Along with the A-series, Samsung also recently announced the brand new E-series which again ditches an all-plastic design and goes for a metal frame and plastic combo in a sweet looking package. While the handsets do look attractive, we take a quick look at them and check out if Samsung has finally got it right.
The Galaxy E5 is the smaller of the two devices and it comes with a 5-inch 720p Super AMLOED display that looks quite impressive. The design is somewhat similar to the A-series but has rounded edges, a plastic back and slightly larger bezels. It is quite slim at just 7.3mm but not as slim as the A5 or the A3 which are just 6.7mm.
The back panel is essentially plastic with a matte finish unlike previous gen Samsung smartphones. It doesn't feel low quality and there is certainly attention to detail. There is also an 8MP camera with an LED flash that takes decent looking pictures with good colours and sharpness.
The specs of the E5 are quite similar to the A5 including 1.5GB of RAM instead of the 2GB RAM, but a similar display panel (5-inch 720p Super AMOLED), storage (16GB expandable), and a 64-bit Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor. However the price difference between the two is approximately Rs. 6,000.
The E5 is definitely a good looking smartphone from Samsung that does have an older design, but somehow offers a fresh feel. Compared to other smartphones with similar specs, it is overpriced but is a bold step for Samsung.
The Galaxy E7 is the larger one of the two smartphones and it comes with a 5.5-inch screen maintaining the same resolution of 1280x720 pixels. The design of the E7 identical to the E5 including the metal frame and a plastic back.
Just like the E5, you get an 8MP camera with an LED flash, the quality and performance of which felt similar to the one we saw on the E5.
Although not the slimmest at 7.3mm, the E7 doesn't feel that heavy for a 5.5-inch device. Inside, you get a 64-bit Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB of RAM, and Android 4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz UI.
There is 16GB of storage but you can expand it further with a microSD card.
Both the E5 and the E7 may not be as impressive as the A-series phones but are still better than the Grand and the Core phones. However, just like the A-series, Samsung needs to price these devices slightly lower than what they are being offered for (Galaxy E5 - Rs. 19,300 / Galaxy E7 - Rs. 23,000).