Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 : Review

Samsung has launched the significantly improved iteration of its Galaxy Grand dubbed Grand 2 in India. The smartphone gets a larger and better display, improved chipset and more. Without giving a concrete price tag, Samsung says it will be available between Rs 22,990 and Rs 24,990 in January. Let’s take a closer look at its specifications.

OS – Android 4.3 with TouchWiz UI

The Grand 2 gets the Android 4.3 Jelly flavour of the mobile OS. The company hasn’t mentioned if it will be upgraded to the latest 4.4 KitKat. Along with the improvements that come with Android 4.3 such as restricted profiles, enhanced Bluetooth, better power management and so on, the Grand 2 will also be running the latest version of Touchwiz. One can also expect a bunch of Samsung's own apps and services such as the Story Album to organize pictures, an S Translator app, a Samsung Hub, S Travel, Samsung Link and more.

Launched in India, reaching stores in January 2014Launched in India, reaching stores in January 2014

Cellular connectivity – Dual SIM and 3G

The Galaxy Grand 2 follows its predecessor and supports dual-SIM capability. It also comes with support for 3G connectivity. There is no word on a 4G variant of the device yet.

Display – 5.2-inch, 720p resolution

One of the few disappointments of the Galaxy Grand was its 480 x 800 pixels display with 187ppi. A better display could have made the Grand a killer deal. Samsung has rectified this mistake as the display in the Grand 2 not only gets bigger but also better.  The Grand 2 now features a 5.25-inch display with 720 x 1280 pixel resolution, and pixel density that goes all the way up to 280 ppi. This should be more or less on par with midrange devices this year.

Form-factor – 8.9mm thick and weighs 163 grams

The Galaxy Grand 2 is sleeker than its predecessor, but it doesn’t mean the device has gotten any lighter. It still weights the same 163 grams but it’s sleeker to hold. This time around Samsung offers colour options such as white, black and pink, and we won't be surprised to see some more colour options emerge later.

Wi-Fi

The Grand 2 supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, but it doesn’t get support for the “ac” draft. Multimedia content can be sent to your TV thanks to DLNA, while like most Android phones it also supports Wi-Fi hotspot.

Processor

Unlike the dual-core Broadcom chipset seen in the Grand, the Grand 2 comes equipped with a quad-core Qualcomm chipset – most likely the Snapdragon 400 – clocked at 1.2GHz. The processor is also coupled with 1.5GB of RAM. Considering that it is a mid-range smartphone from a tier-1 company, it seems fair enough. And the specs are good enough to run most Android apps and games.

Internal storage – 8GB, microSD card slot

Though the Galaxy Grand 2 has just one 8GB variant, we can be glad that the smartphone has microSD card slot that can take cards up to 64GB in size.

Camera – 8 megapixel rear and 1.9MP front-facing

The camera is one aspect that comes with no improvement as such, at least on paper. Samsung has used a 8-megapixel rear camera that's also on the Galaxy Grand. We suspect the processing software and the module have been upgraded. There’s an LED flash and digital image stabilisation to help you take clear shots in low light. Videos can be recorded at 1080p at 30fps. Samsung has gone with a decent-sounding 1.9-megapixel front-facing camera.

Sensors – The usual suspects

On the sensors front too, there is no change. It comes armed with the usual sensors —accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass.

GPS – with A-GPS and GLONASS

It is really nice to see a mid-range device support features like GLONASS. Expect location lock times to be drastically lower thanks to GLONASS. It obviously supports GPS along with Assisted GPS. These are by now standard inclusions in Samsung phones.

Grand 2 is on its wayA 2,600mAh battery

Battery – 2,600mAh

The Grand 2 has a much larger Li-Ion 2600mAh battery compared to the 2100mAh found in the Grand. While Samsung promises up to 10 hours of playback and 17 hours of talk time, we can confirm this only when we’ve done our battery loop test with the device.

The bottom line

Specs-wise the Galaxy Grand 2 is positioned well, especially considering its price that falls somewhere between Rs 22,990 and Rs 24,990. It is huge jump over the Grand in terms of specs, btu not too much in terms of the price. The quad-core Qualcomm processor, 720p display with 280 ppi, support for 3G, GPS and GLONASS, and an improved 2,600 mAh battery are all quite good at this price point.

Some other phablets in this range would be the Gionee Elife E6 and the Micromax Canvas Turbo, which have differing specs, but will compete with the Grand 2 in terms of price range. However, we still have to see what the upcoming E7 has in store for the Indian market. Overall, the Grand 2's specifications look good on paper, and are on expected lines, while the price point is sweet too.