The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge Review: Part 2
by Joshua Ho on July 5, 2016 8:00 AM ESTCharge Time
While charge time is no longer much of a concern in light of how OEMs have made it a major priority in the last few product cycles, I still wanted to go ahead and verify its effects. Testing this is done with the usual method of monitoring until power draw at the outlet reaches a value approaching 0 to try and eliminate inaccurate battery percent reporting as a problem.
Interestingly enough, the Galaxy S7 charges faster than the HTC 10 here even though both have similar power output on their AC adapters. I suspect that we’re actually seeing the differences between QC 2.0 and QC 3.0 here as the environment in San Jose recently has never gone below 80F when testing. At any rate, the delta between the Galaxy S6 and S7 in charge rate is effectively not worth talking about, which isn’t really a huge surprise.
Miscellaneous
The miscellaneous section of each review is really just a list of comments that are too short to justify a separate section, but something worth discussing regardless. The first of these subjects is sound quality. While I don’t really have the ability to test 3.5mm output properly, I can say that the speaker output of the Galaxy S7 is weak without question. Maximum volume is quite low, and even ignoring that the quality of the output is nothing special with emphasis on higher frequencies. I suspect this is just the cost of waterproofing at work here.
The fingerprint scanner remains a Synaptics design win, and it generally works quite well. I like it a lot but it isn’t particularly fast or reliable the way the iPhone 6s’ TouchID is. I would say that it’s better than the iPhone 6’s fingerprint scanner, and is comparable with the HTC 10’s fingerprint scanner. However I do favor the HTC 10 fingerprint scanner design as it’s faster to just place a finger to the fingerprint scanner rather than pressing a button and waiting to scan, but the delta here is basically not worth talking about.
Samsung Pay is actually, finally available. Weirdly enough the magstripe transmission still has applications as places like Safeway seem to have completely ignored the liability transfer and continued using magstripe-only readers. Places like Walmart don’t seem to have NFC enabled despite moving to EMV which is strange to say the least. For the US, Samsung Pay actually does provide value, and turns paying from your phone from an occasional experience to a common one. For now at least, Samsung Pay has some real value which is good to see.
I haven't seen any real issues with GPS on the Galaxy S7, as OEMs have been taking this sort of thing seriously for a while. I don't think anyone is really going to face issues with GPS at this point, but it's worth mentioning just to confirm that this is the case.
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Michael Bay - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Somebody hasn`t lived in the nexus times then.more-or-less - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
What has nexus got to do with themes?? your statements make no sense at all.Impulses - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I don't get it either, and I have a Nexus 5... Shouldn't a theme just be a replacement of a series of textures and color profiles that are basically static and loaded just the same regardless of how they're tweaked?I found the comment by Joshua kinda suspect too, maybe I'm missing something, BUT I don't see how themes really help with Samsung's UI foibles either.
You might get rid of their color choices, at best, but it does nothing for all the substituted apps and extra UI elements you can't alter (never mind background processes and optimizations); those are the bigger issue with TouchWiz.
JoshHo - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I'm not sure what exactly was done in the Android theming system but somehow some third party themes have noticeable effects on performance.Artmi$$ - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
excuse me but where is the HTC 10 complete review ???retrospooty - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
HTC 10 review? That isnt made by Apple, it wont come until 2017, if at all.lopri - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
How AT can publish this low quality review after such a long wait is beyond me. It is almost as if the author, after many (justifiable) criticism directed to him, had decided to stick it up to readers in defiance.So very disappointed. Sort of editing and quality control by a seasoned reviewer is warranted, IMO.
R. Hunt - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Anandtech is slowly fading into irrelevance, this review being perfect proof of it: too late to matter, content not really warranting the long wait.ntp - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
The Gear VR received no mention even though it's the best mobile VR and games like Anshar Wars 2 are insanely fun in multiplayer.The Vulkan API deserves at least some words, since it will increase performance significantly when proper implementations will come out.
Waterproofing adds considerable value also, since it can make the difference between buying a working phone or a brick.
And regarding cameras, how can you even compare Apple's F2.2 with F1.7?! They are in completely different leagues yet I see no mention of the advantages Samsung brought by having the fastest lens of any phone: lower exposure times (less handshake) or less noise. If you'd have used a DSLR camera you'd know that the F number is basically what you pay for in a lens, all other things being the same.
This is not a biased review. It's just... unprofessional. Too bad it took AT so long for something so incomplete.
Impulses - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
There's a heck of a lot more to a DSLR lens than aperture, specially if you're not chasing shallow DoF (which a phone can't manage in most circumstances).f2.2 vs f1.7 is actually 3/4ths of a stop, which isn't nothing but it's not like night and day either... It means shooting at 1/40 vs 1/80 or less than one ISO stop higher.
Nevermind that very often the f stop lies and it's not a true measure of light transmission, since it's merely and literally a ratio representing a physical iris measurement.
Glass coatings and other factors can affect actual light transmission, which is why cine lenses have more accurate T stops... Then you gotta figure in sensor size and efficiency, etc etc.