Face recognition has trickled down to Samsung’s budget lineup with the Galaxy J7 Max

Out of all the security features that are offered on the Galaxy S8, face recognition is the least secure. Samsung says so itself, and face recognition is meant to be a quick way of unlocking a device compared to fiddling with a fingerprint sensor or entering a PIN or pattern. Face recognition is easy to implement, as it simply uses the front camera on a device, and it might be why Samsung has built the feature into one of its new budget phones.

That phone is the Galaxy J7 Max, which was recently launched in India alongside the Galaxy J7 Pro (which is the Galaxy J7 (2017) rebranded for the Indian market), and unlocking the device seems to be as quick as it is on the Galaxy S8. It’s interesting to see Samsung offering face recognition on the J7 Max but not on the new Galaxy J5 (2017) and Galaxy J7 (2017). It’s possible the J7 Pro might also have the feature in India, although we can’t be sure as we haven’t had the chance to play with the device yet. We do, however, have the Galaxy J7 Max in our possession, and you can look forward to a hands-on in the coming days, followed by a full review.

Face recognition isn’t the only highlight on the Galaxy J7 Max. This phone is also the first Samsung phone to use a MediaTek processor. MediaTek had confirmed last year that it was doing business with Samsung, and there will likely be more Galaxy phones with MediaTek chipsets launching in the future. The J7 Max is the second phone from Samsung to feature a MediaTek processor (thanks to one of our readers for pointing this out; the J2 Prime was the first with a MediaTek chip). MediaTek isn’t exactly known to make high-performance mobile processors, though, so here’s hoping the Galaxy J7 Max manages to hold up well in day-to-day usage.