Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro Review – Trivial Upgrade from its Predecessor

Samsung launches Galaxy On Pro phones and here we have the Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro Review with camera samples and other details of the phone.

Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro review

Samsung has given up smartphone at/under Rs 5,000 as there is stiff competition from local and Chinese players in India as well. At Rs 7,000 you can choose Galaxy J1 Ace or Galaxy Core Prime, if you need Samsung handset but mostly people are attracted with Lenovo, Xiaomi or Meizu phones. To make it worse, flash sales plays a big role. Furthermore, these Samsung phones under Rs 7,000 are slow because of low RAM, TouchWiz make it even slower. A decent Samsung phone starts at Rs 9,000 and moving on from last year Galaxy On5, we have all new Galaxy On5 Pro.

Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro Review

The Galaxy On5 Pro launched without any notice and it quickly made into ‘ready to ship’ stocks on Amazon.in without any flash sales! Yes, Samsung doesn’t believe in flash sales. You can purchase it right away at Rs 9190. The handset is with us from past one week and  here is our review of Galaxy On5 Pro smartphone.

Galaxy On5 Pro Display & Design

A 5 inch these days looks an entry-level size for a smartphone. Ideally people prefer to have 5.5 inch, some crazy people love the idea of big phablet like the Xiaomi Mi Max or Asus ZenFone 3 Ultra. If you want a 5.5 inch Samsung phone under Rs 12,000 then go for Galaxy On7 Pro.

Coming to the design, almost all the Samsung phones a design trend. The Galaxy phones form factor remains simple and easy except the flagship S model and flagship Galaxy Note model improves a bit from its predecessor. If you want to try out sided edge display, then go for Galaxy S7 Edge or Galaxy Note Edge. Coming back to Galaxy On5 Pro, we have similar physical Home button, capacitive touch buttons for back and recent menu for multi-tasking. While young age people and under 30 likes to experiment with their choices, people above 30’s and 40’s have struck with familiar products and Samsung is in this business for years. For them, spending out few more bucks and going with brand like Samsung still works for the Korean giant. That’s the reason why they are able to survive in this stiff competition.

The design is kept the same as that of Galaxy On5 phone which was launch in October 2015. If you keep both the devices together, it will be hard for you to distinguish. The sides of the phone looks premium with metal alike finish but it is made out of solid aluminum and it’s painted. So, the On5 Pro is almost On5 with upgraded internals.

We have familiar volume rocker keys on the left side, power button on the top and lower side carries the microUSB port and headphone jack.

 

The back side of the phone is removable and to insert memory cards, SIM card and battery you need to open it. It’s made of highly graded plastic with faux leather finish.

In terms of display we have the 5 inch display as opposed to 5.5 inch found on Galaxy On7 Pro. Sadly ON series continues with the IPS LCD panel and this phone provides 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. The Super AMOLED panels are already available in budget smartphones and we don’t know why Samsung didn’t go for it on On5 Pro and On7 Pro. In the similar pricing Galaxy J2 2016 has Super AMOLED display but it comes with slightly little lesser RAM than On5 Pro.

For the price image quality is acceptable and colors looks to be saturated. Both On Pro phones have brighter display but they are washed out completely outdoor.

Unboxing

The package arrived to us, looks pretty green and on the top itself Samsung has printed it as “Made for India” a Samsung initiative. So that means that this smartphone is manufactured in one of the plants in India.

As we unbox this smartphone, we have the usual sets of accessories in the box content. We have the smartphone first on the top, we have the USB cable with travel adapter, headphones, battery and user manuals.

Benchmark Scores

For any smartphone, the benchmark scores are the perfect way to just the performance of the device but according to AnandTech report OEMs are cheating the benchmark in order to make it to headlines. But with Samsung I think you always get the right score.


 

We ran Antutu Benchmark test on Galaxy On5 Pro and the device achieved the following scores –

Benchmark score – 26339

That score is because of the device runs on Samsung’s Exynos 3 Quad chipset with a Cortex A7 quad-core CPU clocked at 1.3 GHz. There is 2 Gigs of RAM on the device and GPU is supported by Mali T720.

Galaxy On5 Pro Camera Review

At this price range people look to get highest mega pixel count as possible and this is where the local and Chinese players takes advantage. The mega pixel number always doesn’t hold up to its quality. For example the Galaxy S7’s 12 mega pixel camera is par with phones with 16 mega pixel camera.

The Galaxy On5 Pro here has the 8 mega pixel rear camera and moving on from predecessor, Samsung hasn’t done any changes on the camera module. They have retained same 5 mega pixel front facing snapper as well. So that was about mega pixel count, let’s move on to some camera sample photos and videos. There is no special – we have to have camera on smartphones and that’s why it’s there.

The rear camera can record full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels videos and here is one video sample –

The photos in the daylight look awesome and detailed. And just like any other phones, the photos in the night doesn’t get good except you have bright exterior lighting. Here are some of the day light samples –

Some more photos –

Capture my iPhone 5C right there itself –

Various photo shooting modes are  available to enhance the photo quality. Here on this phone we have – Auto, Pro, Panorama, Continuous shot and beauty face.

One of the panorama photos that I took it last week is here –

The beauty face mode is the newest addition and it does take wonderful photos so that you don’t have to do any makeup for selfies now.

Software

The latest Pro smartphones in the Galaxy ON series comes runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of box but with as usual TouchWiz UI on top. Are you a fan on TouchWiz, then you will love it. People have complained of lots of bloatware on TouchWiz but comparatively this one has lesser number of bloatware apps.

The phone comes with ultra data saving mode which is achieved by using the Opera Max browser. It makes use of Opera VPN services and routes all the data through Opera services in order to compress it.

There is also S Bike mode added to the phone. Using it you can only accept important calls during driving.

Best Galaxy On5 Pro Alternatives

Galaxy On5 Pro enters into market as Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 alternative. Yes, that’s the choice of many given at Rs 10,000. If you are looking for 5 inch alternatives then we have the Lenovo K5, Micromax Canvas Evok as sold in India.

 

Here are some of the comparison that we have gone through –

Comparison with Redmi Note 3

Comparison with Galaxy J2 2016

Comparison with Yu Yureka S

Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime vs Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro vs Micromax Canvas Evok

Final Verdict

Samsung definitely has put that their in terms of what they can offer inside any smartphone under Rs 9,000 but in comparison – hardware wise we have several other viable alternatives. Anyone looking to upgrade from Samsung to Samsung, then Galaxy On5 Pro is for them. Performance wise, all people will prefer Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 which is sold like hot cakes in the market. They doesn’t make it to the list of best smartphones under Rs 10,000 but they are fair enough and the best for any Samsung phone under Rs 9500.

Buy Galaxy On5 Pro from Amazon.in

This post was last modified on July 9, 2018 12:48 PM

Preethi Khetani: Preethi Khetani is a well known women Blogger from India. Apart from her contribution here, she writes for NowIamupdated.com and Advices Academy as well.