Samsung Galaxy S7 Review - A thing of beauty!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,975 words · ~9 min read
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My initial reaction to holding the Galaxy S7 in my hand was, "Oh boy,
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another iterative update from a Korean mega
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corporation. How utterly uninteresting." But having spent the last couple of
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weeks using the S7 as my daily driver, I
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can confidently say that there won't be any spoilers here. Roll the intro.
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The Arya headphones from Phoenix come complete with a cardioid clip mic and
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acoustic chambers constructed entirely of Japanese pinewood. Click the link in
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the video description to learn more. As dangerous as this may be to say, in
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my mind, the S7 is about as good as we
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will ever need from a quality of construction standpoint. Which isn't to
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say we don't need an active skew for the people who throw their phones around. I
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mean, sure, with carbon fiber, next generation glass, or other advanced
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materials, slight improvements could be made and will be made to the overall fit
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and finish, but I've never understood, for example, Apple's obsession with
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thinner and lighter just because we can. And apparently, neither does Samsung.
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The S7 is unapologetically thicker and
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heavier than the iPhone 6s and doesn't suffer for it at all. I mean, the extra
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heft to me makes it feel like a premium
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piece of machinery. And frankly, I would make the argument that the extra
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functionality enabled by the thickness increase, the micro SD expansion slot
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that's next to the SIM slot on the top, the much larger 3000 mAh battery, and
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the hardly noticeable bump over the lightning fast 12 megapixel optically
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stabilized camera each individually make up for that size and
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weight increase. And there are other things that I really like about it as
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well. Can I be the first to say? I mean, okay, I'm probably not the first, but
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can I say it anyway that the lock button and volume buttons are great. They're
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not directly opposing each other, so it's easy to press one side without
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mashing on the other side. And they're big and clicky enough that I can feel
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them in my pocket, but not accidentally press them. I mean, I know I've harped
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on this a lot in the past, but it's because it's a major annoyance for me.
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And Samsung has proven now that it's really not that hard, Apple. With that
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said, it's not perfect. Samsung opted for a microB USB port for the bottom
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instead of a type-C port, though this is somewhat more forgivable thanks to the
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S7's inclusion of wireless charging to maintain compatibility with the Gear VR.
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and still hasn't managed to deliver a
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speaker solution that doesn't require me to cup my hands around the bottom of the
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device or plug in the 3 and 1/2 mm jack also found there in order to hear
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anything. Moving around to the front, we've got a 5.1 in
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2560x440 Corning Gorilla Glass 4 topped AMOLED display with a 5 megapixel f1.7
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selfie camera that carries forward the S6's very solid low light performance
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for a front cam and its wide-angle lens. The latter is a big advantage if you're
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trying to get a large group into a shot with you in any sensible venue that's
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banned selfie sticks without getting a wicked case of uh selfie ARM here. But
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the flip side is I'm pretty sure this camera makes my nose look big. In terms
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of inside guts, the S7 represents the best that Samsung can build. And I'll
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explain that asterisk in a moment. So, it's got 4 gigs of LPDDR4 RAM, 32 or 64
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gigs of onboard storage with that micro SD expansion slot I mentioned before.
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Although, by the way, it can only be used as traditional mass storage. No
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adoptable storage in spite of the Android Marshmallow OS. It's rocking
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bajillion sensors, including a barometer and heart rate monitor. fast charging
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for its non- removable 3000 mAh battery,
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a significant capacity bump over the S6, by the way, and support for sexy new
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Wave 2 AC wireless access points with multi-user MIMO, which theoretically
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means lightning fast Wi-Fi like the iPhone 6S, but in practice means still
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fast, but not as fast Wi-Fi. This test was done on a symmetric gigabit internet
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connection. Now to the asterisk. Samsung
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is shipping two versions of the S7. Either with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
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CPU with an Adreno 530 GPU or an Exynos
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8890 CPU with a Mali T880 MP12 GPU
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depending on the region. They are similar in speed, but different chipsets
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may have different quirks when it comes to custom ROM installation or even apps.
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Also notable is the fact that the camera sensor is being dual sourced similarly
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to the S6. So you may get either a Sony
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or a Samsung sensor. Not by region this
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time, but rather it appears to be pure luck of the draw. Which I guess leads us
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pretty well to the camera discussion. I
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love the S7's camera. Sure, it's got
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fewer megapixels than the S6, but they're larger for better lowlight
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performance. And I absolutely love the
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app. It launches nearly instantly with a double tap of the home button, which if
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you're trying to capture the cute antics of kids or pets, is half the battle, and
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autofocuses, then snaps a picture either with the on-creen buttons or with the
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volume buttons, or even a metric whack of them in burst mode. By the way,
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almost as fast. Photo and video capture
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can be started from the same window. Photos taken while recording video are
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again lightning fast and look really good. And unlike the iPhone 6S that I
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was using with my roaming sim on my recent trip to New York while finishing
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up this review, by the way, the S7 lets you under the hood with downloadable and
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rearrangeable camera modes, including a pro mode that allows adjustments to
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white balance, shutter speed, ISO, focus, and even a RAW shooting mode that
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should tickle shutter bugs pink. While there are other phones with great
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cameras out there, it's the usability that makes the S7 such a killer for me.
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And now that all of this extra stuff in
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Samsung's camera app actually works well
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rather than being weird halfbaked add-ons like they always seemed to be in
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the past. I think Apple finally needs to
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respond. Which leads me to my thoughts on general usability and the experience
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of switching to the S7 as my daily driver for the last couple of weeks.
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TouchWiz is in my mind officially a
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non-issue. Whether we're talking about split screen or their integrated phone
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directory service that attempts to help you filter out useless spam, the things
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that it adds no longer hurt the Android
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experience in my eyes. And there isn't
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really much that I care about that they
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take away. Performance of the phone was without fault, and while frequently
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switching between it and the iPhone 6S on my recent trip, I never felt like I
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was missing a beat, which is high praise indeed. Snapdragon 810's thermal issues
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don't seem to have made another appearance here, with the S7 only losing
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about 10% of its performance after 10 minutes of continuous Geekbench 3 CPU
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benchmarks. And it's not quite an A9, but it's still very solid. And the
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screen, while guilty of some oversaturation, managed some fantastic
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usability from nighttime to broad summer
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daylight. If I had to give some feedback to Samsung, I would ask respectfully
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that they give me the choice to use onscreen buttons instead of the hardware
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ones. I find it hard to hold devices with capacitive buttons horizontally. I
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bump back while reaching to the far left of my keyboard when I'm using it
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one-handed. And I often find myself mashing the home button while taking the
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S7 out of my pocket. Remember, the headphone jack is on the bottom. So,
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that's the part of the phone that you're going to have to grab. I'd also love to,
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while I'm giving feedback, have the fingerprint sensor on the lock button
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instead of on the home button. It's amazing. I never realized what a great
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idea this was until I started using the Xperia E5 Compact. I'd like the lock
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button to take me to the notification screen and the home button to take me to
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my main desktop when I have a smart lock Bluetooth device connection. And while
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I'm at it, Motorola's ambient display
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where you can actually interact and preview notifications is much better
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than just being able to see the time, the date, and battery life. But with all
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that feedback in mind, that's it. I made
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it to the end of almost every day with 30% battery or more. And the S7 was such
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a pleasure to use that I found myself browsing more, taking more pictures, and
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taking more videos. And this is without mentioning that Samsung brought back
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waterproofing. So, the S7 is a winner,
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and it's overthrown my previous king, the Z5 Compact, by merit of its much
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faster and better camera. The only thing
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that the Z5 still drives me crazy with
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even after the Marshmallow update. So, there it is. Seven generations in. You
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finally got me, Samsung. You finally got
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me. And you know what else has got me?
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DR, makers of the matte black vinyl skin
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that was featured in the B-roll for the Galaxy S7 throughout this video. and not
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only looks good but also actually in the case of this phone improves the
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functionality of the device because I was reading and watching other people's
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reviews and everyone's going like oh yeah the F7 is so
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slippery yeah not actually if you replace the backing with that matte one
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or with one of the carbon fiber ones of which I actually have two examples here
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this is a limited edition orange one they did a while ago and here is the
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regular black carbon fiber that they usually send us. So, Dbrand skins in a
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nutshell, they're affordable, they're easy to apply, they fit perfectly, and
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they protect your device from incidental scrapes and scratches while making it
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look better. And you're not stuck with matte black or carbon fiber or other
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carbon fiber. You can actually choose any finish you want using their
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configurator. And you can even mix and match if you want something different on
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the front or the back. Or hey, maybe you just want something completely
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psychedelic. They can do that, too. So, check them out at the link in the video
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