This is the phone to beat.....
The Good Polished design. Awesome camera. Long battery life. microSD storage slot and water-resistant (again!).
The Bad Annoyingly
reflective. Smudge magnet. Plastic-looking selfies even with no filter.
No removable battery, which isn't surprising, but is still a compromise
compared to 2014's S5.
The Bottom Line The fast, powerful, beautiful Galaxy S7 phone is 2016's all-around phone to beat.
Pros
- Stunning looks
- Great camera experience
- microSD slot and IP68 water resistance
- Glorious display
Cons
- Fingerprint magnet
- TouchWiz still has some quirks
- Poor speakers
Key Features
- 5.1-inch, quad-HD display
- 3,000mAh battery
- 12MP camera
- Fast and wireless charging
- MicroSD
- Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow
- 4GB RAM
- 5MP selfie camera
- Exynos 8890 processor
- Manufacturer: Samsung
- Review Price: £569.00
What is the Samsung Galaxy S7?
A seemingly iterative update to an already great phone might seem a bit dull. Can a few alterations here and there really make that much of a difference?In the case of the Samsung Galaxy S7, it’s a resounding yes. 2015’s Galaxy S6 was ace, but the latest flagship from the Korean company is even better.
It looks sleeker than the iPhone 6S, has a better camera than the Nexus 6P and boasts a screen that leaves all the competition in the dust. It’s the most complete phone I’ve ever used.
Perfect for pockets, but smudgy as hell
I began my testing on London's crowded, bagpipe-festooned bridges and streets. Since I constantly mashed the S7 into my jeans and jacket pockets only to retrieve it again for a weather check, photo, digital payment or to navigate around, its approachable size was a much better fit for me than a larger phone. "Medium" by today's bonkers standards, it has a 5.1-inch screen.Throughout all this nonstop handling, the S7's curved back and sides made it comfortable to hold, and the one time I dropped it it didn't dent or break. That was only a few feet off the floor inside a pub, mind you -- I'm sure it'd sustain more damage if it had clattered onto pavement.
I spent a good, long time staring at the S7. That curve-back design I mentioned and some very slight rounding on the edges around the display are damn nice, giving the phone a far more luxe and contoured appearance than most, including last year's ramrod-straight Galaxy S6. In fact, look closely at the details and you can see that this S7 is built better than previous Galaxy phones.
One downside to the S7's shiny metal-and-glass backing is that smudges pile up on smudges, leaving a semi-permanent sheen of finger grease all over your expensive property. It's gross, and a pain to constantly clean, which always fails anyway. But like all beautiful phones, you're bound to slap a case on it anyway, so it's almost a moot point -- just not an excuse.
Camera, camera, camera!
I took a boatload of photos in London while testing the phone, but when my sister and I went to Berlin for the weekend, all hell broke loose. Every pastry and pretzel, imposing museum, graceful river crossing; every glorious kebab and lip-smacking beer became an opportunity for dutiful documentation.What was confirmed again and again is that crisp photos from the 12-megapixel camera countered low-light interference in every darkened cocktail bar, moodily lit restaurant and dusk-dimmed park. Although this camera has fewer megapixels than last year's S6, it takes better photos. Scenes are brighter, which makes the action easier to see.
Even in low-light scenes, such as a Berlin speakeasy, the S7 trumps the iPhone 6S, yielding brighter, more usable photos. Digital noise was still there, just diminished; those small speckles of color that infiltrate the picture are an inevitability in low-light digital camera shots.
Photos didn't just look great on the S7's sharp screen; they also stood up to enlarged views on my laptop and an even larger monitor back in London.
I'm still less sure of the 5-megapixel front-facing camera, which now has even more "beautification" filters than before. I never liked these, even though I'm vain enough that I don't want to see every line and wrinkle. To me, they make skin appear plastic and dull; maybe the uncanny valley of too-perfect skin, but I know plenty of people who love the youthening effect. At any rate, I turned all of these filters to zero, but still found that selfies either looked fake or overly harsh. Something in the processing seems off, but this isn't a dealbreaker by any means.
Less bloatware is a very, very good thing
Back in London, my appreciation for Samsung's more restrained customizations to the Android 6.0 software settled in. The S7 slims down the bloatware considerably, while leaving plenty of advanced settings for customizing everything from the lock screen to phone themes -- you just have to dig a little deeper now to find everything. Samsung also added a few nice-but-subtle optional touches, like a new "tray" to help you easily move app icons from one screen to another.
Battery life is long, performance swift
Other than the camera quality, battery life was my No. 1 concern when using the S7 while Euro-tripping. I was often out from 9 a.m. until midnight, and didn't always carry a bulky charger or heavy external battery pack, because that gets annoying. Luckily, I didn't need to. The battery lasted through a full day of heavy use.Over in San Francisco, my colleagues ran the S7 through our standard CNET lab tests, a looping video downloaded to the phone, played in airplane mode. The S7 averaged 16 hours in three tests, which is one of the longest-running results we've seen for any phone. In comparison, the iPhone 6S scored 10.5 hours on the exact same test. I'd still expect to charge it once a day, but would be more confident making it through a late night without dying. If you want a larger battery, there's always the S7 Edge.
RATING:
9.0 OVERALL
DESIGN
9.0
FEATURES
9.0
PERFORMANCE
9.0
CAMERA
8.0
BATTERY LIFE
10.0
Interesting
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