Even though Samsung is widely known for its lineup of premium and high-end smartphone devices, the company actually makes a lot of money selling low to midrange products as well, including the Galaxy J series. Since about a year ago, the South Korean electronics giant has been quite successful in its low-end phone venture, thereby prompting a refresh of several devices intended for next year.

One of them is the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017), which recently appeared in benchmarking and certification sites, including Geekbench and the Federal Communications Commission. The phone was first leaked by renowned leakster Evan Blass on his Twitter account.

Per GSM Arena, the Galaxy J3 (2017) isn't really that different in terms of looks when compared to the 2016 model. The only notable changes are the front-facing camera that's been relocated and the rounded corners. On the inside, the specifications seemingly suggest that it will be a midrange offering and not really in the lowest end of Samsung's long list of devices. Proof of this is the use of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 chipset combined with 2 GB of random access memory (RAM). And by the way, the upcoming device is disappointingly running Android 6.0 Marshmallow instead of the Android 7.0 Nougat right out of the box.

The Galaxy J3 was first unveiled and made available last year, and while this new model serves as its successor, Samsung actually introduced an upgraded version in between earlier this year in the form of the Galaxy J3 Pro. This time, even though the changes are minimal, it is expected that the Galaxy J range of low-budget smartphones will click with the masses, which is obviously the reason why Samsung is still updating it. Nonetheless, an octa-core central processing unit and Samsung's ever-convenient TouchWiz user interface will always carry the fight for the company.

Although there is no official release date yet, the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2017) is poised for release early next year.