14 DAY TRIAL // If you missed seeing Samsung unveil a new smartphone, today the wait has come to an end, as the Korean tech giant has just launched a new terminal in Japan. The model arrives in the wild as the Galaxy Active Neo, and as the naming scheme suggests, it’s a rugged but budget-friendly device.
Since we said budget, you shouldn’t be expecting the device to feature stellar specs, but cover just the bear minimum you need to be getting through the day. The phone comes with a TFT LCD 4.5-inch display featuring 800 x 480 pixel resolution and utilizes a Snapdragon 410 SoC to keep life pumping underneath the hood.
The Galaxy Active Neo takes advantage of 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, but if that’s not enough for you, you’ll be able to further expand up to 128GB via microSDXC card. Other features include an 8MP primary camera plus a 2MP frontal, selfie-snapping one, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC and LTE.
The Galaxy Active Neo has some features the Galaxy S6 lacks
The Galaxy Active Neo draws life from a removable 2,200mAh battery, another feature besides the microSD card slot that will make a lot of Samsung fans happy.
Samsung sacrificed form for function this year, so the company’s premium Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ don’t take advantage of a microSD card slot or a removable battery.
But that’s not the only thing that makes the Galaxy Active Neo attractive. Given the “Active” reference in its title, you’ve probably figured it out by now that the phone is dust and waterproof and can be dropped on concrete from heights up to 1.5m without sustaining any real damage.
The operating system running on board is Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, and there are very slim chances the phone will receive Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which launched the other day.
The device will be available for purchase from Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo starting early November, and customers will be able to purchase one model for the affordable price $166 / €149 (we’re not sure it’s not a translation mistake, as the price seems way too low for a rugged device such as this).
