Samsung's Galaxy J5 was a really pleasant surprise when we reviewed it earlier this year, as it was probably one of the first budget handsets Samsung's produced in years that could really go head to head with Motorola's 3rd Gen Moto G. A big part of its appeal was its stunning AMOLED display, which is a real rarity at this end of the smartphone market. So colour me even more surprised to see one here on this year's Galaxy J3 as well, which is even cheaper than the J5.
Display
Much like the J5 and 3rd Gen Moto G, the J3 has a 5in display with a 1,280x720 resolution. However, its AMOLED screen technology blows almost every other budget smartphone out of the water - except the J5, of course - as I measured perfect, inky 0.00cd/m2 blacks, 100% sRGB colour gamut coverage and a ultra-high contrast ratio that really makes colours pop out of the screen with a wonderful sense of vibrancy and saturation.
That said, if you don't find this is sufficient, Samsung's included a handy new feature on the J3 called Outdoor mode. Instead of having an 'auto mode' tickbox next to the brightness slider in the notification pane, you'll find a tickbox for 'Outdoors' instead, which pumps up the brightness for up to 15 minutes so it's easier to use in bright sunshine.
With this enabled, I measured a much more impressive max brightness of 447.8cd/m2, which puts it on a much more level playing field with other LCD smartphones. You probably won't need to use this mode very often, but at least it provides a bit of flexibility, giving you the best of both worlds when it comes to screen quality and brightness.
Samsung Galaxy S7 edge Olympic Games Edition
Performance and Battery Life
However, just because they all look alike doesn't mean they all offer the same levels of performance. The J1, for instance, makes do with just a dual-core Cortex A7 processor, while the J5 has a much more powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset. The J3, on the other hand, uses a quad-core 1.5GHz Spreadtrum SC9830i, which is paired with 1.5GB of RAM.With two more cores at its disposal, the J3 offers a considerable step up in performance over the J1, as its score of 1,054 in the Geekbench 3 multicore test can attest. However, it's still not quite enough to beat the J5, as the J3 was 100 points behind the J5 in the single core test with its result of 362, and over 300 points behind in the multicore test. The J3 still feels pretty nippy when you're scrolling and swiping through Android, but it will start to struggle when you're using multiple apps simultaneously.
Surprisingly, the J3’s Peacekeeper browser benchmark score of 774 was actually faster than the J5 by over 100 points. However, this still doesn't eliminate all signs of stutter, as media-heavy websites in particular still tended to be quite jerky in places when scrolling up and down articles.
In terms of battery life, the J3 sat smack in the middle of the J1 and J5, as its 2,600mAh battery lasted a very respectable 13h 15m in our video playback test with the screen set to our standard brightness levl of 170cd/m2. As a result, you’re not going to have many issues lasting a day away from a charger.
Camera
The Galaxy J3 is equipped with an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. As you'd expect from the middle J series, sibling, this offers higher resolution photos than the Galaxy J1, but not such detailed shots as the 13-megapixel rear camera on the Galaxy J5. The J3 also only has 8GB of built-in storage (just 4.7GB of which is available to the user), so you'll likely want to make use of the microSD slot, which supports cards up to 128GB.Outdoor performance was pretty respectable for such a cheap phone, as colours were bright and accurate even in overcast weather conditions. However, detail was rather lacking, as finer details tended to be very soft and muddy. It also struggled to expose bright clouds correctly, although switching over to its HDR mode quickly helped sort this out.
Indoor performance was decent, but you’ll have to work around the camera's slow shutter speeds when you’re not using the flash. As a result, you'll need to make a concerted effort to help minimise camera shake, as all of our test shots came out quite blurry even when we turned on our external studio lights. Ultimately, the indoor performance is adequate for a £150 smartphone, but you’ll want to make maximum use of whatever natural light you can.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy J3 is certainly a respectable budget smartphone for £150, but with very little difference compared to the Galaxy J5 in terms of price - just £10 at the time of writing - I can't think of any reason why you'd pick this instead. Both have an excellent display, but the Galaxy J5 is faster, longer lasting and has a far superior camera, making it much better value overall.Of course, there's also the 3rd Gen Moto G to consider as well. This is just as fast as the J5 and has one of the best budget cameras we've ever seen. It also runs the latest version of Android 6.0, making it feel newer and more up to date than Samsung's J series, all of which only run Android 5.1.1. Samsung's notoriously bad at providing its cheaper handsets with free OTA updates for newer versions of Android, so those that want all the latest Android features such as Doze and Now on Tap should probably pick the Moto G instead. For me, the Moto G is still our favourite budget smartphone, but if you're not fussed about what version of Android you're running and value having a long battery life, then Samsung's Galaxy J5 is still the J series phone to buy.
Hardware
| Processor | Quad-core 1.5GHz Spreadtrum SC9830i |
| RAM | 1.5GB |
| Screen size | 5in |
| Screen resolution | 1,280x720 |
| Screen type | Super AMOLED |
| Front camera | 5 megapixels |
| Rear camera | 8 megapixels |
| Flash | Yes |
| GPS | Yes |
| Compass | No |
| Storage (free) | 8GB (4.7GB) |
| Memory card slot (supplied) | microSD |
| Wi-Fi | Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Bluetooth | 802.11n |
| NFC | Yes |
| Wireless data | 3G, 4G |
| Size | 142x71x7.9mm |
| Weight | 138g |
| Features | |
| Operating system | Android 5.1.1 |
| Battery size | 2,600mAh |
| Buying information | |
| Warranty | One year RTB |
| Price SIM-free (inc VAT) | £150 |
| Price on contract (inc VAT) | Free on £13-per-month contract |
| Prepay price (inc VAT) | £120 |
| SIM-free supplier | www.mobilefun.co.uk |
| Contract/prepay supplier | www.three.co.uk |
| Details | www.samsung.com/uk |
| Part code | SM-J320FZWNBTU |