Samsung Galaxy A7 vs. Galaxy J7 – Samsung’s 2015 Mid-Range Phablets

At the beginning of the year, Samsung was releasing the Galaxy A7, along with the A5 and A3, a new family of mid-range smartphones with full metal body. Half a year later, a new line of Galaxy phones was launched with weaker specs and a classic look which reminds us of Samsung’s first attempts to improve the design of its devices. In this article we’ll compare the phablet versions from

the two families, the A7 and the J7.

Designs and Displays

The Galaxy Alpha was the first metal-clad Samsung smartphone, but its back had a perforated design likewise the Galaxy S5 and it didn’t have a huge success. The manufacturer understood that the fans want something simpler, but sleeker, so this is how the “A” family of smartphones was born. The Galaxy A7 looks gorgeous with its metal back that comes in variants of Pearl White, Midnight Black or Champagne Gold colors, its physical dimensions are 151 x 76.2 x 6.3 mm and the total weight is 141 grams. The phablet features a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED screen supporting a Full HD resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels at 401 ppi and it’s protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4.

The Galaxy J7 has a removable polycarbonate back which comes also in three colors: White, Black and Gold, and has faux-metal side bezels, it measures 152.2 x 78.7 x 7.5 mm and it’s 30grams heavier than the A7. The screen has a similar size and it uses the same technology, but the resolution is lower at 720 x 1280 pixels and it results a much lower pixel density of 267ppi. Unfortunately, the screen of the J7 isn’t as sharp as that of the A7, but you’ll be satisfied with the intensity of the colors.

Hardware

Both phablets feature two variants of processors, and they have in common the Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 octa core processor consisting of a quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU and a quad-core 1.0 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, which is backed by an Adreno 405 GPU, but the A7 has 2GB of RAM and the J7 is weaker with 1.5GB of RAM. The other version of the A7 has an Exynos 5 Octa 5430 chipset with a quad-core 1.8 Cortex-A15 GHz CPU and a quad-core 1.3 Cortex-A7 GHz CPU, along with a Mali-T628 MP6 GPU, while the J7 has a newer Exynos 7580 chipset which houses a weaker pair of quad core processors: 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 and 1.0 GHz Cortex-A53, which are backed by a Mali-T720MP2 GPU. Both phablets have an internal memory of 16GB, but the A7 supports expansion up to 64GB and the J7 supports a double capacity.

Cameras and Batteries

Both devices have a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera, with similar specs: autofocus and LED flash. But the A7 has a main camera with an aperture of f/2.0, while the J7 offers a LED flash for the front camera.

The downside of the A7 is that its 2600 mAh battery is non-removable and offers 17 hours of voice talk. The J7 has a bigger battery of 3000 mAh with an extra hour of talk time.