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Keeping up with their Galaxy line, Samsung has unveiled their newest member, the Galaxy Grand. Operating on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, the 1.2 GHz dual-core smartphone is targeted towards those power-users who require a large screen and powerful internals at a low cost.
The Galaxy Grand has the same design as all of the other Galaxy products, most notably mirroring the Galaxy SIII – Samsung’s most popular smartphone to date. It features a large, vibrant 5-inch display but at a lowly resolution of 800×480, meaning it could certainly be targeted towards areas where smartphones are not the norm, such as China or India.
It certainly does not hold a candle against the Galaxy Note II’s quad-core processor, but the Grand has a nice set of additions nonetheless. An HD 8 megapixel rear camera is supplemented with a 2 megapixel sensor on the front. A full gigabyte of RAM, 8 gigabytes of internal space, GPS, 4.0 Bluetooth, TouchWiz, NFC, and HSPA+ support make it a balanced smartphone. The 8 gigabytes of internal memory and lack of LTE will be the repellent for the vast majority of consumers, further grounding it as what can be considered the Galaxy SIII’s budget brother; however, the ability to expand storage up to 64 gigabytes via microSD will ease the pain.
The Galaxy Grand will be available in two versions starting sometime in 2013€“ The dual-SIM version (GT-I9082) will launch first and the single SIM version (GT-I9080) will follow, with the only colour being white. Again, the utilization of dual-SIM cards occurs most frequently in Asian and African countries so the chances of this feature being appealing in North America is very slim. It seems more likely that the Grand will not make it over to North America, being a clearly cheaper, affordable, and depleted Galaxy offering made for people that do not have the resources, market, and/or availability to buy powerful smartphones.