a 5-inch HD TFT display. The smartphone looks quite simple and classic on the front side. The body is made all plastic but doesn’t feel cheaply made.
The back design looks like a faux leather. The cover is though removable and the 2600 mAh battery can be changed easily removed. There is an 8 MP camera at the back with LED flash and you can see a speaker just near the camera. The speaker sounds good but not that great. It is slightly above average. The output volume doesn’t get muffled up when keeping on a flat surface, thanks to its speaker grill.
It supports a 4G LTE network. You can insert 2 SIM cards (GSM + GSM) by removing the back cover which is very easy to remove. Just above the SIM 1, there’s a MicroSD card slot that supports 128 GB storage.
The 5 MP front camera can take wide-angle shots. The usual Proximity, and Accelerometer sensors on the front. You will miss the ambient sensor. The bottom has capacitive touch buttons which don’t even vibrate when pressed. They are also not back-lit. We thought there would be a setting to make it vibrate when pressed, but there isn’t.
The left has a volume rocker buttons that need to be pushed harder. The right side has only a power key, nothing else.
One the top, there you can see everything is plain while, on the other side, a USB port, a microphone, and 3.5 mm audio jack is given. There is only a single mic in the whole smartphone.
Display
The Galaxy On5 has a 5-inch HD TFT display with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. The colors on the screen are okay as the screen is a traditional TFT-LCD, not the IPS-LCD, the color reproduction and viewing angles are much better on an IPS-LCD screen. The brightness is sufficient on the shaded outdoors but under sunlight is not that good. Samsung could have used a better display here.
Performance
The Galaxy On5 is powered by 1.3 GHz quad-core processor (Exynos 3475 SoC) and 1.5 GB of RAM. The specs are okay for the price but not the best in its class. The processor is not a 64-bit, but that’s not the issue, Samsung could have given a better hardware. The weak Mali-T720 GPU cannot play high-end games fluently. The smartphone took 21 seconds to boot which is fast.
The AnTuTu benchmark scored 20884 points which seem to be on the lower side. GeekBench scored 351 on the single core and 1154 on the multi-core. As the Soc is from Samsung itself, the Cortex A7 used is still good for the battery, but cannot feature a 64-bit and arm-v8 architecture which indeed Lollipop performs well on it.
We played the games like Angry Birds 2 and Asphalt Nitro. The Angry Birds 2 was playable, but somehow the Asphalt Nitro lagged in our tests and wasn’t playable at all. The performance of the GPU only good for playing FullHD videos and light games.
Just after playing the games for 25 minutes, the phone temperature was good enough, the phone didn’t heat too much. HW Monitor shows 36.2 degrees temperature for battery and 51.0 degrees temperature for the system. These temperatures are under the hood and you will not feel ’em on the outer side.
The RAM usage is quite a big issue on all the Samsung devices. The system took about ~500 MB of RAM just after a reboot but can take even more after the first usage. Installing apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger can utilize the remaining amount of RAM leaving less free RAM.
Software and UI
The Samsung Galaxy On5 comes with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with TouchWiz UI. The user interface is made clean and doesn’t have any bloatware. Some pre-installed apps are Galaxy Apps, Smart Manager, MixRadio, and Opera Max.
The keyboard on portrait and landscape, both are comfortable on a 5-inch display.
The inbuilt Smart Manager app shows the battery, storage, RAM and security info. It also helps to save data by compressing it. To know more about how to save data using Opera Max, use this easy guide.
Camera
The back camera is an 8 MP with a single LED flash. The performance of the back camera is decent and shots captured in daylight gives satisfactory shots, but somehow the color reproduction of the pictures are saturated. The image looked in reality and the color seen in the picture has some minor differences. The night shots gave large noise over the street lights and blueish/purplish tint in our camera test. The 5 MP front camera taking wide angle shots is average.
As you can see we have compared the images of Galaxy On5 camera with the Galaxy On7 camera.
Storage and Connectivity
The Galaxy On5 has a 8 GB inbuilt storage and can be expandable up to 128 GB using MicroSD. Though, the inbuilt storage is 8 GB, the user may get only 4.5 GB of free space which is pretty less nowadays. The smartphone supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS (A-GPS and GLONASS) and FM Radio.
Battery
The battery ran great in terms of normal usage. It can last up to 1 and a half day with Wi-Fi turned on when used lightly. On heavy usage, the battery drops about 29% in 4 hours with everything turned on, benchmarks and playing games on full brightness.
| Apps/Games | Battery Used | Runtime | Brightness | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Data, and GPS |
| Angry Birds | 2% | 10 minutes | Max | On (Wi-Fi) |
| Asphalt Nitro | 4% | 15 minutes | Max | On (Wi-Fi) |
| YouTube | 3% | 10 minutes | Max | On (All) |
| 1080p Video | 4% | 15 minutes | Max | Off (All) |
| Music | 1% | 33 minutes | Auto | Off (All) |
Pricing And Variants
There are two variants of Galaxy On5 and they are available in Black, and Gold. The price of the smartphone for an 8 GB is ₹8,990 for both colors. There is no 16 GB model available from Samsung.
Verdict
The performance of the device was smooth only on normal use, it struggles on heavy tasks and gaming. The back camera quality is decent for the price. Considering the brand name and after sales support, it’s a good buy for noob people who don’t want to know the stats and figures, just a smartphone with a brand name, a large screen, and a good battery life.
For performance and multi-tasking, you may want to look for other devices under the same price range. For people who want to go for higher specifications, here are some of our suggestions:
- Coolpad Note 3
- YU Yuphoria
- Lenovo K3 Note
- ASUS Zenfone 2 Laser
- Lenovo A7000
Pros
- Good battery life
- Removable battery
- MicroSD expandable up to 128 GB
Cons
- Weak GPU
- Low internal storage
- No notification LED
- No backlit touch keys
