Samsung announces its first Android Go smartphone

World’s biggest smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics on Friday announced the Galaxy J2 Core, its first Android Go smartphone.

Android Go uses the same foundation as the standard version of Android, but with several stability and performance tweaks were thrown in to ensure it works on devices with underpowered hardware.

Junho Park, vice president of global product planning and mobile communications at Samsung Electronics, said the handset incorporates some of the key features available on high-end devices that are particularly appealing to first-time owners.

The Galaxy J2 Core, a low-cost handset for first-time smartphone owners features a 5.0-inch TFT LCD screen sporting a resolution of 960 x 540 pixels that’s powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 7570 quad-core SoC. The chip has 1GB of RAM to work with – right in the sweet spot for Android Go – and 8GB of local storage.

A rear-facing 8-megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture lens and flash handles primary photo duties while a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter – also with f/2.2 aperture lens – tackles selfies and video calls.

802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi comes standard, as does Bluetooth 4.2, GPS and USB 2.0 connectivity. A 2,600mAh battery is said to offer “all day” battery life although Samsung didn’t provide any specific figures. The phone will ship running Android Oreo (Go edition).