Samsung might have its Galaxy S8 flagship reportedly primed for an April 2017 launch, but the company will reportedly kick off 2017 with the budget Galaxy J3 Emerge, reports VentureBeat.
Unofficially unveiled by a user manual, the J3 Emerge reportedly features a plastic body, though there is a horizontal strip of plastic that, thanks to its different color, makes the rear look like a disguised superhero. The phone looks to pack a 5-inch, 1,280 x 720-pixel resolution display, with a 2-megapixel camera above it and a 5-megapixel sensor around back. Both cameras are fixed-focus configurations, so you will need to plan your photos and videos accordingly.
Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 430 processor and 2GB RAM run the show, and though the J3 Emerge’s 2,600mAh battery might seem a bit small, the modest specifications look to give the battery a bit of a boost. Also meager by today’s standards is the 16GB of native storage, since the operating system will use a good chunk of it, though there will hopefully be a MicroSD card slot to allay some storage fears.
Unfortunately, even though the J3 Emerge is slated for a January 6 release, the phone will not run Android 7.0 Nougat — it will instead rely on the older Android 6.0 Marshmallow, though a software update to the newer version is not out of the question.
The J3 Emerge is expected to be available through Sprint and its two prepaid channels, Boost and Virgin Mobile. Pricing is unavailable, seeing how the phone has not been announced, though we fully expect it to remain well under $200.
