Test device courtesy of notebooksbilliger.de
Case
As with the smaller Galaxy J1, Samsung uses the old polycarbonate chassis design for the Galaxy J5 with all its advantages and drawbacks. The advantages of the design are the detachable back cover of the smartphone, the replaceable battery and the microSD-slot to expand the storage capacity. The whole construction, except for the display, is made of plastics, so the overall impression is not very sophisticated.
However, there is no criticism for the stability and the build quality of the review unit. There is no creaking noise, and neither pressure nor twisting attempts are a problem for the smartphone. The buttons are also well integrated, only the volume rocker on the left side is slightly loose. The camera at the back is protruding slightly, but this is not a big deal in practice. Overall, the handling of the Galaxy J5 feels very solid and it is still comfortable to use with one hand. As well as the black color of our review unit, Samsung offers white and gold versions of the smartphone.
The dimensions of the Galaxy J5 are average within the comparison group (also see size comparison below).
See our Top 10 Notebooks:
» Multimedia, » Gaming, » Lightweight Gaming
» Budget Office, » Business, » Workstations
» Subnotebooks, » Utrabooks, » Convertibles
» Budget Office, » Business, » Workstations
» Subnotebooks, » Utrabooks, » Convertibles
» Top 10 under 300 Euros, » under 500 Euros
» Best Notebooks for University Students
» Top Windows alternatives to Apple's MacBook series
» Best Notebook Displays
» Best Notebooks for University Students
» Top Windows alternatives to Apple's MacBook series
» Best Notebook Displays
Top 10 Tablets / Smartphones:
Connectivity
Software
Communication & GPS
Telephone & Voice Quality
The phone app is the familiar standard application that should not cause any problems for the user. In addition to call history, you get direct access to the favorites and contacts.
The voice quality left a mixed impression during our review. On the positive side was the stability of the calls, because we never encountered any dropouts. However, although generally voices were slightly distorted and dull on both sides of the call., the understandability was not affected.
The integrated hands-free function cannot impress us. The distance between the device and the user must not be too big, otherwise the voice will not be loud enough. The speaker at the back also tends to distort quickly. Depending on the position of the smartphone, you can also easily cover the speaker, which affects the quality even further. The provided headset does its job, but has problems when the ambient noises get too loud.
Cameras & Multimedia
The camera of the Galaxy J5 can be activated quickly with a double click on the home button, which also works when the smartphone is locked. The picture will be automatically stored on the memory card when a microSD-card is inserted. You can use the volume rocker as a trigger, which usually works quite fast, but the autofocus sometimes needs an additional second to focus the scene. Finally, it is possible to trigger pictures with a hand gesture and it worked well during our review.
Samsung uses a 5 MP camera at the front that can take FHD videos (1920x1080 pixels, 30 fps). The quality of the pictures is okay, but the sharpness cannot really impress us, even under good lighting conditions. Nevertheless, the results are sufficient for social networks.
According to Samsung the flash on the front to improve selfies in low-light situations. However, it is not really a traditional flash, but a photo light that illuminates the scene constantly. This works pretty well at short distance and the result is brighter, but the additional light is not powerful enough for longer distances.
Accessories
The box of the Samsung Galaxy J5 includes only the usual accessories: Battery, power adaptor, USB cable, headset and some brochures. Samsung does not offer dedicated accessories for the Galaxy J5.
Warranty
The standard warranty period is 24 months.
Input Devices & Handling
The capacitive touchscreen recognizes up to 10 inputs simultaneously and provides decent gliding capabilities. It is precise up into the peripheral areas and executes inputs quickly and reliably. The automatic display orientation also worked reliably.
The handling of the smartphone is surprisingly smooth and there are just occasional delays when many apps are active and occupy the memory. Samsung's Smart Manager, which we have already described above, can help in this situation. The biggest handling issue is that the Android buttons below the screen are not illuminated.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy J5 uses a Super-AMOLED display with a native resolution of 1280x720 pixels, which is standard for this price range. The big advantage of the AMOLED technology is the theoretically infinite contrast ratio, because black pixels are not illuminated, which results in a black value of 0 cd/m². The subjective picture impression is decent, even though the colors are looking almost too rich. However, this is a matter of taste.
Combined with the 5-inch screen you get a pixel density of around 294 PPI, so contents are very crisp. You can only recognize individual pixels when you look really closely, but this is not a problem in practice. The average luminance of the panel is decent at 353 cd/m². Other inexpensive devices with AMOLED panels are worse in this respect. One example would be the Kazam Tornado 348 that manages only 240 cd/m². The brightness distribution of the Galaxy J5 is very even at 93%.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
X-Rite i1Pro 2
Maximum: 368 cd/m² Average: 353 cd/m²Brightness Distribution: 93 %
Center on Battery: 349 cd/m²
Contrast: ∞:1 (Black: 0 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 5.22 | - Ø
ΔE Greyscale 3.96 | - Ø
Gamma: 2.08
| Samsung Galaxy J5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Huawei P8 lite Mali-450 MP4, Kirin 620, 16 GB eMMC Flash | LG G4c Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Acer Liquid Jade Z Mali-T760 MP2, MT6732, 16 GB eMMC Flash | ZTE Blade S6 Adreno 405, 615 MSM8939, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Kazam Tornado 348 Mali-450 MP4, MT6592, 16 GB eMMC Flash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen |
12%
|
-12%
|
-24%
|
-24%
|
-25%
|
-11%
| |
| Brightness | 353 | 407
15%
| 353
0%
| 464
31%
| 340
-4%
| 377
7%
| 240
-32%
|
| Brightness Distribution | 93 | 95
2%
| 93
0%
| 92
-1%
| 93
0%
| 90
-3%
| 92
-1%
|
| Colorchecker DeltaE2000 * | 5.22 | 3.92
25%
| 5.2
-0%
| 8.13
-56%
| 5.59
-7%
| 7.12
-36%
| 5.38
-3%
|
| Greyscale DeltaE2000 * | 3.96 | 3.81
4%
| 5.85
-48%
| 6.73
-70%
| 7.25
-83%
| 6.7
-69%
| 4.31
-9%
|
| Gamma * | 2.08 | 2.27 | 2.17 | 2.69 | 2.41 | 1.98 | 2.28 |
| CCT | 7308 89% | 7361 88% | 7252 90% | 7727 84% | 7361 88% | 7784 84% | 6908 94% |
| Black Level * | 0.49 | 0.42 | 0.49 | 0.39 | 0.44 | ||
| Contrast | 853 | 869 | 980 | 879 | 877 | ||
| Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998) | 70.86 | ||||||
| Color Space (Percent of sRGB) | 91.25 | 70.038 |
* ... smaller is better
The viewing angles of the Super-AMOLED display are excellent. You can see a slight brightness decrease from very flat viewing angles, but the pictures enhance this behavior a bit, the subjective differences are much smaller.
Performance
Samsung has equipped the Galaxy J5 with a Snapdragon 410 MSM8916, which is slightly lower clocked than the reference design (1.4 GHz). The four Cortex-A53 cores run at up to 1.2 GHz. The SoC is used for smartphones since 2014 and it is a lower mainstream chip. The two rivals Motorola Moto G and the LG G4c use this SoC.
Graphics are handled by the GPU Qualcomm Adreno 306. Furthermore, you get 1.5 GB of RAM as well as 8 GB internal storage. The specifications are average for this price range.
The benchmark results of our review unit are on par with the similarly equipped LG G4c (also 1.2 GHz), while the Motorola Moto G with the 200 MHz faster SoC can manage a small lead (+ 7%) in Geekbench 3. The graphics performance of the three smartphones with the Adreno 306 is comparable, but all the other rivals are sometimes much more powerful.
AnTuTu Benchmark v5 | BaseMark OS II | 3DMark (2013) | GFXBench 3.0 | PCMark for Android | Linpack Android / IOS | Smartbench 2012
| AnTuTu Benchmark v5 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Samsung Galaxy J5 | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Huawei P8 lite | |
| LG G4c | |
| Acer Liquid Jade Z | |
| ZTE Blade S6 | |
| Kazam Tornado 348 | |
We performed the browser benchmarks with the preloaded Samsung browser, which is based on Chrome 38. Only the new JetStream test crashed repeatedly, so we had to use Chrome 45 instead. Subjectively, web browsing is very smooth; stutters are usually limited to very complex websites. Our review unit is usually at the bottom of the benchmark rankings, and the performance is only really convincing in SunSpider.
| Sunspider - 1.0 Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Samsung Galaxy J5 (Chrome 38) | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 (Chrome 44) | |
| Huawei P8 lite (Chrome 43) | |
| LG G4c (Android 5.0) | |
| Acer Liquid Jade Z (Chrome ) | |
| ZTE Blade S6 (Chrome 42) | |
| Kazam Tornado 348 (Chrome 42) | |
* ... smaller is better
Games
Emissions
Temperature
Speaker
We can find the mono speaker of the smartphone at the rear next to the camera. The position is not perfect, because the module is automatically covered when the smartphone is lying on its back. The maximum volume, however, is also low and hardly sufficient for a small room under perfect conditions. The sound is also heavily distorted when you crank it up. In general, it is focused on the high tones and bass is completely missing. The result is sufficient for the occasional YouTube video, but you should use headphones or external speakers for a better sound experience. The provided headset is not really suitable for music playback.
The connection with our Bluetooth speaker (Denon Envaya Mini) was easy and there were no dropouts during the playback.
Discussion
Energy Management
Power Consumption
Our measurements show average results for power consumption, but our review unit usually consumes more power than the rivals while idling. The situation changes under load, where you can also notice the slightly lower clock of the SoC. The 5-watt power adaptor is just sufficient to cover the maximum consumption.
Our review unit consumes 0.1 watts during standby and no power at all when it is turned off.
Power Consumption
| Off / Standby |   0 / 0.1 Watt |
| Idle |  1.5 / 2.2 / 2.4 Watt |
| Load | 3.5 / 4.8 Watt |
     | |
| Key: min: , med: , max: Voltcraft VC 870 | |
| Samsung Galaxy J5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Huawei P8 lite Mali-450 MP4, Kirin 620, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Acer Liquid Jade Z Mali-T760 MP2, MT6732, 16 GB eMMC Flash | ZTE Blade S6 Adreno 405, 615 MSM8939, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Kazam Tornado 348 Mali-450 MP4, MT6592, 16 GB eMMC Flash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power Consumption |
38%
|
-8%
|
34%
|
-25%
|
3%
| |
| Idle Minimum * | 1.5 | 0.4
73%
| 1.4
7%
| 0.8
47%
| 1.6
-7%
| 1.4
7%
|
| Idle Average * | 2.2 | 1
55%
| 2.3
-5%
| 1.2
45%
| 2.5
-14%
| 1.8
18%
|
| Idle Maximum * | 2.4 | 1.2
50%
| 2.5
-4%
| 1.5
37%
| 2.8
-17%
| 2.2
8%
|
| Load Average * | 3.5 | 2.9
17%
| 3.9
-11%
| 3
14%
| 5.5
-57%
| 3.4
3%
|
| Load Maximum * | 4.8 | 5
-4%
| 6
-25%
| 3.6
25%
| 6.3
-31%
| 5.8
-21%
|
* ... smaller is better
Battery Runtime
Samsung has equipped the Galaxy J5 with a replaceable battery that has a generous capacity of 9.88 Wh. The results in our runtime tests are therefore good, despite the average consumption values.
The Galaxy J5 manages around 8 and 11 hours in our two realistic Wi-Fi and video scenarios with an adjusted brightness of 150 cd/m². These are very good results within our comparison group and only the Motorola Moto G is slightly better in both cases. You can notice the comparatively low maximum consumption under load, where we can determine almost 6 hours. The rivals cannot keep up with this result and fall behind by 25 up to 61%.
Once again, Samsung has energy-saving modes. They deactivate unnecessary functions to increase the runtime and the ultra-energy-saving mode even replaces the colors with a grayscale view.
The smartphone comes with a 5-Watt power adaptor, so it takes quite a while before the battery is charged. You will have to wait for more than 3.5 hours before the battery is fully charged (remaining capacity 0%) when the device is turned on.
Battery Runtime
| Idle (without WLAN, min brightness) |
| 21h 32min |
| WiFi Surfing v1.3 |
| 8h 15min |
| Big Buck Bunny H.264 1080p |
| 10h 57min |
| Load (maximum brightness) |
| 5h 50min |
| Samsung Galaxy J5 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Huawei P8 lite Mali-450 MP4, Kirin 620, 16 GB eMMC Flash | LG G4c Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Acer Liquid Jade Z Mali-T760 MP2, MT6732, 16 GB eMMC Flash | ZTE Blade S6 Adreno 405, 615 MSM8939, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Kazam Tornado 348 Mali-450 MP4, MT6592, 16 GB eMMC Flash | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery Runtime |
-3%
|
-41%
|
-14%
|
-22%
|
-31%
|
-50%
| |
| Reader / Idle | 1292 | 1364
6%
| 715
-45%
| 955
-26%
| 922
-29%
| ||
| Load | 350 | 264
-25%
| 194
-45%
| 252
-28%
| 176
-50%
| 149
-57%
| 138
-61%
|
| WiFi v1.3 | 495 | 526
6%
| 351
-29%
| 457
-8%
| 523
6%
| 432
-13%
| 302
-39%
|
| H.264 | 657 | 677
3%
| 369
-44%
| 709
8%
| 497
-24%
|
Verdict
Samsung Galaxy J5 - 01/26/2016 v4.1(old)
Andreas Osthoff
Andreas Osthoff
Smartphone - Weighted Average
3 comments
post your questions, comments or corrections here
read whole topic in the forum / answer
#3 Ngaywa, 22:42 13.05
My galaxy j5 has no provision to connect on 4g speed or LTE
#2 mullrof, 20:06 13.01
also the cons is no gyroscope
it means no spherical photos with google camera
it means no spherical photos with google camera
#1 florent, 18:56 11.11
In the cons, I would also add the lack of magnetic sensor.
Without it, the navigation on foot is more difficult since the orientation is not displayed on the map.
Without it, the navigation on foot is more difficult since the orientation is not displayed on the map.