Samsung Galaxy S7 Review - Review 2022

Think of it as the Milky way S6...South. The Samsung Galaxy S7 ($672 for 32GB as tested on Verizon Wireless; $699.99 unlocked) looks so much like the Galaxy S6 that yous'd exist excused for thinking it'southward non a major upgrade. Rather than reinvent the design like it did last yr, Samsung has focused on performance improvements in the S7, restoring crowd-pleasing features that were missing from the S6 (like a microSD slot) and boosting battery life. It'due south the best Android phone available in a truly one-handed class gene. That said, we're giving our Editors' Selection to the very similar Galaxy S7 Edge, which has more functionality and better bombardment life in a package that'southward not much bigger.

Size and Design
In that location'southward been a lot of talk over the concluding year nigh how smartphones are getting tiresome—essentially, how they've plateaued in terms of changing our lives. I think the industry is just taking a jiff before information technology goes crazy with virtual and augmented reality, which nosotros've started to run across with Samsung'southward Gear VR.

But smartphones are still our about personal computers. They're our e'er-ready cameras with which we record our lives. They're our cloud-based brains that Waze us around town or Google the answers to pressing questions. They're our connections to our friends and family, via Facebook, or text message, or old-fashioned phone calls. They're essential, used hundreds of times a solar day, and fifty-fifty an incremental improvement in how they work is notwithstanding an improvement in our lives.

Here's an incremental comeback, for instance. As someone who uses my phone on the subway a lot, I've been raging for years almost phone size bloat—how smartphones are getting wider and wider, making them harder to utilize with one mitt. I'g happy to say that the ii.74-inch S7 is actually narrower than the S6 (two.78 inches), making it the same width equally the HTC Ane M9, and narrower than any other high-terminate Android phone I can recollect of. That will make the S7 the go-to device for anyone who thinks that high-terminate phones are just as well large.

The Galaxy S7's AMOLED screen is the aforementioned size (5.1 inches) and resolution (ii,560 by 1440) as the S6's screen, just as Dr. Ray Soneira of DisplayMate Labs points out in a detailed report, Samsung amped up the brightness quite a lot. The S6 already had an excellent, highly visible screen; the S7 is even ameliorate. Both phones put the iPhone 6s to shame.

Samsung has returned waterproofing to the Galaxy S7, without the need for the irritating port cover from the Galaxy S5. This time, it'southward using a h2o-repellent blanket inside the device. I washed and dried the phone, and even spilled hot coffee on it, with no issues. The phone is rated IP68, which means information technology's fully submersible and dustproof.

From left to right: Samsung Galaxy S7 Border, Samsung Milky way S6, Samsung Milky way S7, Apple iPhone 6s

But yes, otherwise, the S7 looks a lot like the S6, although its slightly more rounded back is just a touch thicker, to allow for a bigger battery. The bigger battery, in turn, gives the phone less of a protruding photographic camera bump on the rear. At 5.36 ounces, information technology'south heavier, as well (the S6 is 4.87 ounces). But it's still a metal-and-glass unibody design, coming in blackness or aureate, with a physical Home push button that functions every bit a fingerprint sensor below the brandish. The sensor is the same equally the one in the S6; very practiced, but information technology'll miss an off-center touch. The phone also still uses traditional micro USB, not USB-C, for charging and accessories.

While the phone is most the same size as the Galaxy S6, many existing Galaxy S6 cases just barely won't work on the Galaxy S7. It'due south a real compassion. When I slotted the S7 into an S6 case, I constitute the headphone jack was moved slightly to the right, and then the pigsty for the jack on the case was in the wrong place.

Telephone and Network Functioning
Qualcomm is dorsum. Concluding year was a bad i for the leading scrap manufacturer, during which it put out some decent processors and one existent disappointment, the Snapdragon 810. Well, the Snapdragon 820 is no 810. Information technology has the finest modem in the business, and what'south looking like highly competitive app performance.

The Snapdragon 820'south X12 modem supports LTE download speeds up to 600Mbps and uploads upwards to 150Mbps, using technologies that help with every carrier. 4x4 MIMO will brand for faster speeds on T-Mobile and Verizon while 3x20 carrier aggregation becomes important on Sprint.

I couldn't perform whatsoever tests that pushed the limits of LTE performance, but I could check Wi-Fi and weak signal weather condition. The phone had no problem with a 150Mbps symmetrical Wi-Fi connexion. On Verizon's network, the S7 did a better job holding onto LTE in poor indicate weather than the iPhone 6s, pulling out better information rates. My outset twenty-four hour period with the phone, I saw some odd behavior involving the phone not recovering or trading up to 4G LTE from dead zones, but that seemed to sort itself out after a few days.

The telephone supports vocalisation-over-LTE (VoLTE) and Wi-Fi calling. The unlocked model supports all US carriers, even Verizon and Sprint. If you lot buy a model straight from a carrier, it volition exclude certain frequency bands for each of the other iii carriers. The phone will work on other carriers, just not as well as that carrier'due south model or the unlocked unit. And then if you lot buy a carrier unit of measurement, information technology's best to treat information technology equally a phone exclusively for that carrier. If you want to move it around, get the unlocked model. (We have tested the Galaxy S7 on Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile.)

Telephone call quality is fine, simply I wish information technology was a piddling better. The earpiece is enough loud, and there's no distortion; that's non the problem. And dissonance cancellation is splendid. I doubtable the issue is just Verizon's voice codecs. With standard calling, voices sound a bit harsh with a trebly dial. On VoLTE, you get a more balanced sound without the harshness, but information technology's not Hard disk drive-level precise unless you're calling another phone on your carrier.

Battery life on the sealed-in 3,000mAh prison cell is noticeably ameliorate than on the S6. I did more battery tests than usual on this phone, because the Galaxy S6 had an annoying habit of draining its bombardment really chop-chop in standby mode. Unfortunately, this beliefs tended to appear just subsequently a month or two, and I haven't had the S7 for a calendar month or ii. But early signs are promising. The S7 got ix hours in our video streaming rundown, as compared with seven hours, 13 minutes for the S6. In standby mode without heavy CPU usage, the S7 tuckered 11 percent of its bombardment in eight hours. Not bad. Intense usage killed it in about 6.five hours, which isn't too bad either.

The telephone supports both fast charging and dual-standard wireless charging. Using the included fast charger, nosotros got the phone from cypher to fully charged in around 90 minutes.

Android Performance
The Galaxy S7 runs Android vi.0.1 Marshmallow with Samsung's peel over it, on a 2.15GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. Information technology'south the first of several Snapdragon 820 phones we'll see this year, most notably, the LG G5 will join information technology very shortly.

The Snapdragon 820 benchmarks faster than any other chip we've seen in an Android phone. With Geekbench scores of ii,333 single-core and 5,330 multi-core, it beats the Galaxy S6 (1,440 unmarried/4,811 multi) and the Galaxy Note 5 (1,472 single/five,020 multi) handily. GPU operation is besides ameliorate, taking the GFXBench Manhattan test from 15 frames per second (fps) on the previous generation, to 25fps hither.

Now, whether it'due south faster than the iPhone is another question. The iPhone 6s however benchmarks faster in single-core mode than the Snapdragon 820 does, with a Geekbench score of 2,475, and information technology does much better with on-screen graphics frame rates because of its much lower resolution screen. The question of whether unmarried-core functioning or multi-cadre performance matters more is still intensely debated in programming circles.

What really matters is how the phone performs in practice. I like to use the controls of Asphalt 8 to bank check for responsiveness, and the S7 is as smoothen as butter—every bit you'd expect. Apps launch rapidly and in that location's no lag. The S7, similar the by two generations of Galaxy phones, likewise has dual-window or popular-up multitasking.

Samsung has, once over again, tried to lighten the burden of its Android skin. While the icons are still all restyled, Samsung ditched its Conference screen to the left of the main home screen. It has besides resisted the current, horrid trend to get rid of the app drawer in favor of a more iPhone-like interface.

One likable customization is the always-on screen, which floats the time, appointment, battery status, and basic notification information on the screen at all times; you tin can swap it out for a calendar or one of a few preset images. The always-on screen information is convenient, and doesn't appear to eat much battery. And you can always turn information technology off if information technology's not for you.

But there are a ton of bloatware applications, consuming a total of 9.17GB on our Verizon device. As Verizon simply sells a 32GB model, that'south pretty crude. And bloatware apps can't be deleted or moved to SD cards. The other carrier versions were too loaded up with bloatware.

The bloatware load is at least somewhat alleviated by the phone'due south microSD menu support. The microSD carte du jour pops into the SIM card slot, above the SIM card, and the phone supports cards up to the current maximum 200GB card SanDisk offers. Samsung disabled Google's Adoptable Storage characteristic, which makes the memory card look like internal memory to the system, so you lot even so have to motility apps back and forth from the Application Settings screen. You can move downloaded apps to the SD card, but not congenital-in apps.

Samsung Gear VR
Many people who order the Galaxy S7 will get a costless Gear VR headset with it every bit a promotion, so I took a spin with the S7 within of i to encounter how it went.

My colleague Volition Greenwald really liked the Gear VR when he reviewed it with the Galaxy S6, and I spent some time with VR porn in a Gear VR at CES earlier this twelvemonth. Spending some time with the S7 watching music, pic, gaming, and, yes, adult content, I plant that it didn't overheat (unlike in Will's feel, so that'southward a plus), merely too that I've become spoiled past more than powerful PC-based VR experiences like on the HTC Vive. The Snapdragon 820 processor makes for perfectly smooth motion with no lag, but the content in Samsung's MilkVR app is disappointing in terms of resolution: as I watched movies and music videos, I could see the pixels in a distracting way.

For people that wear glasses like me, the Gear VR has another annoying flaw: you can't change the focus of the two lenses independently, so I go a lot of double vision. I'grand interested to see if I get a better experience from LG'southward upcoming 360 VR headset.

That said, there's probably more content for the Gear VR than there is for any other headset, and its ability to let you watch your not-VR movies in a virtual big-screen format can be worth the cost of admission alone—specially if it's free.

Photos and Video
The Galaxy S7's camera isn't much improve than the S6's, but that's fine. The S6 has a terrific camera, and the S7 has a faster focus lock. Samsung'southward new promises mostly accept to do with low light.

Samsung replaced the Galaxy S6's xvi-megapixel photographic camera with a 12-megapixel shooter with larger pixels, to improve low-lite performance. It also increased the number of focus pixels, to speed up focus in low lite. The latter function works: There'due south none of the pulsing you see on the S6 every bit the camera struggles to observe focus. The S7 is besides better at white residue than the S6, making my skin wait orange less often.

The low-light improvements are minor at best. In one of my several depression-light tests, the S7 took a much brighter paradigm than the S6 did. But I didn't find that in other tests, and whether my paw was shaky mattered far more than anything else. Both the S6 and the S7 cameras outperform the iPhone 6s, though, with sharper and less noisy images.

The 5-megapixel front end camera is too very skilful, simply a pocket-sized comeback over the S6. More often than not images are a footling less noisy. The bigger improvement for selfies comes in the addition of a Selfie Flash mode, which lights upwards the screen when yous're taking a shot in the dark.

Video at present records at up to 4K resolution at 30 frames per 2d on the main camera, and 1080p on the front camera. Video recording is excellent, and maintained 30 frames per second even in very dim atmospheric condition.

In terms of sound and video playback, the Snapdragon 820 can handle any content you can throw at it. There's no cabled mode to attach the S7 to a big screen anymore, though; you need to utilise wireless screencasting.

Conclusions
The Samsung Galaxy S7 is a no-compromise luxury phone, and the summit of the Android lineup. It's as well pretty conventional. In that location's nil crazy here similar the LG G5'south dual cameras or modular build, but a skilful-looking, powerful smartphone that refines the performance of last year's model. The S7 is also the smallest flagship Android phone out there. It destroys every other Android device in its size class.

But it'due south difficult to argue for the S7 as a $672 upgrade from last year's $650 S6, merely because the changes are pretty incremental. Possibly if you're paranoid near spills information technology's worth the peace of mind. If yous've been belongings onto an earlier Samsung Android phone on Verizon, though, and you're looking for a small only powerful device, now would be the time to upgrade.

The S7'south hardware is meliorate in almost every mode than the iPhone's. And however I can't unequivocally recommend it instead of an iPhone, because of the apps and services that are exclusive to Apple tree phones. If you're a big mobile gamer, desire to put your phone on a professional camera mountain, or want to use FaceTime, well, no S7 for you lot. Yous're locked into Apple'due south globe.

The S7 sets the bar for this year's smartphones, much similar the S6 did last year. LG plans to come across that bar and add innovative features, at the cost of a slightly wider design, and one that I doubtable will have slightly shorter battery life. HTC will likely endeavour to outdo Samsung with an all-metal design and more tasteful icons. There will also be plenty of competitive larger phones, starting with the Galaxy S7 Edge, which takes our Editors' Selection honors cheers to its longer battery life and innovative edge functionality. Merely if you're looking for a spill-proof, single-paw-operation 4G smartphone with a terrific camera, the Samsung Galaxy S7 fits the bill better than anything else on the marketplace.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/smartphones/10900/samsung-galaxy-s7-review

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