Nearly three months before we would have expected them, Samsung has made the Galaxy J5 (2016) and Galaxy J7 (2016) official in China. The phones are listed on the company's website, and as the leaks had confirmed, the J5 (2016) and J7 (2016) come with a metal frame and considerably improved specs over their original counterparts.
The improved specs include larger batteries (3,100 mAh and 3,300 mAh on the J5 and J7 respectively), 2GB and 3GB of RAM, 720p and Full HD display resolutions, and 16GB of internal storage on both devices. The J5 (2016) and J7 (2016) keep the cameras from their predecessors – a 13-megapixel camera on the back, and a 5-megapixel camera on the front accompanied by an LED flash. The new J5 has a 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display while the new J7 keeps the 5.5-inch display of the original.
Both phones come with 4G connectivity on two SIM slots and a microSD slot; the Galaxy J7 (2016) supports NFC and possibly Samsung Pay, which was unveiled for China today. The version of Android on these handsets isn't mentioned. It's hard to make out from the images whether it's Marshmallow or Lollipop, though we hope Samsung hasn't messed up by going with the latter. Under the hood, the J5 (2016) gets a quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, while the J7 (2016) features an octa-core chip running at 1.6GHz.
The Galaxy J5 (2016) and Galaxy J7 (2016) come in gold, white and pink; a price tag isn't listed on the website, but we can expect the new phones to cost the same as the original J5 and J7. The Galaxy J5 and Galaxy J7 were impressive budget smartphones from Samsung, and it certainly looks like the second iterations will offer an even better experience. It's unclear when they will be available in other markets, though we will keep you abreast of any development on that front.
