Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 went on sale in India back in October for Rs. 20,900 as the successor to last year’s Mega series. This time Samsung decided to release only one phone called Mega 2 with a 6-inch HD display, compared to 6.3-inch HD screen on the Mega 6.3 and 5.8-inch qHD screen on the Mega 5.8. It has a faster processor and looks better than the Mega 6.3. Is the Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 a good upgrade? Is this worth the price? Let us find out in the complete review.
Unboxing
We unboxed the Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 smartphone recently. Check out the unboxing.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDFFY75566g
Box Contents
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 in Brown Black color
- 2-pin charger (5V-1.5A)
- micro USB cable
- Headset with microphone
- User manual
- 2800 mAh battery
Video Review
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN6OPrmA1WA
Display, Hardware and Design
The phone has a huge 6-inch HD TFT 16:9 display at a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels with a pixel density of about 245 ppi. The display is good with vibrant color output and the viewing angles are good too, but we felt that the Mega 6.3 had a better and sharper display. Since the display is glossy it is prone to fingerprints and also attracts dust easily.
It has a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, compared to 1.9MP camera on the Mega 6.3. It has the usual set of proximity and ambient light sensors on the top along with a LED notification light. Apart from notifications, the light also glows when the phone is charging, when the battery is low or when voice recording is in progress. You can change these from the settings. It has Samsung’s signature home button below the display that has a chrome rim around it and the usual set of capacitive touch buttons on either sides. These are backlit and offer haptic feedback when pressed.
The Mega 2 has slightly curved corners, but it is not as curved as the Mega 6.3. Dimensions of the Mega 2 is 163.6 x 84.9 x 8.6mm and it weighs 194 grams, compared to Mega 6.3’s dimensions- 88.0 x 167.6 x 8.0mm and weight – 199 grams. So the Mega 2 is slightly thicker than the Mega 6.3. Since this has a slightly smaller display it is a bit small compared to Mega 6.3. You can easily notice the wide display on the Mega 6.3 that offers more screen real estate for media consumption.
It has chrome rim running on the sides. The power button is present on the right that can be accessed easily.
The volume rockers are present on the left side. The 3.5mm audio jack is present on the top along with a secondary microphone, but it lacks the IR LED for TV remote functionality that was present in the Mega 6.3. On the bottom there is a micro USB slot and a primary microphone.
Since it is a huge smartphone, it is not easy for one-handed usage even if your hands are huge. There is a 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a loudspeaker grill on the back.
As you can see, the back cover on the Mega 2 has leather-like finish, compared to shiny plastic finish on the Mega 6.3. Even though the removable back cover is made of plastic, the smooth finish doesn’t attract fingerprints and looks premium.
The Mega 2 has two micro SIM slots and a microSD expansion slot that accepts cards up to 64GB. The primary SIM slot and the microSD card slot are present below the camera module, whereas the secondary SIM card slot is present on the side. Overall the build quality is decent, but not the best.
Camera
Coming to the camera, the 8-megapixel rear camera is decent, but it is not the best for in the price range. It has f/2.4 aperture, hence macro shots are good. Low-light shots are not up to the mark, but the flash helps a bit in such conditions. It has Auto mode Beauty face, Shot & more, Panorama, Continuous shot and Night mode, but it doesn’t have HDR mode. The camera UI is similar to most other Samsung smartphones running on Android 4.4.
Check out some camera samples ( click the image to view the full resolution sample)
Daylight
You can check out the complete set of Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 camera samples here. It can record videos at 1080p full HD resolution at 30 fps. Since it has a secondary microphone it offers stereo audio. Check out the video sample.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LiggXl-gWg
Software
Coming to the software, it runs on Android 4.4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz UI on top. Since it is a phablet, it can also be used in landscape mode. The Magazine UX, a customizable user interface (UI) designed by Samsung shows up when you swipe from left to right on the homescreen. This can be customized, but cannot be removed. It has a drop-down notification bar that has quick toggles that are customizable, S Finder, Quick Connect and Brightness adjustment slider.
It has one-handed input options for keypad, keyboard, calculator and lockscreen pattern so that you can use the smartphone comfortably using single hand. It also has side panel keys to use on-screen buttons for menu, home and back instead of using physical buttons.
There is a floating toolbox that lets you keep your favorite applications in it. You can customize the shortcuts easily. It has multi-window option that lets to run two applications on the screen. This can be accessed by pressing and holding the back button.
Out of 1.5GB of RAM, you get 1.39GB of usable RAM, out of which 1GB of RAM is free when some apps are running in the background. Out of 8GB of internal memory you get 5.6GB of usable memory. You can move compatible apps to the microSD card.
Apps
The phone comes with several pre-installed apps. The utility apps include, Calculator, Clock, Gallery, My Files (File Manager) and Memo (Note taking app). It also has the usual set of Google apps. Other apps include Dropbox and Flipboard. It has Group Play lets you enjoy music, play games, and share pictures and documents with other Samsung Galaxy devices over WiFi.
Music Player and FM Radio
The music player has a simple UI and can play a range of audio formats. The SoundAlive equalizer settings has different equalizer presets. The phone has FM Radio with RDS and recording. The auto scan feature scans the stations automatically. The auto off feature in both the music player and FM radio lets you turn it off automatically after a particular time. The loudspeaker output is good and the bundled in-ear earphones are decent. The video player can play 1080p videos smoothly and it has popup play support.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
Both the SIMs support 3G, but you can enable 3G only in one SIM at a time. It has the usual set of connectivity features such as WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS + GLONASS, but lacks NFC that is present in the LTE variant of the smartphone. It has USB OTG support too.
The phone has Smart Dual SIM feature similar to other latest Samsung Dual SIM smartphones. This automatically forwards calls from the phone number on SIM 2, even if a user is on the phone with SIM 1’s number. It doesn’t work on all the service providers since some of them don’t allow call forwarding when busy. It has options to call or send a message using either SIMs in the dial pad and the SMS compose screen since this is a dual SIM phone.
Performance and Benchmarks
The Mega 2 is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) SoC that has four 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs clocked at 1.19 GHz per core and has Adreno 306 GPU. The performance is smooth without any lags. Since it has 1.5GB RAM, multitasking is smooth. It doesn’t get heated even on prolonged 3G usage. Check out the synthetic benchmark scores below.
Quadrant Benchmark
It scored 12185 points in the Quadrant Benchmark, better than the Redmi 1S that is powered by a Snapdragon 400 processor.
AnTuTu Benchmark 4
It tops the AnTuTu Benchmark 4 too scoring 21007 points.
Vellamo 2.0 HTML5
It managed to score 1629 points in the Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark. Check out the complete set of Galaxy Mega 2 benchmarks here.
We tried several games, and some games were not smooth, but graphics was good. Some graphic-intensive games took sometime to load even though it has 1.5GB RAM. Is supports USB and PS3 controllers via USB OTG cable. Overall it scored 3.5/5 stars. Check out the gaming review below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pItYHwZ_uz0
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the 2800mAh Lithium Ion battery lasts for the whole day with average use with both the SIM cards on use, even though the smartphone has a huge screen. If you are heavy user, it’ll run out in less than a day. With minimal use and usage of power saving modes you can easily extend the battery to two days.
In our battery test the smartphone achieved Charge Rating of 11 hours and 32 minutes. You can check out the Galaxy Mega 2 battery test results here to know more about the battery life of the smartphone.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy Mega 2 is a considerable upgrade to the Mega 6.3. It offers good performance and comes at a cheaper price tag compared to the Mega 6.3, but the camera is not impressive. At Rs. 20,900, the Mega 2 is slightly costly compared to its direct competitor, the Asus Zenfone 6 that has a better camera. It runs on Android 4.4.4 KitKat out of the box, but Samsung has not promised Lollipop update for their mid-range devices yet. If you are looking for a large-screen smartphone and can compromise on the price and the camera for the display and the performance, go for it.
Pros
- Good display
- Good performance
- Decent battery life
Cons
- Average camera
- Slightly on the expensive side