Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo review: Size me up

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.

Editing a contact

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.

Assign custom vibration

Telephony with native video calling

The Galaxy Grand Neo 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 dialer

If you have the dual-SIM variant of the Galaxy Grand Neo, you'll get a special dual-SIM interface in the settings menu. This lets you rename your SIM cards for easy identification as well as choose which card to use for establishing mobile data network connections.

The SIM card manager for dual-SIM variants of the Grand Neo

The Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo's loudspeaker earned a score of Good 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	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overal score
Apple iPhone 5	66.8	66.1	67.7	Below Average
HTC Desire X	63.6	61.6	69.6	Below Average
Samsung Galaxy S II Plus	65.7	61.5	66.6	Below Average
Samsung Galaxy S III mini	66.5	63.0	76.0	Average
Sony Xperia V	65.5	61.1	66.2	Average
Sony Xperia go	66.5	66.1	77.9	Good
Samsung Galaxy Express	67.7	66.6	75.7	Good
Samsung Galaxy Grand	74.1	66.2	76.0	Good
Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo	72.1	65.8	73.3	Good
LG Optimus L7	66.7	66.6	75.6	Good
Motorola RAZR XT910	74.7	66.6	82.1	Very Good
HTC Desire	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.

The Grand Neo supports numerous input methods

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.

Customization options • Upsizing the text with the volume rocker

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 Gmail and Email apps offer different benefits

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.

Hangouts