Galaxy Grand Neo launched for Rs 18,450: Can Samsung's mid-ranger overcome the Moto G?

At the Samsung Forum 2014, the company has launched its mid-range Galaxy Grand Neo for Rs 18,450. The latest in Samsung’s Grand series comes with an almost similar specs sheet to the Galaxy Grand 2, and is effectively a toned-down version of the latter.   The Neo comes fitted with a 5-inch TFT display, and a disappointing 480 x 800 pixels of resolution, **as rumoured earlier** .  Under the hood, the device will be powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core A7 processor with 1GB of RAM, similar to the one found in the Grand 2. However thanks to the display size, we can safely say that the Grand Neo is a refresh to the departing Galaxy Grand, which had a dual-core processor.   The device gets a 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a VGA front-facing camera. It has 8GB of internal memory, which is further expandable via a microSD card slot. It runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean version of the OS. The connectivity options include HSPA+ (21Mbps down, 5.76Mbps up), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct,  Bluetooth 4.0, micro USB, GPS and GLONASS. There is no word on a 4G variant of the device yet. All of this will be fuelled by a 2100mAh battery.   Samsung has also teamed up with Vodafone in India for an introductory offer that allows users to avail of 1GB of data per month for a period of two months. However, the offer is valid only till May 31.   While the **Galaxy Grand 2** can be considered the major upgrade over the erstwhile Grand, the Neo is a minor refresh that bumps up the processor while not increasing the price point considerably. It’ll be interesting to see how much of a marketing push the Neo gets, especially seeing as it is more expensive than the **Moto G** , yet has far inferior specs. As things stand, there’s very little going for the Grand Neo to recommend it over similarly-priced phones. Si it does seem like Samsung has slipped when it comes to the budget segment this time around.