Samsung Galaxy On Max Smartphone specifications and review

The Samsung Galaxy On Max is the latest addition to Samsung’s ever growing online only On series. The phone is derived from the Samsung Galaxy J7 Max and keeps most of the specifications and aesthetics intact. It has a new octa-core chipset and an improved camera. Going by what the Galaxy J7 Max was able to achieve, at the beginning of this review we expected the On Max to surpass that at least. Were we right, but let us take you through our full review and find out

 Build and Design
As I mentioned earlier, the On Max is actually a J7 Max with some new tricks up its sleeve, dressed in the same attire. So, there is nothing different in terms of design, build quality or even the ergonomics of the two phones. The back of the phone is wrapped in metal and the top and bottom portions are plastic with a metal finish. The phone looks and feels quite premium, but like most budget smartphones, slab-like. There is one thing missing from the On Max and that is the ring flash on the rear camera, absence of which we don’t mind, as the On Max offers superb camera capabilities for its price anyway (more on that later).

Display and UI
While the design remains largely borrowed from the J7 Max, the On Max does get a new display, posting an impressive score of 671 lux on our luminance meter. This is almost a 100 lux brighter than the J7 Max. It features decent colour reproduction as well as good viewing angles. Samsung could have provided its signature AMOLED display on the phone, but the 5.7-inch 1080p TFT display does the job well. Like the J7 Max, the On Max display also looks slightly washed out, but on day-to-day basis, that is something which a majority of people won’t notice. The touch response is also accurate and smooth, and since this is a large display, videos and movie watching experience on the device is really good.

Camera
While battery life is good enough, the rear camera on the Samsung Galaxy On Max is just superb. Samsung is using a 13MP rear camera setup with f/1.7 aperture. This, combined with the new camera, captures well detailed images in all lighting conditions. While images taken during the day are amongst the best in its category, the On Max really shines in low light conditions. In low light, the f/1.7 aperture comes into the play in full force and Samsung’s new camera algorithm works overtime. However, in our tests we found that in low light the camera performs better if you switch to Pro mode, since the camera has the tendency to brighten the image, which may not be suited for all low light conditions. We also observed a slight posterization effect in some low light images, which happens due to the aggressive algorithm, that smoothes noise. This means that the On Max is really good for taking silhouettes. (Note: All images have been resized to fit)

Samsung Galaxy On Max specifications and software

The Samsung Galaxy On Max features a 5.7-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) screen. It is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P25 (MT6757V) processor with four cores clocked at 2.39GHz and four cores clocked at 1.69GHz, coupled with 4GB of RAM. There’s 32GB of storage on the device, and it supports expansion using a microSD card of up to 256GB.

The most marketed feature of the Galaxy On Max is its camera performance. The phone ships with 13-megapixel sensors and LED flashes on the back as well as the front. The rear camera has an f/1.7 aperture which the company says improves low-light shots, while the one in front gets an f/1.9 aperture. For connectivity, the Galaxy On Max has 4G with VoLTE (Voice over LTE), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a Micro-USB port. It packs a 3300mAh non-removable battery.

You get Android 7.0 with Samsung’s own custom UX which has gradually improved over the last few years. Samsung phones have seen tremendous reductions in bloatware, which feels good. Interestingly, the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017) and Galaxy A5 (2017) (Review) – both of which cost more than the Galaxy On Max – are still running Android Marshmallow.

Samsung Galaxy On Max performance

In day-to-day use, the Galaxy On Max fares well and handles multitasking with ease. Switching from one app to the other works smoothly and there’s around 1.8GB of RAM free out of the 4GB at any given time. We used the Galaxy On Max extensively for GPS navigation, photography and gaming, with 4G data active throughout, but didn’t have much trouble with the phone overheating, which is good.