The Galaxy S6 was one of the best smartphones of 2015, but there were a few things that even the most diehard Samsung fans didn’t quite agree with - the lack of microSD card slot and no user-replaceable battery. This year’s entry, the Galaxy S7, still doesn’t have an interchangable battery, sadly, but it does, at least, bring back the microSD slot.
It’s a small change, but it’s important all the same. For starters, it means you now don’t have to pay extra upfront for a larger capacity smartphone, a la Apple. Instead, you can simply buy a microSD card(it supports cards up to 200GB) and slot it in whenever you like, allowing you to upgrade your storage cheaply rather than being hamstrung by your original purchase decision. The S7 is available in 32GB or 64GB models by default, so you still have the option of having more storage if you need it, but at least you now have a choice.
Samsung’s also brought back its waterproofing protection, which was strangely absent on the S6 after making such a splash(pardon the pun) on the Galaxy S5. With an IP68 certificate, the S7 can survive being submerged in up to 1.5m of water for up to 30 minutes, meaning it’s now fully capable of surviving a heavy rain storm, or a drop down the toilet.
Samsung’s Super AMOLED displays have always been one of the highlights of its S-series smartphones, and the S7’s screen is no exception. It might not have the curved sides of the S7 Edge, but this 5.1in 2, 560x1, 440 resolution display has a super sharp pixel density of 577ppi and its quality is top notch. Covering a full 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, it can produce pitch perfect 0.00cd/m2 blacks and a super-high contrast ratio makes it lovely to look at, regardless of whether you’re watching a video or scrolling through web pages.
With a peak brightness of 353.74cd.m2, it’s not as bright as most LCD-based smartphones, but switch to Auto brightness and shine a torch on its adaptive light sensor and the brightness will shoot up to around 470cd/m2. It’s the same thing Samsung did with the S6, and it makes using the S7 in bright sunshine much easier than some of its other Super AMOLED handsets.
Either way, you needn’t worry about the S7’s battery life on a day-to-day basis, as its 3, 000mAh battery managed an incredible 17h 48m in our continuous video playback test with the screen brightness set to a standard 170cd/m2. That represents just over half brightness on the S7, and it puts the S6 to shame, as it only managed 13h 37m under the same conditions.
Last year’s S6 had a smaller battery, so I’d expect the S7 to last longer anyway, but this is easily the best battery performance I’ve seen from a Samsung phone yet, so it should definitely last well into the next day for the vast majority of users. Samsung’s also improved its fast charging support as well, allowing you to get up to 50% charge in just 10 minutes, making it extremely convenient to top up during the day if you run out of juice. It also supports wireless charging as well, via the usual Qi and PMA standards
Either way, you needn’t worry about the S7’s battery life on a day-to-day basis, as its 3, 000mAh battery managed an incredible 17h 48m in our continuous video playback test with the screen brightness set to a standard 170cd/m2. That represents just over half brightness on the S7, and it puts the S6 to shame, as it only managed 13h 37m under the same conditions.
Last year’s S6 had a smaller battery, so I’d expect the S7 to last longer anyway, but this is easily the best battery performance I’ve seen from a Samsung phone yet, so it should definitely last well into the next day for the vast majority of users. Samsung’s also improved its fast charging support as well, allowing you to get up to 50% charge in just 10 minutes, making it extremely convenient to top up during the day if you run out of juice. It also supports wireless charging as well, via the usual Qi and PMA standards
However, when I re-ran the tests later in the day, these scores shot up to 2, 115 and 6, 437, putting its multicore score way out in front of the Snapdragon 820 results I recorded at a special benchmarking event earlier in the year. Here, the Snapdragon 820 scored 2, 356 and 5, 450, placing it in roughly the same ballpark as Samsung’s Exynos chip.
Regardless of which way you look at it, though, the S7 is easily one of the slickest and most responsive phones I’ve ever used. Samsung’s Marshmallow version of its TouchWiz interface simply flew underneath my fingers, and apps loaded almost instantly. Web browsing was similarly quick, reaching an impressive 1, 882 in Peacekeeper. Media-heavy websites like the Guardian were lovely and smooth, and it coped with scrolling images, ads and comments sections beautifully.