Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 Review

Introduction

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is the second-generation of the phone Samsung released last year as its large-screen Android device for the masses, the original Grand. The new Grand is not all that gigantic by today’s standards with its 5.25-inch display, but it’s still as affordable and well-connected with support for dual SIM connectivity.

It’s also gotten some huge upgrades practically all along the spec sheet: gone are the sub-par 480p display and the small battery - the Grand 2 is now leaner and meaner with a pleasingly sharp 720p screen, a larger battery, and a speedier quad-core Snapdragon 400 system chip.

How does the Grand 2 do in real life and is it worth of its grandiose name? Let’s find out.

In the box:

• User Manual
• microUSB Cable
• Wall Charger
• In-ear headphones

Design

The Grand 2 is a 5.25” phone that is narrow enough for fairly comfortable use, and it's not too thick either. The new faux-leather style of the Grand 2, though, is deceptive, as the plastic on the back feels cheap.

The Galaxy Grand 2 adopts the faux-leather stitched design that Samsung first used in the Note 3, but while in the Note 3, the plastic features a soft and pleasant leathery feel, in the Grand 2, it feels like nothing more than just styled but still cheap plastic. Nonetheless, having this even most basic imitation of leather is better than dealing with the glossy plastic Samsung habitually used in the past - the patterned back of the Grand 2 does not get stained easily and has a better in-hand feel.

In terms of size, the body of the Grand 2 has gotten thinner (8.9mm vs 9.6mm thickness) and narrower (2.96” vs 3.03” width) than that of the original phone, and while it’s still hard to qualify the big-screened Grand 2 as slim, it’s a more ergonomic phone that is easier to use. The second-gen Grand is also solidly put together, and does not screek or squeal when you hold it tightly.

The Grand 2 features a large physical home key right below the display, and on its two sides are the capacitive menu and back keys. The other physical buttons are on the side: the lock key on the right is easy to reach and while it’s made of uninspiring plastic, it protrudes nicely and has nice travel, making it easy to press. The same can be said about the volume rocker, located on the left side of the phone.

Display

Gone is the pixelated screen of the original Grand - the Grand 2 features a bright, vivid, and sharp 5.25-inch 720p display.

The Galaxy Grand 2 comes with a large and overall fairly decent 5.25-inch LCD display with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. Pixel density comes in at the quite reasonable 280ppi, so images and text appear sharp, unless you have the phone glued to your eyes. While higher-end devices nowadays come with much sharper displays, the screen on the Grand 2 is still a gigantic improvement over the one in the original Grand, and in itself is a fairly solid reason for an upgrade.

In terms of colors, this is a very good display for the mid-range price category of the Grand 2. Colors are punchy and definitely vivid and lively, something that will be considered a plus by most users. However, those who care about perfect color accuracy would notice it's a bit on the cold side, plus there is some oversaturation. Viewing angles are below average, and at a wider angle, colors start looking washed out.

While the Grand 2 has a very bright display, outdoors it’s still hard to read as screen reflections are just too noticeable. On the flip side, though, the handset can get down to very low minimum brightness of just 5 nits, a level that makes it very comfortable to read at extremely low light or at night without too much screen glow that tires the eyes.

Interface and Functionality

With Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and yesteryear’s version of TouchWiz, we feel in the past with the Galaxy Grand 2 interface. Still, it runs fine and gets the job done well.

The Galaxy Grand 2 ships with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Samsung’s usual TouchWiz skin on top. In our modern days of the KitKat sugary treat being the freshest offering from the Android cookery, it’s disappointing to see a dated version of Google’s operating system on board, but we remain hopeful that Samsung will update the phone to Android 4.4 in the near future.

The TouchWiz here is the same old cartoony colorful user interface that we know so well from the pre-Galaxy S5 days. That is to say that we don’t have the latest version of TouchWiz either. Still, it’s worth saying that signature functions from Samsung’s skin like Multi Window are on board, adding up to the experience.

In terms of apps, you get the usual set of both Samsung apps with the S prefix (S Planner, S Voice, and S Translator), and other first-party apps and widgets like the weather app and file manager.

Needless to say, basic functionality is well covered on the Galaxy Grand 2 with a rich in functionality phone book with the typical for Samsung quick dialing and texting swipe gestures (swipe rigth on a contact to call, or swipe left to text). Typing out text messages on the large display is also a pleasure and you quickly get used to churning away lols, lmaos, rofls, and other emotionally-infused communiques and replies to your friends.

Processor and Memory

The Snapdragon 400 system chip is a huge improvement, delivering mostly smooth performance throughout. It will run even the latest games, maybe just not at maximum detail.

The Galaxy Grand 2 is a mid-range phone that does not feel underpowered at all. It runs on the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 system chip, a surprisingly capable piece of silicon that handles the Android daily grind with virtually no lag or slowdown.

We’re looking at four Cortex-A7-based cores running at up to 1.2GHz, along with a generous 1.5GB of RAM, and the usual for the class Adreno 305 graphics chip (running at up to 450MHz). The MSM8226 chip here is built on the 28nm LP technology. In fact, this is the same chipset that powers devices like the Moto G, LG G2 mini, and the Nokia Lumia 630, and those are all fairly speedy mid-range phones.

With such a large display, the Grand 2 is also a device that will certainly appeal to gamers. Good news is that it is capable of running the latest games, including even heavier titles from the Google Play Store. It is not as future proof as high-end phones of course, and some games won’t run at maximum detail, but if you are not particularly picky about that, the Grand 2 can also be used as an affordable gamers’ phone.

There is one caveat, though: with internal storage of just 8GB, of which only around 5GB are available to the end user, you would definitely need a microSD card. Luckily, memory expansion is supported, and you can pop in cards of up to 64 gigs.

Internet and Connectivity

Browsing the web looks good on such a large display, and the silicon muscle allows for mostly smooth browsing.

The Galaxy Grand 2 gives you the choice of a Samsung-made custom Android-browser and Google Chrome for surfing the web. Both get the job done swiftly and efficiently. Samsung’s solution, however, offers an immersive full-screen mode that makes best use of space, while Google’s Chrome has its cross-device syncing capabilities and slightly better interface on its side. Scrolling around and zooming in and out is a relatively smooth process on both browsers, with only an occasional stutter.

In terms of connectivity, the Galaxy Grand 2 ships in three different versions: model G7100 is the single SIM version with only HSPA mobile data, model G7102 is a dual SIM version, again with HSPA connectivity, and finally, G7105 is a single SIM version with HSPA and 4G LTE on board, supporting downloads of up to 100Mbps. We’ve got the single-SIM HSPA version for review here, but the other models should look nearly identical with prices not differing much between each other.

Neatly, the Grand 2 also comes with dual-channel Wi-Fi, as well as the more traditional other connectivity options: Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS, but there is no NFC.

Camera

The 8-megapixel main camera captures sharp images that look good in most conditions, but sometimes get colors wrong. 1080p video recording is also sharp and very smooth.

The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 features an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with a single LED flash, as well as a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.

The 8-megapixel main shooter captures 4:3 images and uses lens with an f/2.4 aperture. The camera app starts quickly, revealing an interface typical for Samsung, with shooting modes like Panorama, Night, and Sports, as well as plentiful manual settings including ISO and white balance adjustments (those, however, are a bit too deep in the menus, which makes quick adjustments a pain).

Images captured on the main camera look fairly detailed and mostly good in terms of colors, but if we had to pick the nits, we'd say there were also a few instances where it miscalculated colors, shooting colder pictures that did not look that good. On the whole, though, the images captured on the Grand 2 are definitely above the average for this price class, looking sharp, vivid and generally noise-free. Indoors, in lower light scenarios, we are also pleased with the Grand 2 camera. It preserves colors close to their natural hues, and while noise understandably starts getting noticeable at higher ISOs, it’s managed well.

We should note that the focus is rather sluggish – in a perfect case, it takes about 1 second to lock, which is fine. Depending on the situation, it may take 2 or even 3 seconds, which feels rather slow. It is also rather tricky – when you press the shutter key, the Grand 2 will snap a photo no matter if the focus is locked or not. This allows you to snap images extremely quickly, which is useful when you want to capture something instantly, but is a double-edged sword.Instead of just tapping the shutter and waiting for the phone to focus and snap a photo on its own, you will have to pay attention when it locks the focus (this happens when a little square appears on the screen and turns from white to green) and just then press the shutter. Otherwise, you will end up with an out-of-focus shot, which happened to us a few times.

The camera also has an HDR shooting mode that would come in handy when you want more dynamics in an image (for example, when shooting an object against the sun or other very bright background), but capturing an HDR shot is slow and requires a steady hand.

The 2-megapixel front camera is a fairly good tool for your selfie addiction. Samsung is also including a beauty mode that will add an unnatural smoothening to your skin that will eventually hide any imperfections like wrinkles by blurring them.



The camera can also record video with up to 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second. Recorded footage looks pleasingly smooth and sharp, and there’s little to dislike about it. This little, however, includes the lack of continuous auto-focus (you have to manually tap to re-focus), and no optical image stabilization (OIS). Sound recording in videos is decent and on par with your average expectations, but does not stand out in any way.

Multimedia

The Grand 2 lacks support for some codecs, but is otherwise, its large display is a great asset for watching movies on the go.

The large 5.25-inch display on the Grand 2 is great for watching video on the go or browsing through photos. Samsung's Gallery app neatly categorizes your pictures in folders, and in each folder you have the handy option to resize the image thumbnails. The Grand 2 ships with a video player that runs some common video formats, but we could not get it to play Xvid and DivX-encoded clips out of the box. You can easily fix this by downloading a free video player like MXPlayer from the Google Play Store, though.

For music you have both Samsung’s custom player and Google Play music. Both are good enough, categorizing your music collection neatly, and displaying large and impressive album art. In terms of settings, Samsung’s solution offers a bit more flexibility with support for per-folder music playback, but apart from that, both are practically equally capable. Sound output via the loudspeaker is loud and sufficiently clear, without being outstanding in any way.

Call Quality

During calls, we’re very happy with the high quality of sound in the earpiece - voices sound natural, very clean and sufficiently loud on our end of the line. Outgoing quality is below average, though. Volume is loud enough, but the voices are a bit muted and dull, lacking vibrancy and clarity. It’s also worth noting that there is just a single microphone on the Grand 2, so it does not support noise cancellation.

Battery life

One of the biggest improvements in the Grand 2 (over the original Galaxy Grand) is the fact that it now ships with a large 2600mAh battery (up from 2100mAh) with a quoted talk time of 17 hours on 3G. Real-world testing showed that you can expect around a day and a half between charges on average. As is the case with many Samsung devices, you can also easily peel off the back cover and swap batteries on the Grand 2.

Conclusion

All in all, the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is a very substantial upgrade to the original Grand that improves it in practically every aspect. We are particularly fond of the now much sharper and better looking 5.25-inch display, but the improvement in battery longevity is also very important.

The Grand 2 price varies across markets, and we’ve already mentioned that there are three different models, all shipping to different regions. In its main markets, the Grand 2 is priced at around €250 (the equivalent of roughly $350) off-contract, which is a very reasonable price.

Its biggest rival at the moment is the 5.5-inch HTC Desire 816 that is just slightly more expensive, but praised for its looks. Another option for buyers looking for the power of the Snapdragon 400 chip at an even lower price is the 4.5-inch Motorola Moto G, running on a near-stock version of Android.

All in all, the Grand 2 seems to have hit the sweet spot between price and function: it’s affordable, yet it is not making any huge compromises, and this makes it one of the best mid-range smartphones to get at the moment.