Introduction
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE crosses no lines to deliver what the company thinks is the right balance between equipment and price. Focus is on a single feature, until recently exclusive to premium smartphones - LTE connectivity.
Samsung Galaxy Core LTE in black
It's a simple gameplan the Galaxy Core LTE is following, like a number of namesake predecessors, to offer strictly the essentials and little more. The original Galaxy Core was quite successful, and warranted a couple of upgrades. We guess most of the credit goes to the dual-SIM version. Less than a year later, the Core lineup is promoted to the LTE league.
Key features
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE; dual-band 3G with HSPA
- 4.5" 16M-color qHD capacitive touchscreen; 244ppi
- Android OS v4.2.2 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz UI
- Dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU
- 1GB of RAM
- 2,100mAh Li-Ion battery
- 5MP autofocus camera with LED flash, 720p video recording @ 30fps, continuous autofocus
- 0.3 MP front-facing camera, VGA video recording
- Wi-Fi b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wireless Hotspot
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- 8GB of built-in storage
- microSD card slot
- microUSB v2.0
- Bluetooth v4.0
- Stereo FM radio
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
Main disadvantages
- Mediocre performance
- Uninspiring screen
- Android version is not up to date
LTE support called for a more robust processing, so a dual-core Cortex A9 CPU and 1GB of RAM promise a speed boost on the newcomer that's not limited to network data.
Samsung Galaxy Core LTE live images
The corner cutting has affected the software package, though, and while the Galaxy Core LTE comes with a newer 4.2 Jelly Bean, it's two generation behind what's currently available elsewhere. OK, that's nothing that can't be fixed with an update later on.
Now, let's begin to find out what the Samsung Galaxy Core LTE can do at this point.
Design
Samsung didn't feel an urge to experiment with the design of the Galaxy Core LTE. The Samsung Galaxy S4 template is pretty much set in stone. The company pulled an identical stunt with the original Galaxy Core, which took after the then incumbent Galaxy S III.The textured matte finish on the back, however, is a welcome break from the high gloss on most entry-level Samsung handsets. Other than that, the design of the Galaxy Core LTE will feel immediately familiar, not to say repetitive.
Familiar design with a matte battery cover
The phone has rounded edges and there's an aluminum-acting plastic frame going all around the front and sides. The front is covered in glass, while the plastic back is removable, letting you replace the battery if needed and allowing access to the memory card slot.
Controls
Interestingly, the Galaxy Core LTE has exactly the same layout of controls as its bigger sibling, the Galaxy Grand Neo. Below the display you get the usual three-button setup of hardware Home button and capacitive Menu and Back keys.
The usual set of keys sit below the display
There are proximity and ambient light sensors next to the earpiece, along with a 1.2MP front-facing camera.
There's an array of sensors in between the earpiece and front-facing camera
The only two buttons on the sides of the device are the volume rocker on the left and power/lock button on the right.
The volume rocker is on the left • power/lock button on the right
Up top is a 3.5mm audio jack, while at the bottom you'll find the microUSB port and microphone pinhole.
The 3.5mm audio jack on top • microUSB port on the bottom
Around back is the 5MP camera along with an LED flash and a loudspeaker grille.
The 5 megapixel camera on the back
Taking the back cover off is a bit of a pain as the tabs, which hold it in place, are a bit overzealous. Underneath, you'll find the removable 2,100mAh battery alongside the SIM and microSD card ports. The latter is hot-swappable.
Battery life
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE packs a 2,100mAh battery, which did surprisingly well in our dedicated battery test, scoring a rating of 62 hours.The Core LTE didn't handle video playback too well but other than that, it was spot on. Couple this with a solid stand-by time and you've got a long-lasting phone in your hands.
Display
The Samsung Galaxy Core is built around a 4.5" PLS display, which is a step up from the first-generation Core's 4.3" TFT unit. The resolution follows suit - up to qHD here from WVGA on the original Core. This results in a pixel density of 245ppi - good enough for the phone's entry-level spot.The display of the Galaxy Core LTE
Compared to the original Core, contrast and brightness are slightly better, but not spectacular. Outdoor visibility, however, is great and you'll have no problems reading the screen in bright sunlight.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| Samsung Galaxy Core LTE | 0.27 | 221 | 828 | 0.68 | 561 | 827 |
| Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo | 0.25 | 209 | 839 | 0.61 | 482 | 786 |
| Samsung I9082 Galaxy Grand | 0.37 | 382 | 1040 | 0.62 | 586 | 948 |
| Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 | 0.22 | 180 | 828 | 0.54 | 472 | 879 |
| LG Nexus 5 | 0.31 | 298 | 948 | 0.54 | 526 | 967 |
| LG G2 | 0.10 | 149 | 1522 | 0.45 | 667 | 1495 |
| LG Optimus G | 0.14 | 197 | 1445 | 0.33 | 417 | 1438 |
| Sony Xperia Z1 | - | - | - | 0.38 | 580 | 1513 |
| Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4 | 0 | 201 | ∞ | 0 | 404 | ∞ |
| HTC One | 0.13 | 205 | 1580 | 0.42 | 647 | 1541 |
| Oppo Find 5 | 0.17 | 176 | 1123 | 0.51 | 565 | 1107 |
Color reproduction isn't too great though. Colors look a bit washed out which may be down to a halfhearted effort at calibrating the display. Viewing the even at under the slightest angle results in poor contrast.
Sunlight legibility comes in about the same - towards the bottom of the chart.
Handling
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE feels solid in the hand. The bump in display size hasn't affected the handling and portability, and the resolution upgrade is welcome.
Handling the Galaxy Core LTE is a delight
The new matte back cover improves grip and gets rid of fingerprints. The all-plastic handset is well put together and the quality of the finish is reasonable.
User interface with TouchWiz
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean skinned with Samsung's TouchWiz Nature UX. The Android version is two generations old now, and while that's not a deal-breakŠµr for an entry-level handset, we can't help but wished for better treatment from a brand new smartphone.The good news is that even without the KitKat optimizations, the Galaxy Core LTE manages to run the user interface and most Android applications without much stuttering, thanks to the sub 720p display resolution.
We've shot a quick video showing off the user interface to give you a feel of what it's like.
The lockscreen has multiple panes, each containing one widget. The page to the right of the default one is special and can either be a list of favorite apps (the default TouchWiz setting) or a shortcut for the camera (as in unskinned Android).
The homescreen is identical to what you get on most Samsung devices since the Jelly Bean release. You can move between multiple panes with left or right swipes.
Galaxy Core LTE homescreen
Swiping down from the top bar reveals the notification area, where you'll see five toggles at the top, which are used to quickly enable and disable some of the phone's features. You can reveal more by swiping left, or simply display a full list.
A two finger swipe down on the notification banner directly opens the grid of toggles, and holding down on a toggle will directly take you to the relevant setting. Otherwise, swipe left or right to quickly dismiss a notification, or tap it for more information.
The notification area with quick toggles
You can pinch zoom to get into the overview mode of all homescreen panes, where you can have as many as 7.
Dragging an app or widget onto a homescreen is made easier thanks to the small thumbnails that show up with silhouettes of how they're populated. This gives you an at-a-glance look at how much room you have to work with on each homescreen.
The app drawer can be sorted as a customizable grid, alphabetized grid or list and some shortcuts can be hidden - good for bloatware you can't uninstall.
The App switcher (accessed by holding down the home button) shows a list of thumbnails of all the recent apps, which can be swiped away to dismiss. There are three buttons at the bottom: Task manager, Google Now and Kill all apps.
As usual Google Now is here to let you use voice commands and integrates with your Google account to provide all sorts of information from internet searches to your daily routine, localized traffic, and current weather conditions.
Samsung devices also come with the included S Voice voice assistant. While Google Now focuses on more search related and organizational activities, S Voice allows you to control your phone directly. You can call, text, launch apps, control music, change sound settings and much more.
Phonebook
The full-featured phonebook is divided into sections that are straightforward and easy to navigate. A call or a message to someone can be initiated directly from the contact list with a right and left swipe respectively, which is really handy on the go and is currently a proprietary Samsung feature.
The phonebook has swipe options for quick dialing/texting
If the phone book finds duplicate contact entries, it'll prompt you to join them. Furthermore, you can view the call history, as well as join, unjoin and share contacts.
There's plenty of contact information you can assign to each contact and it still remains neatly organized.
You can choose a specific vibration pattern as an incoming call alert for each of your contacts, just like you would a ringtone. A set of predefined patterns is offered, but you can make your own too.
The Galaxy Core LTE has great earpiece volume and Samsung has even gone as far as adding an in-call equalizer, which does wonders if you want an even louder experience. Native video calls are available right in the phone app, and Smart Dial works like a charm.
Direct Call is available too and lets you dial a number by lifting the phone up to your ear while browsing contacts or reading/composing a message.
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE's loudspeaker earned a Good score in our dedicated loudspeaker test, which means that you shouldn't have a hard time hearing notifications in all but the loudest of environments. You can find more about the testing process here.
| Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing | Overal score | |
| Apple iPhone 5 | 66.8 | 66.1 | 67.7 | Below Average |
| HTC Desire X | 63.6 | 61.6 | 69.6 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S II Plus | 65.7 | 61.5 | 66.6 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S III mini | 66.5 | 63.0 | 76.0 | |
| Sony Xperia V | 65.5 | 61.1 | 66.2 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Core LTE | 71.2 | 66.8 | 75.7 | |
| Sony Xperia go | 66.5 | 66.1 | 77.9 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Express | 67.7 | 66.6 | 75.7 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Grand | 74.1 | 66.2 | 76.0 | |
| Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo | 72.1 | 65.8 | 73.3 | |
| LG Optimus L7 | 66.7 | 66.6 | 75.6 | |
| Motorola RAZR XT910 | 74.7 | 66.6 | 82.1 | Very Good |
| 76.6 | 75.7 | 84.6 | Excellent |
Great messaging capabilities
Thanks to its organized threaded view, the messaging department is quite straightforward. It features the same quick swipe gestures found in the phonebook, although they likely won't be used as much here.
Swiping gestures
Thanks to the larger screen, typing is easier than on smaller droids, Samsung or otherwise. Swype-inspired finger tracking is also present, but has limited language support.
Additional input methods include a regular handwriting and Google's voice input, which can work even offline if you've downloaded the required language files.
Adding any multimedia content to the message, like photos or video, automatically turns it into an MMS.
You can customize your speech bubble patterns and background, and use the volume keys to increase or decrease the font in conversations.
The Gmail app includes the four inbox options (Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates) that Google recently introduced in their online interface. Samsung's own Email app is similar to Google's, except that it can handle multiple POP or IMAP inboxes, which is useful for when you want to keep track of multiple accounts from one place.
The Hangouts app is Google's attempt at creating a one-stop shop for all of your IM needs. The app offers group video chats, emojis, photo exchange, history sync across multiple devices, and can even be integrated to handle your SMS conversations as well.
Feature-rich gallery
When viewing an album's contents, a right swipe will reveal a bar that lets you browse images in split-screen mode. You can also use a pinch gesture to adjust the size of the thumbnails.The gallery naturally supports full-res images which results in a pleasant viewing experience thanks to the ample screen and sharp colors. There's even an Adobe RGB screen more for even more accurate color rendering.
You can easily edit photos right in the Gallery itself. The photo editor gives you options like crop, rotate, color and effects, and even lets you write a note over the picture.
The Gallery supports slideshows too, with several transition effects to choose from and customizable music and speed.
TouchWiz music player
The TouchWiz music player is jam-packed with features and supports a wide variety of file formats, including .FLAC, .WAV, etc.Music is sorted by the usual Artist, Album, Playlist, etc. but there's also Folder support that's quite handy as it saves you the need to sort songs into playlists like on so many other players. It can also search for content on other devices like PCs on the same network via its DLNA functionality.
Samsung has enabled equalizer presets (including a custom one with 7 bands) along with sound-enhancing SoundAlive technology from its MP3 and Android-powered media players, which features 7.1 channel virtualization.
There's also a Music square feature that's is quite similar to Sony's SensMe. It automatically rates a song as exciting or calm, passionate or joyful and lets you build playlists based on mood rating.
SoundAlive equalizer and Music Square options
While listening to a song you can find music controls in the notification area and the lockscreen.
The Galaxy Core LTE comes equipped with an FM Radio with RDS. The interface is simple - there's a tuning dial and you can save as many as 12 stations as favorites. You can also play on the loudspeaker, but the headset is still needed as it acts as the antenna. You can record radio broadcasts as well.
Decent video player, but no DivX or AC3 codec support
The video player on the Samsung Galaxy Core LTE features a thumbnail view by default, which on more advanced Samsung phones would be animated but on the Core LTE are static.
Extensive subtitle options
Besides being able to choose between three crop modes for how the video fits the screen, you can also adjust the brightness, color tone and enable outdoor visibility mode.
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE offered a list of subtitles and let us pick. It scans all available subtitle files, so the file doesn't even have to have the same name as the video file as before.
The video player is capable enough outside the glaring omission of the DivX video codec support and the AC3 audio codec support, both of which are subject to license fees so we guess they were scrapped out of economical reasoning.
Nicely clean audio output
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE did quite well in our audio quality test. It produced excellent scores when plugged into an active external amplifier and only let its stereo quality slide when we plugged in a pair of headphones.The frequency response was faultless, the signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range were great too and there was no detectable distortion. The only downside to the Galaxy Core LTE performance were its rather low volume levels.
Not everyone listens to music at maximum volume so this might or might not matter to you, but it prevents us from giving a perfect overall score to this one. Well that and the fairly high stereo crosstalk when you plug in a pair of headphones.
And here go the results so you can see for yourselves.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| Samsung Galaxy Core LTE | +0.02, -0.04 | -90.3 | 88.9 | 0.0030 | 0.040 | -85.4 |
| Samsung Galaxy Core LTE (headphones attached) | +0.06, -0.02 | -89.0 | 89.3 | 0.0078 | 0.047 | -48.3 |
| Nokia Lumia 625 | +0.13, -0.10 | -90.3 | 90.3 | 0.013 | 0.355 | -82.5 |
| Nokia Lumia 625 (headphones attached) | +0.24, -0.00 | -90.2 | 90.2 | 0.014 | 0.460 | -83.8 |
| Motorola Moto G | +0.08, -0.85 | -92.1 | 91.9 | 0.0059 | 0.082 | -91.4 |
| Motorola Moto G (headphones attached) | +0.10, -1.03 | -92.0 | 91.8 | 0.010 | 0.117 | -50.4 |
| HTC One mini | +0.14, -0.12 | -94.4 | 94.0 | 0.015 | 0.013 | -87.9 |
| HTC One mini(headphones attached) | +0.83, -0.58 | -94.5 | 94.1 | 0.021 | 0.034 | -77.9 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 mini | +0.06, -0.05 | -93.5 | 92.7 | 0.0090 | 0.056 | -86.2 |
| Samsung Galaxy S4 mini (headphones attached) | +0.08, -0.04 | -93.2 | 91.8 | 0.029 | 0.089 | -53.3 |
Mediocre 5MP camera
When Samsung announced the Galaxy Core LTE it mentioned it features a 5MP main shooter, capable of recording 1080p video @ 30fps. However, our test unit was only capable of shooting 720p video, so either there was an error in the press materials or there are some variance in the units. Anyway, the primary camera is backed up by a 0.3MP (VGA) front-facer.The viewfinder handles both still and video capture, so you don't have to switch modes. However, this leads to a problem - if you're shooting full resolution 5MP photos, you'll have to frame your videos using a 4:3 viewfinder.
The Galaxy Core LTE camera UI
Let's go over the different modes. There are standard modes like Panorama, Night, and Sports. Panoramas are nice; they do a full 360-degree circle, but the resolution is not that impressive.
Sound & shot captures a photo and records ambient sound. It sounds pretty cool - for example, you can hear the sea gulls in a beach photo or the roar of car engines at a race.
The photos the Galaxy Core LTE takes tend to have dull colors and not enough contrast. Detail is okay and noise is kept under control.The white balance is a tad off, but not too bad.
Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE ticks all the checkboxes in terms of connectivity. There's quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dual-band 3G. Naturally, LTE is also on board but exact band support hasn't been disclosed yet.The Galaxy Core LTE uses Bluetooth 4.0 alongside Wi-Fi support which includes b/g/n with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz band compatibility. There's also NFC on board, which is a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, there is no USB On-the-go functionality that would have allowed connecting USB peripherals to the Core LTE.
Samsung Link (previously known as AllShare Play) is another proprietary service offered by Samsung. Once you download the dedicated app, it automatically syncs all the multimedia content on your device to a cloud storage service of your choice (Sugarsync, Box.Net, Dropbox, or Skydrive). This way your content is not only securely backed up, but it's also available for instant watching/listening on your other Samsung devices (and even your Samsung SmartTV). They are available of course on all your other computers and devices that have access to these cloud storage services.
Thanks to Samsung's AllShare feature you can also mirror your mobile device screen to your HDTV via Wi-Fi Direct and the widely supported Miracast protocol - that would even allow you to play mobile games on the biggest screen in your living room. You don't need to have a Samsung TV for that to work, but it needs to have Wi-Fi connectivity and support Miracast.
Stock Android browser with Google Chrome also on board
The Samsung Galaxy Core LTE comes with the stock Jelly Bean edition and Google Chrome. Both are very similar in terms of functionality, and Samsung will likely choose one over the other with a future OS update.The browsers support both double tap and pinch zooming along with the two-finger tilt zoom. There are niceties such as multiple tabs, text reflow, find on page and so on. A neat trick is to pinch zoom out beyond the minimum - that opens up the tabs view. Chrome has the added benefit of cross-platform sync capabilities that allow you to retrieve open tabs from desktop sessions, for instance, but doesn't have Labs support for test features.
Apps and more
While it doesn't have all of the extra apps Samsung throws into their flagships, the Samsung Galaxy Core LTE does have a few nifty applications that help it stand out from other smartphones.S Translator can translate between two languages using either typed text or speech recognition. It supports many widely-spoken languages - English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean - and can read out the resulting translation too if you don't think your accent can cut it.
The S Planner fills the role of your calendar app, and automatically
syncs with Google Calendar based on the Google account you use in
Android.
The My Files app is unique to Samsung devices and offers all you need
in a file explorer: multiple selection, cut, copy, paste, create
folders, etc. This saves you the trouble of having to download a
third-party file manager from the App Store.
The Galaxy Grand Neo comes with Google Maps and Navigation. The app
offers much of the same functionality as its web-based counterpart,
although you will need a data connection to take full advantage of the
navigation features. Street view mode with digital compass enabled is an
especially cool trick.
Google Maps with street view
Samsung Apps features largely the same type of interface as Google Play, except here you'll find far fewer apps. The good news is Samsung uses this repository to distribute some exclusive apps to Galaxy owners, and you can find some apps that don't come preloaded on the device like the capable Polaris Office editor for documents.
Conclusion
The original Galaxy Core had its own little squad in what seemed like no time. A Plus model was released soon after the first one, and the Galaxy Core Advance came in a few months later.The latter has the biggest screen in the lineup at 4.7" but it's the Galaxy Core LTE that brings the most meaningful upgrades: qHD screen resolution and, of course, 4G data speeds.
Anyway, the overall package follows the original recipe quite closely with a dual-core ARM processor, 5MP stills and Android Jelly Bean. The couple of Cortex A9 cores in the Galaxy Core LTE cannot quite match the productivity of more recent CPUs nor are they as power efficient, but Samsung's optimizations have helped squeeze solid battery life. The Core LTE manages the endurance rating of a flagship, which isn't very common in the midrange.
The focal feature is LTE and it's probably one of the cheapest 4G-enabled options in the market. This makes the Galaxy Core LTE an important one for Samsung, far above its otherwise entry-level standing. Even more so, considering the Galaxy Core LTE will face fierce competition from both the Android and Windows Phone camps.
LG have had a solid lineup of reasonably-priced LTE-enabled phones for a while now in the F-series, where the F6 stands out as the perfect match for the Galaxy Core LTE. With the screen size and resolution exactly the same, the LG Optimus F6 has a Snapdragon chipset and slightly bigger battery, while the Galaxy Core LTE is running a more recent Android release.
The Optimus F5 and F7 are other options to consider of course, if you don't thing the screen size and resolution are ideal. The F7 takes the resolution to 720p on a 4.7" diagonal and that's still more pixels per inch than the Core LTE has on 4.5".
LG Optimus F6 • LG Optimus F5 P875 • LG Optimus F7
Well, the Galaxy Core LTE may be outnumbered by the F-series but not alone - the Ace 3 isn't an option to frown at. Not at its current price at least.
Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
Speaking of which, the Galaxy Core LTE's initial price tag isn't set in stone - in a few weeks' time it's likely to go down. And it should if Samsung are taking the likes of the Motorola Moto G seriously. A 720p screen, quad-core Snapdragon 400 and the latest Android version are the right kind of features to help people live without LTE. The excellent build quality and water-proofing thanks to the nano-coated internals are worth noting too. And that price.
Motorola Moto G
If 4G is an absolute must though, the HTC Desire 601 and the Sony Xperia SP are not to be overlooked either. The HTC phone is a pretty close match, while the Xperia SP, even if slightly more expensive, is a great value-for-money proposition with a 720p screen, 8MP camera and excellent build.
Sony Xperia SP • HTC Desire 601
Over at the Windows Phone camp, the Nokia Lumia 625 packs a slightly larger 4.7" display of WVGA resolution, which isn't too impressive. The handset is quite big and heavy too, at nearly 160 grams. The Lumia 625's chipset is more potent that what the Core LTE has, the price tag of the Nokia smartphone is hard to beat and, yes, it also supports 4G.
Nokia Lumia 625
All in all, 4G data speeds is what defines the Samsung Galaxy Core LTE - and it tries to position itself as one of the cheaper options to have it. It comes across as very much a carrier's kind of phone - telecoms will certainly want LTE-enabled handsets that cover every price range. If you ever need to make up your mind, the great battery life and reasonably good screen are definite points in favor. We've just looked at a couple of alternatives, though, that can deliver a louder bang for your buck.
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