Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime Pros and Cons: Should You Buy It?

The Galaxy On7 Prime is the newest budget offering from Samsung. Launched at just Rs 12,999, it’s powered by the Exynos 7870 chipset and 4GB of RAM. Although it has a slimmer profile, it’s pretty similar to the Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro, which was launched last year.

So, should you buy the Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime? Here, we weigh its pros and cons.

Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime Pros

1. Social Camera

The Social Camera, which debuted alongside the Galaxy J7 Pro in 2017, makes a comeback with the Galaxy On7 Prime. It makes the task of sharing photos on social media easy as pie. Once you click a picture, you can share them instantly with your pinned contacts or on your Facebook timeline.

The Social Camera currently supports Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Apart from that, the rear camera has a 13-megapixel sensor with an aperture of f/1.9. With these specs, the camera can click pretty good pictures.

2. Samsung Pay Mini and Samsung Mall

Another cool feature of the Galaxy On7 Prime is the Samsung Pay Mini. It’s a scaled-down version of Samsung Pay and helps in making instant payments using UPI and mobile wallets.

But the feature that grabs the limelight is Samsung Mall. It’s a visual search engine, powered by both Google and Bixby, Samsung’s smart assistant.

So, all you have to do is capture a shot of your favorite products and the app would handle the rest.

3. Speedy Processor & Dedicated MicroSD Card Slot

The Samsung Galaxy On7 prime is powered by a 1.6GHz octa-core Exynos 7870 processor and 4GB RAM.

Similar to the Snapdragon 625 chipset, it too comes with the 14nm process technology, which makes it a highly efficient and balanced as a processor.

Apart from that, you get a dedicated slot for the microSD card and two SIM cards. Given that a majority of the Indian populace usually own a secondary SIM card, this is more than a welcome design improvement.

4. Sharp Display

For a phone priced at Rs 12,999, the Galaxy On7 Prime has a pretty sharp display. Even with the font size and the screen zoom set to minimum, you can easily see what’s on the screen.

What’s more? The 5.5-inch display is bright and the color reproduction is spot-on.

5. Bixby Home

Bixby, the smart assistant from Samsung that made its debut with the 2017 Samsung flagships, has made its way to the newer phones as well. Thankfully, it doesn’t come with a dedicated button.

Just like any other smart assistant, Bixby organizes all your important stuff under one roof.

Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime Cons

1. Conventional Design

The Galaxy On7 Prime boasts of the least interesting design. It sports the same squarish corners and thick bezels at the top and the bottom. Sadly, the same can be said about the rear as well — it’s as plain as it can get.

If we look at it, most of the phones in the Galaxy J7 lineup look the same. At a time when phone manufacturers are experimenting with phone designs, the On7 Prime could have clearly done better.

2. The Curse of Micro USB

It’s 2018 and USB Type-C charging ports have started to appear in budget devices such as Xiaomi Mi A1. Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime is still on micro USB. So, yes, you’d still have to confirm which side of your USB pin faces up, and then plug your charger in.

Being one of India’s smartphone leaders, Samsung could have designed the new phone keeping the ubiquitous nature of USB Type-C in mind.

3. Still on Android Nougat

The Galaxy On7 Prime is one of the latest phones to be released in 2018 and, sadly, it still runs Android Nougat.

Well, you may argue that the Android O update will soon make its way to the device. However, let’s be honest. Samsung is notorious when it comes to timely updates. If you look at the numbers, Samsung has the largest number of phones waiting for software updates.

4. No Backlit Buttons

Samsung generally doesn’t go for the backlit buttons on its budget series and the Galaxy On7 Prime is no different.

The software capacitive buttons on the chin aren’t backlit. Thus, you might have to rely on your instincts when using the phone in the dark.

5. No Ambient Light Sensor

Last but not the least, the Galaxy On7 Prime doesn’t come with an ambient light sensor, which means that you’d have to crank up the brightness manually each time you head over to a dark room or take a walk in daylight.

For a phone, priced above Rs 10,000, skipping a basic feature such as the ambient light sensor is inexcusable.

Buy or Pass?

The Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime comes as a value-for-money proposition and has quite a handful of interesting features. However, it lacks a few basic features such as the ambient light sensor, NFC, compass, and a USB Type-C port.

Moreover, what draws the final nail is the boring design. What I can’t ignore is its resemblance to the Galaxy J7 Max. If you ask me, it looks like an inexpensive version of the J7 Max with a couple of new app additions.

So, would you buy the Samsung Galaxy On7 Prime? Let us know in comments section below.