Samsung Galaxy J7 2016 Philippines Price Guesstimate : Plus, Purported Specs and Press Photos

The first generation Samsung Galaxy J7 released last year sold pretty well in the Philippines  -- so I'm sure that many of you would be happy to see the 2016 update to this popular midrange model. Well, here it is.

As you can see in these photos leaked online by Winfuture of Germany, this year's iteration to the Galaxy J7 looks largely identical to its predecessor; Flaunting rounded corners, pillow-like back design, as well as a metallic sheen and rim giving it an air of elegance.

However, if there's a department where the update clearly outshines the older model, it's definitely when it comes to some key technical specifications -- both on the outside and under the hood.

Samsung Galaxy J7 2016 is equipped with a 5.5-inch Full HD SuperAMOLED diplay (vs. just HD on the 2015 release), a 13 MegaPixel autofocus main camera with LED flash, and 5 MegaPixel front cam with Soft LED flash - allowing you to take selfies even in ultra-low-light settings, and a removable 3,300 mAh battery pack (vs. 3,000 mAh on the previous release)

At its heart, Galaxy J7 2016 is expected to run its TouchWiz-flavored Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system with either a 64-Bit Octa-Core Snapdragon 615 or an Exynos 7870 chipset (incorporating eight ARM Cortex A7 cores clocked at 1.7GHz and a Mali-T830 GPU) and to have 3GB of RAM matched with 16GB of ROM that can augmented using the phone's microSD card expansion slot.

In comparison, if you remember, the 2015 version came with a 64-Bit Octa Core 1.6 GHz ARM Cortex A53 and Mali-T720MP2 GPU based Exynos 7580 Chipset, just 1.5GB of RAM, and the same 16GB of expandable storage.

Notice that the handset's metallic side frame now looks a lot like that of Samsung's A-Series Galaxy smartphones.

Dual SIM (two microSIM slots) Dual Standby LTE-Enabled Samsung Galaxy J7 2016 is expected to hit store shelves across the world by late Q2 or early Q3 this year. As for its price tag, I'm guessing that it will be similar to that of Galaxy J7 2015 upon launch, which was in the range of Php 13,000 to Php 14,000.

Update as of June 25, 2016: Samsung Galaxy J7 2016 has just been launched in the Philippines. It has an official suggested retail price of Php 14,990.