Last month, Samsung launched their 2016 flagships phones, Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge . As most of you must know, S7 Edge is the successor to the last years S6 Edge and S6 Edge+ flagship. It has an improved design language and carries a price tag of about 49,000/- INR.
Let’s get started with the S7 Edge review to share with you what we think about it.
Unboxing the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge comes in a nice premium packaging which has a textured feel to it. Inside the box is all the regular stuff i.e.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Box Content |
- Couple of Quick Start guides
- Pair of Samsung earphones
- MicroUSB cable
- Adaptive Fast Charging adapter
- SIM ejector tool
- USB connector
One thing which stands out in particular is the small USB connector. It allows you to use OTG stuff with your S7 Edge or even charge other devices. You can also use it to connect your older phone to the newer one and smart transfer your data. We did a more comprehensive unboxing of the Galaxy S7 Edge before. You can have a look at the complete unboxing and first impressions article here.
Design & Build Quality
When it comes to the design and build quality, there isn’t much that has changed about the Galaxy S7 Edge except a few noticeable minor tweaks to the design.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Design |
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Design |
Just like before, we have a Gorilla Glass 4 panel on the front and back of the device, while the metallic frame is sandwiched in between them. One nice little noticeable change is how these GG4 panels curve, giving you a better feeling when you’re holding the phone. You’d also notice that the camera bump on the back of the device has been remarkably reduced.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Design |
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Design |
S7 Edge has very thin and minimal sides, which is why its volume rocker and power buttons are quite thin as well. Some people might find them a bit uncomfortable to use at first but this isn’t something that you can’t get used to.
Other small but significant changes to the S7 Edge are not outside but inside the device. You can now choose to use a second SIM card or put in a microSD card instead. Also, the S7 Edge is now water and dirt resistant without any microUSB or headphone jack flaps.
Performance & Battery
Samsung Galaxy S7 edge will be available in two variants: one with the Snapdragon CPU and the other with the Exynos CPU. Our review unit is the Exynos 8890 version with a Mali-T880 MP12 GPU. Regardless of the variant you get, S7 Edge comes with a 4GB RAM which is more than enough for resource hungry applications. Not to forget, the Exynos 8890 CPU is a octa-core processor with four 2.6 GHz and four 1.59 GHz cores.
Performance of the Galaxy S7 Edge has been as amazing as its technical specs sound. During our time with the device, we’ve had no issues of the device halting or slowing down.
Below are the AnTuTu benchmark scores of the S7 Edge:
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Benchmark Score |
S7 Edge packs a significantly larger, 3600 mAh battery which is a very very welcome upgrade. In our usage, our review unit easily lasted for a little over 48 hours on a single charge. Moreover, since the S7 Edge supports fast charging technology, it never took more than one and a half hour to fully charge.
User Interface
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge comes with Samsung’s TouchWiz running on top of Android Marshmallow. It is quite similar in experience to it’s predecessor except for a few improvements here and there.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : GUI |
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Interface |
S7 Edge now has an Always-on display which shows you a whole array of useful information such as date and time, calendar, missing notifications and more. It has multiple clocks to choose from and you can also download addition themes from the store.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Interface |
Samsung Game Launcher is a new feature that is available on the S7 Edge. Not only does it group all you games under one folder, it also has additional functionality like locking the capacitive keys or recording your gameplay. Moreover, it also has two power saving modes which reduce the frame-rate to 30fps (from 60fps) and lower the resolution to help you save battery.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Interface |
New and improved Edge Panels are another new feature on the Galaxy S7 Edge. They’re available everywhere in your smartphone and can be used to perform quick tasks such as check weather, call a favorite contact or access any of your favorite applications.
Edge Feeds and Edge lighting are two of the Galaxy S7 Edge features which can be used when your phone’s display is turned off. Edge Feeds shows you latest feeds with a short up and down swipe gesture at the edge of the screen. On the other hand, Edge lightning lights up (on receiving notifications) the edges of the screen when you phone is placed upside down.
Camera Quality
Camera interface of the Samsung S7 Edge is quite similar to what we’ve seen before on the older Galaxy S6 flagship devices. There are a number of supported modes e.g. Auto, Pro, Selective Focus, Live Broadcast, Hyperlapse and more. Interestingly, you can also download more modes using the internet.
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| Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge : Camera Interface |
Galaxy S7 Edge has a new 12MP camera sensor which has been completely built from scratch to perform better than its predecessors. It might be smaller in terms of megapixels but is definitely large on features. It now has a larger 1.4µm pixel size, a f/1.7 aperture and of course the OIS technology. Not to forget, S7 Edge also features a new Dual Pixel focusing technology which performs as fast as the company promises.
You’d notice in the sample images below that whatever the scene might be, Samsung S7 Edge is capable of taking some compelling images.
Outdoor Sample Images:
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| Sample Shot |
Indoor Sample Images:
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| Sample Shot |
