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Samsung’s latest addition to its ever-growing brood is the new Galaxy Grand 2 — a big-screened blower aimed at travellers on a budget.
With a 5.25-inch HD screen and mid-range specs, it’s a follow-up to last year’s Grand Duos, which hit UK phone shops with a £300 price tag. I’d expect the Grand 2 to be similarly priced, but Samsung hasn’t yet revealed a British price or release date.
The Grand 2 boasts a 16×9 HD screen, but tellingly Samsung doesn’t say exactly what the resolution is. You’d expect a minimum of 1,280×720 pixels, which works out to a mediocre 280 pixels per inch stretched over that massive piece of glass.
Inside, the Grand 2 isn’t any more high-end. There’s a quad-core processor, but its 1.2GHz speed is fairly unimpressive, as is 1.5GB of RAM and just 8GB of storage, although you can expand that by 64GB with a microSD card.
‘Duos’ at the top right of the phone indicates dual SIM-card slots — useful for international travellers — and there’s a 2,600mAh battery, which should keep you going for plenty of time.
It’ll come running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the last but one version of Google’s software, with no word on an upgrade to 4.4 KitKat. Samsung is rumoured to be updating its flagship Galaxy S4 and Note 3 to KitKat in January, with last year’s models following on in April, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up for a quick update to this mobile.
Samsung’s signature gallimaufry of software is on board too, including S Translator and S Travel for all your field-trip needs, plus the Samsung Hub store and the baffling Sound & Shot, which lets you record a snippet of audio when you take a photo.
It’ll be interesting to see how much Samsung charges for this, because you can get the superb Nexus 5 direct from Google for £299, and that has a much better screen and processor. The Grand 2 will come in white, black and pink and will be available in “selective [sic] regions”, according to Samsung.
Are you after a cheaper S4? Would you pick this over a Nexus 5, or is there another mid-range mobile you’ve got your eye on? Have your say in the comments, or over on our well-specced Facebook page.
