Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016) review: Quality control

User interface

The Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016) runs a TouchWiz-skinned Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and as a result comes with native support for an app manager, Doze mode, and Google Now on Tap among other tweaks.

The homescreen is perfectly identical to the TouchWiz home of other Samsung phones. Even the number of columns is the same - 5 icons on a row, same as the A9 (2016).

Homescreen • Briefing • App drawer • App drawer settings

The Notification area is pretty busy by default. It starts with a scrollable line of quick toggles on top, then a brightness slider, then the S Finder and Quick connect buttons. You can hide them from the Edit option, which also lets you re-arrange the quick toggles.

Notification area • Modifying the notification area

The Galaxy J5(2016) user interface is fully themeable. We only got three themes pre-installed, but the Theme store has many more to download.

Themes

Overall, the latest iteration of TouchWiz manages to remain feature-rich, while also reasonably light on resources. As a result, it runs without glitches even on the dated Snapdragon 410 chipset. Speaking of which, follow us onto the benchmark section of the review.