Samsung Galaxy J4 (2018) smartphone - pros and cons

The budget segment of smartphones remains popular all the time. After all, every year fewer and fewer citizens consider the telephone a luxury, and most of the important affairs of a modern person are concentrated in the smartphone. But how to choose a reliable device at an affordable price, and what is remarkable about the Samsung Galaxy J4, let's try to figure it out.

Of course, you shouldn't impose high demands on a smartphone from the budget segment. Despite this, the best manufacturers have long been offering reliable and productive smartphones among budget series. For example, Samsung has inexpensive but high-quality gadgets at an affordable price. Such manufacturers seek to reduce the cost through the use of plastic, simpler design and rarely it concerns hardware and functionality.

As before, among Samsung phones in 2018, the Galaxy J series remains popular. This is a line of budget smartphones that have extensive functionality and are aimed at the mass consumer. The phones are equipped with the necessary set of characteristics and have a simple but attractive design.

In 2018, the company updated the popular Galaxy J series of smartphones. The Samsung Galaxy J4 is an interesting model, in fact, a slightly enlarged version of the J3. A good phone for an affordable price and a well-implemented software part. You shouldn't expect any special design solutions, but there are interesting color solutions. The question is, can this phone really become popular?

Main characteristics

Ergonomic design

The smartphone has the simplest design possible for this price range. The smartphone is rendered in colors - gold, lavender, black and purple. The phone is a budget phone mainly due to the plastic case.

It is also worth noting the shape of the Galaxy J4 2018 - it is slightly rounded, there is no gracefulness of modern models, which, as a rule, have a more elongated screen. Some will consider this moment a tribute to the classics, but it would be worth trying to comply more with current trends.

The case is collapsible, a removable cover and a battery - the back panel is easy to open, inside there are two slots for microSIM cards, as well as for a micro-Sd card up to 256 GB. It is assembled with high quality - no squeaks or deflections in the case are observed. It is very light in weight, only 175 grams.

Galaxy J4 is essentially a classic 5.5-inch smartphone with a familiar size ratio and regular-sized frames. The case is not too slippery, but better with a case. Samsung offers several options - flip covers and overlays in different colors. The release is made specifically for the updated models. The materials used are plastic, pleasant to the hand and are coated with soft-touch.

Connectors and buttons

The power key is located on the right - lock + on / off. The side face on the left is equipped with two buttons for adjusting the volume. MicroUSB connector and 3.5mm headphone jack. are below. Also on the bottom there is one microphone, it is the only one in this Samsung model.

The multimedia speaker is located on the rear panel, it is ill-conceived here - on a surface, for example, a table, it can overlap.And in terms of volume, the speaker is not bad and produces a good sound. Conversational speakers of average quality. If the user is talking in the midst of noise, then the volume will have to be increased, and then the quality will noticeably decrease.

The rear panel is equipped with one lens of the main, rear camera with LED flash alongside. At the top of the screen is a front-facing selfie camera + flash. The functionality of the updated device Galaxy J4, as before, is represented by the central physical button "Home" + 2 touch buttons.

Display

The 5.5-inch HD screen of the smartphone is powered by SuperAMOLED technology. The image quality is average, in terms of shortcomings everything is typical for such matrices - cold colors and white does not have a completely pure shade. The screen resolution is 267 dpi. For modern models, the indicators are not very good - blurry fonts, so reading from such a screen is not entirely pleasant and not at all useful for vision.

The brightness at the maximum measurement is 355 cd / m² and at least 4 cd / m². This smartphone does not automatically adjust the screen brightness. As for the generation of smartphones, even budget ones, in 2018 this is already an unforgivable minus. The brightness has a range that is sufficient in a wide variety of conditions. The display may fade a little in the sun, but in the dark even the minimum brightness level copes.

SuperAMOLED screen works great outdoors. Conventional displays provide more or less the same readability indoors. In the Galaxy J4 2018 model, there is an "Outdoors" mode, in bright sunlight readability is much higher than other screens, although you have to turn it on manually. In general, the display is very economical in using the phone's battery. Unfortunately, there is no support for Always On Display, but this is a marketing ploy to reduce the cost.

Hardware

The smartphone is powered by Samsung's own Exynos 7570 processor. The chip is not entirely new, as the company unveiled it early last year. This chipset cannot be called especially powerful and efficient either. The Exynos 7570 processor consists of 4 Cortex-A53 processing cores with a maximum frequency of 1.4 GHz. 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage.

The phone is equipped with the Android 8.0 operating system and the development of the company - the Experience 9.0 shell. The number of pre-installed programs is impressive. From the very beginning of working with the phone, it becomes noticeable that the "box" already has everything you need.

The performance of the smartphone cannot be called excellent, as the Samsung Galaxy J4 is definitely not for active games. The interface works at an average speed.

The animation has a smooth transition, but when unlocking and switching, you can see that the phone is not very fast in operation. Heavy games are difficult, if the J4 smartphone wants to try for games, then its limit is simple graphics of casual toys. Nevertheless, during testing, it was noted that during active use on a hot day, the case did not heat up. In this regard, the phone is reliable.

Communications

All communication characteristics are typical for budget segment phones. Dual-sim smartphone - has slots for two SIM cards and for a memory card. Access for installation is possible only by removing the cover. Quick card replacement is not provided.

A nice bonus is the built-in FM radio module.

The smartphone supports LTE, and moreover, for both SIM-cards. The built-in LTE modem also supports LTE Advanced Cat.4. The quality of reception / transmission is excellent. Available wireless Bluetooth 4.2 module.

Unfortunately, this model has neither NFC nor Ant +, but Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n 2.4 GHz, BT 4.1.

The lack of Near Field Communication or NFC is a noticeable disadvantage for smartphone models of the current year, since this technology is also presented in a lower price segment.

Camera

The main rear camera is 13MP. Aperture f / 1.9. The camera produces pretty good shots in daylight. Especially if we consider this price segment in the positioning of smartphones.

There are several additional simple modes.

Front camera module - 5MP and f / 1.9 aperture. Autofocus is not provided, but there is an additional LED flash. Selfie mode is basic.The front flash can be adjusted according to the brightness level depending on the day or night shooting time. Thanks to this, there is no deterioration in the quality of images under different lighting conditions. This results in clearer and brighter selfies.

Video recording - speed 30 fps and resolution 1920 × 1080. For video, the maximum resolution is FullHD. The camera is also competitive in terms of interface.

It is enough to compare what pictures the phone takes in the daytime and how at night.

In natural daylight, the pictures are of excellent quality, as well as good at night (the sharpness is worse, and you need to delve into the focus settings). Competitors in this category often lose out on quality.

Do you like creative photos with friends? You can easily edit photos and videos. Various interesting effects and filters will help. Advanced functionality allows you to conveniently distribute all your photos and videos into separate categories, as well as easily share them with family and friends.

Battery autonomous work

The smartphone is equipped with a removable Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 3000 mAh. The fact that the battery is removable gives out the old formation of the device.

Nevertheless, as for a budget phone, this phone has excellent performance. They are achieved thanks to the low power consumption of the SuperAMOLED screen.

We can confidently say that among smartphones of this class, Samsung J4 2018 has a predominant number of working hours. The phone will work without problems for 2-3 days and with a working screen for 5-7 hours. And these are average, not maximum marks. It all depends on the direction of use. There is also a power consumption mode - a function, frankly, necessary at the present time, because the battery life increases significantly and mainly due to the display brightness settings.

The battery, complete with not the most energy-consuming processor and display brightness of 30-50%, and another 30 minutes of calls, synchronization of mail, dozens of pictures and hours of music playback per day, will last an average of 2, or even all 3 days. Of course, if you add games to the same list, you will have to charge the next day.

Cost, pros and cons of Samsung Galaxy J4 (2018)

The average cost of a model is 11,000 rubles.

• Camera - great photos and videos;
• Body assembly and materials used;
• Two slots for SIM cards and a micro-Sd card slot;
• Selfie camera LED flash has 3 brightness levels;
• Memory;
• Super AMOLED HD screen.

• Lack of a fingerprint scanner;
• There is no automatic brightness control of the display;
• There is no NFC;
• No light sensor;
• No face unlock.

Branded applications

Samsung offers a pre-built suite of programs to make life easier, healthy habits, sleep and diet tracking, Samsung Health physical level, a built-in health and wellness toolkit that tracks the user's sleep / nutrition habits and physical activity. Also part of its pros and cons are the Dual Messenger and App Pair features, the former allows users to use two Messenger accounts at the same time, while the latter allows users to split the screen into two apps.

Delivery set

Together with the phone, the set includes a sync cable, 5V / 2A charging and a wired stereo headset.

Key features of the smartphone Samsung Galaxy J4 2018

Summarizing

The Galaxy J4 has been designed to be sophisticated, practical and comfortable. Galaxy J4 is presented by the manufacturer in 4 colors - black, gold, lavender and purple.

Multitasking mode is available. The bright HD display allows you to simultaneously handle several different tasks. For example games + sending text messages + working with web pages. App Pair allows you to run two programs at the same time. For example, you can view news on the Internet or chat in a messenger, and watch videos at the same time.

The Galaxy J4 2018 will teach you how to intelligently manage your Internet connection outside the home. This smartphone model has added adaptive Wi-Fi network management. This will significantly save mobile traffic and battery power. Wi-Fi connection points remain in the smartphone's memory and next time it connects to a familiar network itself. For less battery power, the phone also turns itself off when the user leaves the network coverage area.

Among the company's innovations is the personification of chatting. In messengers, the ability to log in from two accounts at the same time has been added. Establishment and management for a second account becomes possible through the main screen or the settings menu.

It is easier to store data with the cloud storage offered by the company for an additional 15 GB - Samsung Cloud.The necessary data is saved and the user will have access to them, regardless of time or location.

It is easy to track your health indicators with this smartphone. A healthy lifestyle is easy with Samsung Health. With its help, physical activity is monitored, it is easier to enter a food diary, as well as track compliance with the sleep schedule. The whole set in a practical application. Convenience, safety, speed and ease of access.

The positioning of this smartphone doesn't seem that complicated. Basically, it is designed for users who do not carefully monitor market novelties, do not evaluate offers from other manufacturers, but choose reliability and prefer a productive smartphone from the better known Samsung brand to updates. As for the price / quality ratio, even if the phone is a budget one, its price could be lower. There are phones in this price range with both NFC and Samsung Pay, which the Galaxy J4 lacks.

There are no complaints about the assembly of the case. The usual quality indicator from Samsung. This smartphone model can be easily attributed to the long-playing one. After the expiration of time, it will not lose glare, will not receive multiple scratches, and so on.

The main advantage of the Galaxy J4 is its battery life, a significant reduction in power consumption with additional settings, and it also has a really high-quality Super AMOLED HD screen.

However, in terms of hardware, not everything is as balanced as it should be. It is important to carefully study the characteristics of the model of interest and weigh well what exactly is required from the smartphone, and then buy it.