The Samsung J1 is by the manufacturer’s definition, a mid-range smartphone offering the quality that the South Korean electronics maker has come to be associated with, but at a slightly pocket friendly price tag.
Anyone familiar with Samsung touch screen handsets will be at ease using this model in as far as functionality goes. It has the familiar front facing camera at the top left side of the screen and the centred earpiece right after it.
The camera is a 2.0 megapixel shooter that allows palm gestures to activate it when taking selfies.
Then comes the logo just below the earpiece and to the right of that, the dual SIM identification marked as Duos for the model option that carries two sim cards.
At the front bottom part of the handset are two capacitive touch buttons — the menu and return buttons — and a physical home button that acts as a quick launch button as per user specifications.
The top and bottom parts of the screen form the bigger part of the bezel with the sides thin thus allowing the screen a good amount of width. The top edge of the phone which forms something of a groove has the 3.5mm jack which has an awkward gaping look. With a slender width, the jack looks excessively large.
On the right edge is the on/off and lock button and the volume toggle on the left edge. The bottom of the handset has the 2.0 USB charging and media transfer port at the centre, and the microphone slightly off to the left of the charging port.
The screen, a 4.3 inch, has no special protection while the sides, top and bottom edges are made of a unibody plastic frame. This gives it a steady feel due to less movable parts in the entirety of the body.
The back of the handset itself has the 5.0 megapixels primary camera which produces an image resolution of 2592 х 1944 pixels and can record videos at 720 pixels at 30 frames per second.
On either side of the camera is the speaker to the left and the LED flash light to the right.
Coming to the inner workings of the phone are features that might put off some users, more so if one is looking for a performance at a pocket friendly price.
Impressively the J1 runs on the Android 4.4.4 KitKat OS which is synonymous with an ability to run a large variety of applications. Sadly, however, the 4GB internal memory and the 512MB RAM are a mis-match for the able OS. A few applications with infrequent use will see the handset function passably well.
The same cannot be said of more apps and frequent use. Applications will involuntarily close and there is evident lag with extended use.
With such a powerful OS, the delayed execution of commands works against the handset.
The limited internal memory can be expanded to all of 128GB, but there is no prudence in such a venture as with its own internal memory, the handset shows obvious signs of strain.
Also on account of the limited RAM, the phone’s proximity and accelerometer sensors register a delay.
For all the J1’s shortcomings, however, it enjoys a long battery life even with the lag. Powered by a 1850 mAh Li-ion battery, the phone gives good usage for about 10 hours talktime or up to 40 hours of music playback.
The handset is available in black, white and blue colours and retails for Sh14,000 and Sh18,000.