Samsung's budget and mid-range smartphones have slowly but surely been getting better in terms of the features and value they offer, but the company has continued to leave a few basic yet important features out of its phones. One of these basic features is a notification LED. We have lamented its absence on even the costliest non-flagship Galaxy smartphones, but Samsung finally seems to have seen the light (pun intended), with the Galaxy J5 Prime and Galaxy J7 Prime being the first budget phones from the company to feature a notification LED. A proper one at the front, not something at the back like the Smart Glow ring on the Galaxy J2 (2016).
The Galaxy J5 Prime and Galaxy J7 Prime were launched in India about a month ago (they also launched in China as the 2016 iterations of the Galaxy On5 and Galaxy On7), and a standard notification LED is not the only thing these two handsets are bringing to Samsung's budget range. The J5 Prime and J7 Prime are also the first all-metal budget smartphones from the Korean giant, in addition to being the first to feature a fingerprint sensor as well. But the notification light is the most welcome feature here, given how it has become such a basic aspect of smartphones and how the lack of it is not justified in this day and age.
Unfortunately, the Galaxy J5 Prime and Galaxy J7 Prime miss out on an ambient light sensor for auto brightness, another basic feature that any smartphone today should offer. But Samsung will hopefully make it a priority when it gets down to making its next budget smartphone; given the frequency at which the company has been churning out budget phones in recent months, it shouldn't be long before we see that happen. Right now, we're just happy Samsung is finally taking the right steps to making its low-cost devices more feature rich.
Note: We have a Galaxy J7 Prime in our possession, and we will be publishing a full review in the coming days.
