Samsung Galaxy Grand
The Grand Duos feels strong and durable but is on the thicker side at 9.6 mm and quite heavy as well at 162 g. Just like the other Galaxy handsets, we have all the sensors lined up along with the front facing 2MP camera. The 5-inch display takes up most of the space in the front with a thin bezel on either side.
Underneath the rear cover, we have the two GSM SIM card slots and a microSD card slot. Samsung also bundles along a separate rear cover with a flip-style screen protector. Other than the fact that it’s a bit on the thicker side, the Grand Duos has a very good build quality and even looks very striking.
Features
Interface
When Samsung first announced the Grand Duos, there was a lot of cry about the low resolution display. Even we thought back then that this would be the Achilles’ Heel of the handset. As it turns out, the 480 x 800 resolution is not completely terrible and other than a slightly larger set of icons, it’s not bad at all. The display is a standard TFT LCD, but a good one, so the viewing angles and colour reproduction is very good. The phone runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean along with TouchWiz and the two seem to get along just fine. The UI is fluid just like it is on the Note II, all the new features introduced in it and the S III – Multi-window, Pop-up play, Smart Stay, S Voice and a whole fleet of motion based gestures – are present here.
The fluidity of the interface can be attributed to the spiffy ARM Coretex-A9 MPCore SoC under the hood. This consists of a dual-core CPU running at 1.2GHz each along with 1GB of RAM. The SoC also has support for NEON video decoding extensions and ARM TrustZone technology, amongst others. The GPU is not the typical Adreno or Mali chipset but is a Broadcom Video Core IV. Thanks to the low resolution screen, this GPU manages to pump out very similar performance to the GPU in the Note II. NenaMark 2 benchmark recorded a similar 58FPS and this is also reflected in actual games. For instance, Temple Run 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted run smoothly without any issues.
Media
The Grand may lack the famed Wolfson audio chip, but this hasn’t stopped Samsung from delivering a really good media experience. We’ve talked about the new media player at length in our Galaxy Note II review, so we won’t go too much into detail about it here. Audio quality is pretty good through the headphones as well as the rear speaker. The volume level is good and movies and music are enjoyable on the big screen.
The video player is very functional and supports most formats including AVI and MKV. Full HD 1080p playback is also flawless. You even get a screenshot feature along with the option to tag your friends in the video, edit it or even set a timer to switch it off automatically.
The Galaxy Grand is Samsung’s attempt to woo those who can’t afford a top-end device like the Galaxy Note II. It costs Rs 21,500, which is almost twice as expensive as its low-cost rivals, but it’s the most-affordable option if you’re looking for a device from a tier 1 brand. Currently, the Galaxy Grand doesn’t face any competition from other tier 1 brands, but you may want to know how much better it is than the low-cost devices that offer similar specifications. Here’s a breakdown of the specifications to give you an idea how it compares with the closest competition.
A large-screen handset for those who can't afford the Galaxy Note II
OS – Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean
Very few current-generation low-cost Android phablets come preloaded with Android Jelly Bean; most of them come with Android ICS—however, you get the OS in the stock form. The Galaxy Grand runs Jelly Bean out of the box and not to mention, it boasts features found in the higher-end Galaxy handsets, such as Smart Stay, Pop up Play and Direct Call.
Cellular network – Dual SIM GSM and 3G
The Galaxy Grand is the first phablet from a tier 1 brand to offer dual-SIM capability in the sub-Rs 20,000 price band. Quad-band 2G is supported by both the SIM card slots, whereas 3G connectivity is supported only in the SIM1 slot.
Display – 5-inch WVGA
An HD display would have made the Galaxy Grand a killer deal, but unfortunately, it sports a 5-inch WVGA display that has a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. On the other hand, you have the Micromax Canvas HD with a 720p IPS LCD. The pixel density of Galaxy Grand’s display is 187 ppi as against 294 ppi in the Canvas HD—that’s a difference of a good 107 ppi or 57 percent in density! That doesn’t mean it’s bad; there’s ample real estate for viewing web pages and documents comfortably and videos are enjoyable on the large 5-inch display.
Quite slim at 9.6 mm
Form factor and weight – a tad lighter than the Note II
Weighing in at 162 grams, Galaxy Grand is 20 grams lighter than Note II. It’s also a few millimetres less in height and width, but the Note II is slimmer than the Grand by a fraction of a millimetre.
Wi-Fi – Dual-band, 802.11 ‘n’
Like the Nokia Lumia 620, the Galaxy Grand is one of the few handsets in its segment to feature dual-band Wi-Fi ‘n’. So, if your router supports 5GHz wireless band, you can harness much faster connectivity.
SoC
This is grey area and we shall be able to give a clear picture only when we get our hands on the device. We got in touch with Samsung for exact details of the SoC this device uses, but we didn’t get any answer. For now, we can only say it’s powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor. According to one source who captured a glimpse of the Galaxy Grand at the Broadcom booth at the CES 2013, it’s quite evident that it’s powered by the Broadcom BCM28155 SoC. It comprises a pair of ARM Cortex-A9 cores and Broadcom’s own VideoCore-IV graphics engine for 2D and 3D acceleration.
Storage – 8GB with the option to expand by up to 64GB
Here, Galaxy Grand has an upper hand over Micromax Canvas HD. Firstly, Galaxy Grand packs 8GB of built-in storage, which is twice as much as in Canvas HD. And secondly, in contrast to microSD expansion of up to 32GB in Canvas HD, Galaxy Grand can take up to a 64GB microSD card.
8 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash
Primary camera – 8MP with LED flash
The 8MP primary camera featured in the Galaxy Grand has the same resolution as the one featured in Note II. There’s LED flash and digital image stabilisation to help you take clear shots in low light. Videos can be recorded at 1080p at 30fps. The Canvas HD too features an 8MP camera with LED flash, but only our hands-on tests will reveal which of the two takes better photos. Also, the secondary front camera in the Galaxy Grand is a 2MP one as against the VGA camera in the Canvas HD.
Sensors – Gyro, compass and more
The Galaxy Grand comes armed with sensors that will be of most use to the end user—accelerometer, gyro, proximity and compass. The list excludes barometer, but it’s fair for an entry-level phablet.
Battery – Li-ion 2100mAh
Both, the Galaxy Grand and Canvas HD feature a hefty 2100 Li-ion mAh battery to provide decent amount of talk time in addition to fuelling other tasks such as media playback, web browsing, gaming and so on. The Note II packs a 3100 mAh battery and it lasted for over two days without the need for a charge. Our test revealed it played a 720p video in loop for over 12 hours without any hiccup.
The bottom line
Off late, we’ve seen many low-cost Android phablets (such as Micromax Canvas 2 and Lava Iris 501) featuring a dual-core processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB of internal storage and at least a 5 megapixel camera—you can buy one for around Rs 11,000. Cough up another few thousand rupees and you can buy a more feature rich device like the Canvas HD. However, if you’re reluctant to consider a lower-tier brand and don’t want to look beyond top-tier brands, the Galaxy Grand is for you. The specifications look good on paper, and the price point is sweet!
It’s not easy finding a high-end dual-SIM phone from a top-tier manufacturer. The only one available in the market until recently was the HTC Desire SV, which is a well-designed and built handset with an impressive spec sheet but is heavily crippled in the multimedia department due to its chipset. This leaves the playground wide open for the just launched Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, which has been making a lot of noise in the market. We quite liked it when we first saw it, and now it’s time to put it through our gruelling tests to see if it manages to come through unscathed.
Design and build
The Grand Duos looks like a clone of the Note II, but with the finish and build of the S III. The phone seems a bit chunkier than the Note II and that chrome trim around the edge will wear off with time, so it’s better if you use a cover with it. The finish of the plastics is more akin to theGalaxy S III. The rear cover has a fine mosaic-like pattern which actually manages to mask most of your fingerprints. However, it does scratch easily if you’re not careful with your usage. The same goes for the chrome trim.
Design and build
The Grand Duos looks like a clone of the Note II, but with the finish and build of the S III. The phone seems a bit chunkier than the Note II and that chrome trim around the edge will wear off with time, so it’s better if you use a cover with it. The finish of the plastics is more akin to theGalaxy S III. The rear cover has a fine mosaic-like pattern which actually manages to mask most of your fingerprints. However, it does scratch easily if you’re not careful with your usage. The same goes for the chrome trim.
A snug fit for the large-handed
The Grand Duos feels strong and durable but is on the thicker side at 9.6 mm and quite heavy as well at 162 g. Just like the other Galaxy handsets, we have all the sensors lined up along with the front facing 2MP camera. The 5-inch display takes up most of the space in the front with a thin bezel on either side.
The two SIM slots
Underneath the rear cover, we have the two GSM SIM card slots and a microSD card slot. Samsung also bundles along a separate rear cover with a flip-style screen protector. Other than the fact that it’s a bit on the thicker side, the Grand Duos has a very good build quality and even looks very striking.
Features
Interface
When Samsung first announced the Grand Duos, there was a lot of cry about the low resolution display. Even we thought back then that this would be the Achilles’ Heel of the handset. As it turns out, the 480 x 800 resolution is not completely terrible and other than a slightly larger set of icons, it’s not bad at all. The display is a standard TFT LCD, but a good one, so the viewing angles and colour reproduction is very good. The phone runs Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean along with TouchWiz and the two seem to get along just fine. The UI is fluid just like it is on the Note II, all the new features introduced in it and the S III – Multi-window, Pop-up play, Smart Stay, S Voice and a whole fleet of motion based gestures – are present here.
Buttery smooth UI
The fluidity of the interface can be attributed to the spiffy ARM Coretex-A9 MPCore SoC under the hood. This consists of a dual-core CPU running at 1.2GHz each along with 1GB of RAM. The SoC also has support for NEON video decoding extensions and ARM TrustZone technology, amongst others. The GPU is not the typical Adreno or Mali chipset but is a Broadcom Video Core IV. Thanks to the low resolution screen, this GPU manages to pump out very similar performance to the GPU in the Note II. NenaMark 2 benchmark recorded a similar 58FPS and this is also reflected in actual games. For instance, Temple Run 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted run smoothly without any issues.
Media
The Grand may lack the famed Wolfson audio chip, but this hasn’t stopped Samsung from delivering a really good media experience. We’ve talked about the new media player at length in our Galaxy Note II review, so we won’t go too much into detail about it here. Audio quality is pretty good through the headphones as well as the rear speaker. The volume level is good and movies and music are enjoyable on the big screen.
Good media playback
The video player is very functional and supports most formats including AVI and MKV. Full HD 1080p playback is also flawless. You even get a screenshot feature along with the option to tag your friends in the video, edit it or even set a timer to switch it off automatically.
We've given the Samsung Galaxy Grand 8 out 10 in our review.
 | Network | |
| Technology / Frequency Bands | GSM : 850/900/1800/1900 MHz HSDPA : 900/2100 MHz | |
| Battery | |
| Type | Li - Ion | |
| Capacity | 2100 mAh | |
| Standby | - | |
| Talktime | - | |
| Built | |
| Dimensions | 143.7x77x9.6 mm | |
| Weight | 162 g | |
| Form Factor | bar | |
| Colors | White | |
| Display | |
| Size | 480x800 pixels | |
| Type | color : TFT | |
| Colors | 16000000 colors | |
| Secondary Display | no | |
| Camera / Imaging / Video | |
| Camera | Yes 8.1 MP | |
| Resolution | 3264x2448 pixels | |
| Zoom | yes | |
| Flash | yes | |
| Secondary Camera | yes | |
| Secondary Camera | |
| Flash | no | |
| Connectivity | |
| Bluetooth | Yes | |
| Irda | No | |
| Wlan/Wi-fi | Yes | |
| USB | yes | |
| GPS | yes | |
| Data | |
| GPRS | Yes | |
| EDGE | Yes | |
| 3G | Yes | |
| Internet Browsing | Yes , Android Webkit browser | |
| Media | |
| Audio Playback | Yes | |
| Video Playback | Yes | |
| Ringtones | 64 polyphonic MP3/MIDI/WAV/AMR | |
| FM Radio | Yes | |
| 3.5mm Headphone Jack | yes | |
| Memory | |
| Inbuilt | 8 GB | |
| Memory Slot | Yes microSD/TransFlash | |
| Messaging | |
| SMS | Yes | |
| MMS | Yes | |
| Yes | ||
| Software | |
| Operating System | Android 4.1 | |
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