After Samsung released the new Galaxy J7 variant for China, there was a lot of interest in getting the device in other markets around the world. So far, the company has been quiet on the issue, but there are rumors that they might be planning a new worldwide release with some slight hardware improvements and the same model name.
The new J7 2016 variant could see its global release with a new Snapdragon processor powering it, with rumors pointing towards the 617 as the specific model. There is quite a lot of difference between the different offers by the chip manufacturer, so it’s not easy to tell how this change would affect the performance of the device, but hopefully there will be a noticeable improvement over the current processor.
The rumors are mainly based on a benchmarking site that revealed that the device had been submitted to it already, with a 1.52 GHz processor running everything. While the difference between the clock speed of the current Snapdragon 615 seems minimal, intricate differences between the two chipsets could result in a significant improvement in the performance of the phone, especially if it also comes with other changes to its hardware.
And that’s definitely something users should expect as well – the RAM was bumped up to 3 GB in the new device, making the 2016 J7 an overall great improvement over the previous model. On the other hand, rumors claim that the rest of the hardware in the phone will not be changed, so users can expect more or less the same experience with regards to screen size, storage space and the camera.
This also implies that the device will come with the same battery as its predecessor, and if that’s true it will hopefully not result in shorter standby times due to the more powerful processor. Of course, Samsung could have also made some changes to the operating system to make the device more efficient in this regard, so it’s hard to make any predictions about how well the battery is going to perform.
Meanwhile, critics have been comparing the current Galaxy J7 model with other popular devices on the market, and while it seems to be a clear winner in many regards, there are also certain question marks about its performance that may be more complicated to resolve. The device has been said to be a bit bulkier than some other popular offers by Samsung’s competitors, although this might be a moot point to the company’s fans as the J7 was never about elegance in the first place.
On the other hand, those looking for a better camera experience in this price range might want to look in the direction of something like the Sony Xperia Z5. Samsung traditionally don’t put that much emphasis on the shooting capabilities of their devices, with some exceptions, while Sony are known for their high-quality cameras, so it doesn’t sound like this difference will matter much to those who prefer Samsung’s devices in the first place.
Some users have been complaining about the confusing state of the device’s variants. Releasing a new device with the same model name was seen as acceptable on a one-time basis as it was a minor upgrade over the original, but if the phone also gets a third model for its global release, this could make things a bit too complicated for fans. Still, it’s not an unusual case for many manufacturers, and some actually push this trend even further.