Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro Reviews

Sleek design and Samsung Pay integration make the J7 Pro the company's best showing yet in the Galaxy J series.

The Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro is the newest release from the brand’s Galaxy J line. Following the release of the widely popular Galaxy J7 Prime, this Pro has pretty big shoes to fill. 
Let’s get to it — here’s what I thought of the Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro.

Galaxy J7 Pro Hardware

Chinese manufacturers have been offering phones with all-metal designs for several generations now, but Samsung has been slow to incorporate it into its Galaxy J series. The J7 2016 featured a metal frame and a plastic back, and with the J7 Pro, we're finally getting an aluminum unibody design. And it looks great.
The antenna bands are located at the top and bottom of the device, and they create a pattern that gives the J7 Pro a distinct flair when it comes to the design. The bands also offer a nice contrast to the overall color scheme, particularly with the gold color option.

The phone has sizeable bezels at the top and bottom, but Samsung did a good job of minimizing the side bezels. There's a home button up front with an embedded fingerprint sensor, and like last year's Galaxy S7, you can double press the button to quickly launch the camera.
The power button is located on the right, and the volume buttons on the left, and all three buttons have decent tactile feedback. The 3.5mm jack is at the bottom, next to the Micro-USB charging port. More and more manufacturers are switching out to USB-C in this segment, but Samsung was reticent to move to the new standard for its flagships until this year, so it looks like we'll have to wait until next year to see USB-C ports on the company's budget devices.
In an interesting design choice, the speaker is located next to the power button. The speaker gets sufficiently loud, and its position means you won't accidentally cover it when holding the phone. Another thing the J7 Pro gets right is the SIM card tray. Unlike most phones in this segment, the J7 Pro has dedicated slots for two SIM cards and a microSD card.

Galaxy J7 Pro Software

Samsung made several changes to its UX earlier this year, and we're seeing those improvements trickle into the budget segment with the J7 Pro. The phone features the latest Samsung Experience 8.1 atop Android 7.0 Nougat, and the overall experience is akin to what you'd find on a Galaxy S8. The app drawer is accessible with a slide up or down gesture from anywhere on the home screen, but if you like the older implementation, there's a setting to enable the apps button. Doing so doesn't disable the swipe up/down gesture, however. Samsung's excellent Multi Window mode is present, as is the theming engine that lets you alter the overall look of the interface.
Other noteworthy features include a one-handed mode, blue light filter, display scaling options, Direct share, Secure Folder, and Samsung's device maintenance hub. There's also a Dual Messenger mode, which lets you run two instances of an app simultaneously. The UX also has new iconography, and a settings pane that's easier to navigate. Overall, Samsung has done a great job of bringing its latest UX to the budget device.

Galaxy J7 Pro Camera

The imaging sensor used in the J7 Pro (Sony IMX258) is the same as that of the Redmi Note 4, and the camera quality is decidedly average. Like the rest of the software, the camera interface is near-identical to what you get on a Galaxy S8, including options to share your photos on social networks with ease.