Samsung Galaxy On5 Pro and On7 Pro preview

Camera

The Galaxy On5 Pro and On7 Pro have an 8 megapixel and 13 megapixel camera on the back respectively.

The Camera interface

The camera on On5 Pro is mostly just there because there has to be one. The image quality is nothing to write home about; there isn't enough detail in the image, the dynamic range is poor and the noise is too high.

Galaxy On5 Pro camera photos

In comparison, the camera on the On7 Pro is actually pretty good. It betters the On5 Pro camera in every way and is a perfectly good camera for a budget phone.

Galaxy On7 Pro camera photos

Both phones also record 1080p video. The videos come out smooth. Here is an On7 Pro video sample in 1080p.

For some reason, our On5 Pro model only recorded 720p video even when we set it to 1080p mode. We're guessing it's a software bug. Here is an On5 Pro video sample in 720p.

Verdict

As far as budget devices go, the Galaxy On5 Pro and On7 Pro are certainly not the company's worst attempts yet. Both are fairly usable and they should be enough to keep most people happy. But as we saw with the J2 2016 edition, the competition is so intense and the phone manufacturers are already so many, that the big guns can no longer expect to get a prize for just showing up looking good.

The competition is putting in a lot more effort in this price segment these days and Samsung needs to keep up. The Galaxy On5 Pro costs INR 9,190 or $137, while the On7 Pro costs INR 11,190 or $167. Both prices match the two available equipment levels of the aggressively priced Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, which has a far superior performance.

It doesn't help that the company tends to cut corners at odd places when what it should be doing is pushing the envelope further for what can be done in this space.

You'd expect the bigger, more experienced company leading the charge here but that doesn't quite seem to be happening. So even though the On5 Pro and On7 Pro are fairly decent phones, they likely aren't going to be on top of anyone's shopping lists.