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Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Review

Name: Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime Review
Item: Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
Rating: 5
Author: John V.

posted by John V. / Jul 29, 2015, 6:53 AM

Introduction

History has shown us that Samsung is notorious for giving some of its phones ridiculously long model names. Anyone remember the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch? As much as we’d like the practice to stop altogether, it’s still something that’s well and alive today – like the Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime most recently, for example. With words like grand and prime, you’d envision something super spec’d, but alas, that’s not the case here, as it’s just an entry-level offering that aims to diversify Sammy’s portfolio to cover all segments of the smartphone space.

The package contains:

Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime
microUSB cable
Wall charger
Stereo headphones
Get start guide
Important information

Design

Undeniably a Samsung design, it’s bland and dull looking for the most part, but it’s befitting for a low-end thing.

Distinctively employing the traits akin to its Galaxy line, the phone doesn’t scream anything remarkable with its straightforward and dull design. Constructed out of plastic, it naturally asserts itself as a budget-friendly offering – one that luckily doesn’t feel too cheap in the hand. In all fairness, the design is as bland and predictable as it goes for Samsung, which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering low-end stuff like this don’t normally get the royal treatment.

In true fashion to being a Galaxy branded phone, it features the same buttons and ports you’d find in other phones from Sammy – so that includes the power button along the left edge, volume controls on the right, 3.5mm headset jack on the top, and a microUSB port on the bottom. Yes, it even has the line’s distinguishable physical home button, flanked by capacitive buttons for back and recent apps. With this, however, the rear plastic cover can be removed to gain access to its battery, SIM, and microSD slots.

View more + 24 images

Front view
Side view

To see the phones in real size or compare them with other models, visit our Visual Phone Size Comparison page

Display

Don’t expect much out of the display, it matches the phone’s bland and boring attachment.

Traditionally, Samsung favors using AMOLED screens in its high-end devices, but for this lowly Galaxy Grand Prime, it’s treated to a 5-inch 540 x 960 (qHD) TFT display. While it’s still effective for making things out from a normal viewing distance, it’s something that requires closer inspection because of its softer visuals, which can be traced back to its pixel density count of 220 ppi.

Going beyond the details, there aren’t a whole lot of characteristics to shed its reputation of being bland and boring as well. For one, its color temperature of ~7600K gives the screen a distinctively colder attachment – giving the color white a bluish hue. On top of that, we have a maximum luminance of 417 nits, visible distortion at wide viewing angles, and a color reproduction that favors a bluish undertone to varying degrees with the color magenta.

Display measurements and quality

	Maximum brightness Higher is better	Minimum brightness (nits) Lower is better	Contrast Higher is better	Color temperature (Kelvins)	Gamma	Delta E rgbcmy Lower is better	Delta E grayscale Lower is better
Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime	417 (Good)	20 (Poor)	1:1016 (Good)	7622 (Average)	2.39	5.56 (Average)	5.65 (Average)
Microsoft Lumia 640	352 (Average)	1 (Excellent)	1:869 (Average)	6939 (Excellent)	2.25	3.96 (Good)	2.02 (Good)
Huawei P8 lite	380 (Average)	10 (Average)	1:933 (Average)	8536 (Poor)	2.25	6.50 (Average)	7.04 (Average)

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The numbers below represent the amount of deviation in the respective property, observed when a display is viewed from a 45-degree angle as opposed to direct viewing.

	Maximum brightness Lower is better	Minimum brightness Lower is better	Contrast Lower is better	Color temperature Lower is better	Gamma Lower is better	Delta E rgbcmy Lower is better	Delta E grayscale Lower is better
Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime	80.8%	80%	78.9%	22.6%	8.4%	11.5%	32.6%
Huawei P8 lite	81.6%	80%	85.1%	23.3%	14.2%	2.3%	46.7%
Microsoft Lumia 640	88.4%	No data	83.4%	10.8%	1.8%	No data	100%

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The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x: CIE31' and 'y: CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

These measurements are made using SpectraCal's CalMAN calibration software.

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18 Comments

1. mercorp

Posts: 1045; Member since: Jan 28, 2012

Can't fathom who will buy this when Redmi 2 is much less expensive in my country by almost 100 bucks

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 7:28 AM 2

2. WAusJackBauer

Posts: 447; Member since: Mar 22, 2015

This came out in October 2014, almost a year late.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 7:57 AM 4

10. dorianb

Posts: 617; Member since: Oct 24, 2012

I was just about to say this, & it's been sold by some prepay carriers like Cricket for months now as well.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 9:48 PM 0

13. Orellanal

Posts: 3; Member since: Oct 24, 2015

I think there was an updated version released when this review was written (July 2015). It has a few improvements over the previous version. I have the new version but I noticed that the review shows the specs for the original version. The changes are the following: Slightly newer Bluetooth Version: 4.1 vs 4.0 More RAM: 1.5 GB vs 1 GB Higher SD Card Capacity: 128 GB vs 64 GB Newer Version of Android out of the box: 5.1 Lollipop The picture shown is for the new version since it is in grey which is interesting

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 8:48 PM 0

3. iLovesarcasm

Posts: 589; Member since: Oct 20, 2014

Galaxy E5 is a better choice, it performs like an iPhone 6 or better.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 8:29 AM 0

6. ihavenoname

Posts: 1693; Member since: Aug 18, 2013

iPhone 6 perfroms just bit worse, basically as well as S6, so E5 is as good as S6? Wut.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 9:28 AM 0

7. WAusJackBauer

Performs better in everything except gaming.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 9:36 AM 1

4. itsdeepak4u2000

Posts: 3718; Member since: Nov 03, 2012

Yeah, not that much good phone compared to China brigade but too much negative review.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 8:30 AM 0

5. Sovat_fc

Posts: 224; Member since: Aug 30, 2014

More than a joke when it's 1GB of RAM with Android OS, but my mom said, "OK" with that as she uses only few apps such LINE, Phone Call, Skype, and Viber, and takes pictures.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 9:15 AM 0

14. Orellanal

I think this is for the old version of this phone. The one released in 2015 has 1.5 GB of RAM. I confirmed this using several apps from the store that provide RAM information.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 8:49 PM 0

8. jeroome86

Posts: 2314; Member since: Apr 12, 2012

Please Samsung. Don't over saturate the market with this low spec stuff.

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 11:35 AM 0

9. msaeed90

Posts: 14; Member since: Aug 14, 2014

I had it and it couldnt run two tabs in google chrome as it would get completely hanged due to the combination of 1gb ram and touchwiz

posted on Jul 29, 2015, 2:02 PM 0

15. Orellanal

It got fixed a bit in the new version released this year. The updated Grand Prime has 1.5 GB of RAM which is a little better.

posted on Oct 24, 2015, 8:50 PM 0

11. khelgar_i

Posts: 15; Member since: Apr 06, 2015

Strange that its headphone output power is unusually strong.

posted on Jul 30, 2015, 3:34 PM 0

12. fonelover

Posts: 255; Member since: Mar 19, 2015

Here Antutu score showing 22,490, but my grand prime gives highest score of 18,901. why is this big difference?

posted on Aug 25, 2015, 5:34 AM 0

16. mikeriosjr

Posts: 1; Member since: Nov 06, 2015

I got the T-mobile version of this phone and it is not that bad for the price. Best Buy had it for $150.00. The only bad part is not being to watch youtube on full HD, but oh well. Its got full band 12 capabilities so thats a huge plus. If you have the new version of the phone with 1.5 gb ram. Dont complain because your too cheap to buy a more expensive phone. If you cant afford another phone this is a reasonable deal. Other alternatives for the price range would be the LG Stylo, but that phone has alot of issues with the GPS and the Camera isnt the best for being a 13mp sensor.

posted on Nov 06, 2015, 8:52 AM 0

17. sarahroyerrules

Posts: 1; Member since: Aug 16, 2016

Do not buy this phone, i bought it and not even a week later it broke.... such a piece of crap!

posted on Aug 16, 2016, 1:18 AM 0

18. carldharris

Posts: 1; Member since: May 03, 2017

How pretty the phone is, is not important to me. What is frustrating about the phone, is that Samsung put a lot of programs on that you cannot take off, and therefore you do not have room to put programs on that you would like.