Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016) review: Quality control

Synthetic benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016) uses its predecessor's chipset - while the Snapdragon 410 wasn't much in 2015, this year the quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A53 CPU seems downright disappointing. There's an Adreno 306 GPU on board, which too hasn't changed, but at least RAM is bumped to 2GB.

There are newer and better alternatives on the market, but it seems Samsung has decided the Snapdragon 410 is good enough.

Let's start things off with GeekBench, which is great at giving us a reliable reading of raw CPU performance. Here, the Snapdragon 410 sits right below the Moto G 3rd Gen, which has the same configuration.

GeekBench 3 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  4537
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  3570
• Oppo F1
  3014
• Acer Liquid X2
  2972
• Huawei P8lite
  2813
• Huawei P8lite
  2813
• Huawei P8lite (Snapdragon 615)
  2717
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  2375
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  2375
• Moto G (3rd gen) 2GB of RAM
  1589
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  1437
• Samsung Galaxy J5
  1418

In the single-core component of the benchmark, the Galaxy J5 (2016) is far off the likes of the Acer Liquid X2, which features eight overclocked Cortex-A53 cores in the Mediatek MT6753.

GeekBench 3 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  1573
• Acer Liquid X2
  641
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  471

AnTuTu 6 is a compound benchmark but the Galaxy J5 (2016) doesn't really have any particularly strong points so it understandably ranked quite low.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  75051
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  45474
• Acer Liquid X2
  36986
• Oppo F1
  35353
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  27487

Time for some GPU testing, where we don't really expect the Adreno 306 to shine. It manages just 1.8fps in the GFX3.0 Manhattan in 1080p, and 3.8fps in the onscreen test. Unsurprisingly, its predecessor achieved the same results.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  8.5
• Huawei P8lite (Snapdragon 615)
  6
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  5.84
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  5.84
• Oppo F1
  5.8
• Acer Liquid X2
  4.2
• Samsung Galaxy J5
  1.8
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  1.8
• Moto G (3rd gen) 2GB of RAM
  1.7

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  12.2
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  12.2
• Huawei P8lite (Snapdragon 615)
  12
• Oppo F1
  11
• Acer Liquid X2
  9.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  7.9
• Moto G (3rd gen) 2GB of RAM
  3.9
• Samsung Galaxy J5
  3.8
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  3.8

Basemark OS II

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• Oppo F1
  1055
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  956
• Acer Liquid X2
  894
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  883
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  883
• Huawei P8lite (Snapdragon 615)
  799
• Moto G (3rd gen) 2GB of RAM
  619
• Huawei P8lite
  600
• Huawei P8lite
  600
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  576
• Samsung Galaxy J5
  503

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  14732
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  8540
• Oppo F1
  5314
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  5105
• Sony Xperia M4 Aqua
  5105
• Huawei P8lite (Snapdragon 615)
  5062
• Acer Liquid X2
  4300
• Samsung Galaxy J5
  4034
• Huawei P8lite
  3648
• Huawei P8lite
  3648
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  2180
• Moto G (3rd gen) 2GB of RAM
  1866

Basemark X (medium)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)
  23376
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)
  15359
• Acer Liquid X2
  8650
• Samsung Galaxy J5 (2016)
  4157

Overall, the benchmark scores are rather poor, which doesn't bode well for long term performance. While the fresh Marshmallow installation ran smoothly and we didn't experience any glitches, but TouchWiz does slow down a bit over time so things will probably be less rosy once you get all your apps up and running.