Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo Preview

Introduction

Samsung outed the Galaxy Grand Neo without much fanfare or even a proper announcement recently, and if you look at the specs it might be easier to understand why, as the Grand Neo has weaker points there not only compared to the new Grand 2, but even to last year's Galaxy Grand.

The handset sports a 5” screen with very low pixel density, but the rest of the specs are decent, as the Grand Neo offers you 21 Mbps HSPA+ connectivity, 5 MP rear camera with LED flash, and a quad-core processor. However, the original Galaxy Grand still sells worldwide, and actually offers a higher-res camera and video recording, which raises some eyebrows, so let's preview what can we expect from the Grand Neo...

Design

A budget 5-incher with traditional design

The handset spreads in 5.66 x 3.04 x 0.38” (143.7 x 77.1 x 9.6 mm) dimensions, and weighs the serious 5.75 oz (163g), so it's neither compact nor light in comparison with other 5-inchers out there. The rounded corners and physical home key scream of Samsung Design, as well as the white plastic used for the chassis. Grand Neo sports a removable back cover, which grants you access to the microSIM and memory card slots, as well as to the swappable 2100 mAh battery.

Display

Too low pixel density is the phone's biggest drawback

Grand Neo comes equipped with a 5” panel, but that's where the fun stops. This basic LCD screen has 480x800 pixels of resolution, resulting in a 186 pixels per inch count, worthy of an eye roll. As a consequence, most everything appears jagged and pixelated, which can be rather annoying not only if you are a screen purist, but simply if you have toyed with today's midrangers, most of which come with at least 220ppi.

Still, for watching videos and occasionally for browsing, a big screen often trumps pixel density, so if these are your main purposes, the Neo might be a fine budget choice, depending on the price.

Interface and functionality

Samsung Nature UX features on an older Android Jelly Bean version

Our preproduction unit of the Galaxy Grand Neo is loaded with Samsung's TouchWiz Nature UX on top of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Samsung's mum on if and when will KitKat hit the phone. With NatureUX, however, the most apparent visual differences that KitKat brings, like a transparent status bar and full-screen wallpaper, are present in the overlay, and the Grand Neo is no exception.

We are also getting most staple features of Samsung's homemade interface overlay, like Smart Stay, which keeps the screen on while you are looking at it, and the multi-window mode that can run two different apps on a split screen. The Air View and Air Gestures that are present on Samsung's more upscale handsets, are missing from the Grand Neo.

Typing on the largish display with one hand gets dicey when you have to reach for the upper left or right corner of the keyboard, depending on the side. It's advisable that you enable the Swype-like functionality that traces your finger from a letter to a letter, and inputs the word for you, instead of pecking at each individual key with your stretched out thumb. Samsung also includes a way to scooch the keyboard, dialer or calculator to the left or to the right, so that you can type with one hand without the risk of dropping your handset.

Processor and memory

Basic quad-core Broadcom chipset

The Grand Neo comes with a 1.2 GHz Broadcom BCM23550 processor with four Cortex-A7 cores, while last year's Grand came with a dual-core version of this processor. That's one of the few differences between the two phones, though it's unlikely to translate into much benchmark and performance superiority for the Neo. Samsung lists the phone with 1 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage, expandable via a microSD slot.

Internet and connectivity

Samsung's TouchWiz browser looks a bit dated with its squarish interface elements, but it's proven to be one of the fastest renderers, plus at Android Jelly Bean it still sports Adobe Flash support out of the box. The Galaxy Grand Neo offers plenty of connectivity radios, such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, DLNA and FM.

Camera

5 MP camera records only 720p HD video

The 5 MP camera on the back of the Grand Neo has an LED flash next to it, and there's also a front-facing shooter for video chat. Samsung offers plenty of shooting modes like Best Shot or Panorama, arranged in an easy to flip through carrousel.

The phone doesn't capture 1080p Full HD video footage, but rather makes do with 720p HD resolution at 30fps. Its predecessor, the Galaxy Grand, was able to do 1080p recording with its 8 MP unit, so go figure.

Multimedia

The gallery offers split-screen view, with a thin strip that lists your folders on the left, and their content on the right, which aids navigation around it. There are plenty of editing options built right into the interface, too.

The music player with its squarish UI elements is familiar from many Samsung phones. The interface might be unimpressive, but it offers all the basics, like song categorization, as well as an abundance of equalizer presets and sound modes to choose from.

We also get a stock video player runs all popular formats, like MKV, DivX and Xvid without a hitch, and up to 1080p resolution at that. Its interface and options leave something to be desired, though, but you can always grab a better one from the Play Store.

Battery

Low-res screen and basic processor should result in a lasting handset

Grand Neo arrives with a 2100 mAh battery that Samsung quotes to be good for up to 11 hours of talk time in 3G mode, 10 hours of browsing via Wi-Fi, and 8 hours of video playback, which are pretty good numbers. With that screen resolution and processor, the Neo might turn out to be an endurance champ, but we'll wait for our battery tests on the retail unit to give you the full picture.

Expectations

Galaxy Grand Neo seems a bit of an odd bird, giving in on specs even compared to last year's Galaxy Grand, let alone to the newer Grand 2. The only advantage it holds before the Grand, for instance, is the quad-core versus dual-core processor, but we'll have to do our tests with the retail version, in order to call that an advantage at all.

Its specs are pretty basic, and in order to appeal to big-screen lovers, the Galaxy Grand Neo has to muster up an enticing price. If the suggested retail tag is indeed 300 USD or EUR, that's close to the Galaxy Grand, which has a higher-resolution camera, and even sports the same version of Android, making it hard to call the Neo an upgrade.