Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini is the downgraded version of the Galaxy J1 2016 edition and Gaalxy J1 Nxt. For a more affordable price and lesser specs and features, is the Galaxy J1 Mini worth for your money? Will you get any value for your money on this ultra-low-cost Android 5.1 Lollipop device? Let’s find out in our full review and video hands-on with unboxing of the Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini.
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Unboxing
The Galaxy J1 Mini packaging is quite similar to the 2016 Galaxy smartphones with the usual suspects inside. Unfortunately, we didn’t see a USB data cable for transferring files, but Philippine buyers would get a free SIM card with 2 months internet from Globe.
- Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini in Black (other color options: Gold, White)
- 1500mAh battery
- Globe SIM triple cut with 2 months free internet
- Stereo headset with microphone and call key
- 700mAh or 0.7A charger / power adapter
- Manuals
Design
The Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini borrows a lot of design elements from the big Galaxy J1 Nxt and J1 2016 version. But of course, the mini is easier to hold with curved corners and smaller profile.
Back is removable and made of plastic with access to dual microSIM and micro SD card slot. The front flaunts 4-inch LCD screen, VGA camera and home button with nav keys. The right side houses power button and left with a volume rocker. On top, the 3.5mm audio jack is located and a microUSB at the bottom.
One-handed usage is very convenient on the mini while it snugly fit in any of my hands. Overall it is lightweight and feels great to handle.
Display
The 4-inch WVGA TFT LCD screen is blinding at max brightness, but it lacks an ambient light sensor. Instead of an auto sensor, brightness can be manually set from quick menu. There is an Outdoor toggle, which produces maximum backlight for 15-minutes each toggle.
Sharpness is what would anyone expect from this $80 / P3,690 pesos phone — dull yet satisfying OK. The color is a bit washed out, but who would have mind knowing this is an ultra-budget phone.
Camera
Rocking a 5MP main camera at the back and front-facing 0.3MP VGA selfie camera, one shouldn’t expect modest results. At best, the camera takes fixed focus images with so-so brightness and poor detail preservation and sharpness. Perhaps, the only redeeming feature of the camera is the 720p HD video recording.
See also: Best Mid-range Camera Battle – Galaxy A8 vs Xperia M5 vs C5 vs Zenfone Selfie
Software
The interface in Galaxy J1 Mini is familiar, thanks to the inclusion of TouchWiz while phone runs on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Despite the poor display experience, the software side is rich and complete with Android support.
Performance
Under-the-hood is a quad-core Spreadtrum processor clocked at 1.2GHz each and paired with 768MB RAM and 8GB internal. Usable memory is 4.5GB with additional 128GB microSD card support.
We run benchmark apps, but we recommend you should not bother checking out the scores. At least, in real-life performance, the Galaxy J1 Mini was able to run Clash Royale and Clash of Clan smoothly.
On the coming days, we will try to test and run more intensively-graphics games such as Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat.
- AnTuTu: 17647
- Geekbench single core: 328
- Geekbench multi cores: 1040
Battery
Our full battery test will be conducted on the coming days. But so far, the 1500mAh battery capacity has been able to hold on while using the Galaxy J1 Mini for a day. We will follow up more results including charging time in the next report.
Speaker
The rear-firing speaker produced convincingly good output for this compact phone. The vocal output is clear while bass level is flat out.
Pricing and Verdict
So is the Galaxy J1 Mini worth it? If you’re on a tight budget, the priced at P3,690 pesos official SRP is the most affordable way to taste Android in Lollipop. The Galaxy J1 Mini is maybe the least capable from Samsung phones, but it has still few advantages on hand. A few of those features is the removable battery and the handy profile–both are quite rare today.
Even in this category, the ultra-low-end Galaxy J1 Mini has a handful competition in the market. One of the closest phones matching its value is the Xiaomi Redmi 3 and Lenovo Lemon 3 for just a thousand more.
Pros
- Replaceable battery
- Dual SIM feature
- Compact size
- Plays HD video and most of the intensively-graphics games
- MicroSD card slot
Cons
- Display is washed out
- Camera is fixed focus
- No auto light sensor
Samsung Galaxy J1 Mini/Nxt 2016 edition Philippine price, specs, features
- Display: 4-inch TFT LCD, 400×800 WVGA resolution, 223ppi
- Size: 10.8 mm thick, 120 g weight
- CPU: Spreadtrum Quad-core 1.2GHz processor
- GPU: Mali 400 MP
- RAM: 768MB, J1 Nxt with 1GB RAM
- Memory: 8GB internal storage, microSD up to 128GB
- Camera: 5MP main sensor, 0.3MP VGA front-facing selfie, 720p HD video
- Connectivity: Dual MicroSIM 3.5G, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi n, GPS, GLONASS
- Port: microUSB 2.0
- Battery: removable 1500mAh, up to 9 hours browsing, 7 hours video battery life
- OS: TouchWiz on Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Release Date: February 2016
- Price: P3,600 pesos official SRP via online and local stores
I bought this phone few days ago. the back camera cannot focus on near object and it is really blur. do you have the same prob with me?
It’s fixed focus. It has a minimum focus point to infinity of 30cm
It’s fixed focus. Minimum focus point is 30 cm.
Dam, have the same problem. Thats the only thing bad about it.
Is this phone has “portable hotspot” feature?
Thanks for the rewiev!
Yes. But I think you gotta need to go to the J1 2016 for better battery
This phone Samsung (JI mini) is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH!! Almost unusable. You
can’t view your texts, received or sent. Constantly sends a text before
you have finished typing it. Constantly saves messages before sent as
‘drafts’, but you can’t open any page called “Drafts” to view them, or
send them, or send to the original recipient or forward to another
recipient Any phone you’ve had before has the option of simply opening a
‘text’ window and selecting “received” / “sent” / “drafts” / “deleted”
and giving you the obvious options you need . This phone has the worst
layout I’ve ever seen. Everything is “organized’ under ‘conversations’
with a particular person, so you need to check every person in your
contact list, to see what they may have sent or received. The phone
needs to be re-booted every time before I use it, because it regularly
goes “off” randomly and you won’t know it – it looks like it’s on, but
no emails / texts are present – until you reboot it – so you’ve missed
any calls, emails or texts until you reboot it. TOO LATE! Never opens a
home page for the internet – just opens on the last page or site you
visited and it’s very hard to navigate your way back to a simple Google
search page every time. Please Don’t WASTE your money on this piece of
useless crap! Nothing but time wasting frustration and annoyance. I
won’t even try to sell it to anyone – I wouldn’t do that to my worst
enemy. Straight into the trash can. I’ll buy another Nokia instead. My
previous phone gave many years of easy reliable service and was logical
and intuitive in its layout – and functional.
Can you turn off the feature “double tap to unlock”