Samsung Galaxy Wide 2 launches: New budget smartphone is better and cheaper than its predecessor

The Samsung Galaxy Wide 2 (J7 2017) is better and more affordable than its predecessor. Samsung

The Samsung Galaxy Wide 2 has been launched in the tech giant’s home country. It’s less expensive than its predecessor, which was popular among older Koreans for its budget-friendly tag. The handset, however, could carry a different name outside of Korea.

Samsung has announced yet another Galaxy smartphone. After officially unveiling the S8 and the S8 Plus in March, the company had now launched the Wide 2 handset. The successor to last year’s Galaxy Wide isn’t officially listed on the tech giant’s website, where it is reportedly going to be sold.

The Wide 2 sports a 5.5-inch HD LCD touchscreen with a 720 x 1,280 pixel resolution. The phone furnishes a 2.5D rounded glass display. Although the exact processor has yet to be identified, the device packs a 1.6 GHz octa-core chipset inside.

The new Galaxy handset comes with 16 GB of internal memory and 2 GB of RAM. An external microSD card slot that is expandable up to 256 GB is also available. The Wide 2 is expected to run on Android 7.0 Nougat.

Samsung’s latest handset equips a 13 MP primary camera with an f/1.9 lens and LED flash. At the front, the phone sports a 5 MP selfie shooter. Perhaps the best thing about the new Wide device is its battery, packing 3,300 mAh of cell power.

The phone’s connectivity options include Bluetooth, 3G, GPS and 4G LTE with VoLTE. It’s about 151.5 mm x 76.4 mm x 8.6 mm (5.96 inches x 3.0 inches x 0.34 inch) in measurement and weighs approximately 170 grams (0.37 pound).

The Wide 2’s predecessor, which was popular among Koreans aged 50 years and over, also furnished the same sized HD display and pixel resolution, but it packed a lesser Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and an Adreno 306 GPU. It only had 8 GB of internal memory and an external microSD support of 128 GB. The handset also had a worse f/2.1 main camera aperture and a less powerful battery at 3,000 mAh.

SK Telecom, a carrier from Samsung’s home country of Korea, launched the new Galaxy Wide 2 device. The handset has a SM-J727S model number, which could mean that it might be released as the Galaxy J7 2017 to the rest of the world. It carries a KRW297,000 price tag in Korea, which converts to about US$265 or AU$355. It should be available with discount, though, for about KRW100,000 (US$90 of AU$120)

Samsung Galaxy S8 vs Apple iPhone 7 camera review and comparison [VIDEO]

MEET IBT NEWS FROM BELOW CHANNELS