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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retrospooty - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Close... I wish Anandtech would get back to the "tech" part. It used to be about tech and now as you even agree, its about clicks and paying the bills.BurntMyBacon - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
@dsumanik: "heres proof:http://www.ibtimes.com/apples-ios-still-getting-cr...
I kinda see what you're getting at here, but these numbers are from October of last year. Though, I couldn't help but note that according to these numbers, Windows is actually persisting in most markets. The numbers aren't great, but enough to be a significant presence. Even the U.S. is 3.5%. I thought we were seeing articles around this time period about how the Windows market share was sub-1%, insignificant, and dead to rights. Question is, are we sure these numbers are accurate? Or is it that tech review websites are preaching Windows doom and gloom to generate clicks? I suppose the second option would fit the mold that M2K is suggesting.
Byte - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
Apple rules the mobile roost right now. Just look at the sales, app ecosystem, users. Why aren't you crying that Apple has all of that? Don't even get started at tablets, there isn't even any contest. One day though, maybe soon, it will come crashing down, just like what happened to Blackberry, what will you cry about then?Geranium - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
Apple's CPU performs better running Apple optimized benchmark.jlabelle2 - Wednesday, July 6, 2016 - link
- There is something wrong with you if you think of people as with you and against you -I think it is pretty clear that the editorial line has changed since departure of Anand (...to Apple "cough").
For instance, when speaking of the camera, there is a mention that the resolution of the 12Mp S7 is not better than the 12Mp iPhone 6S (strange?) but when speaking of low light, as the iPhone is not anymore a contender (as the images show), then we mode the reference to LG or HTC. And this is constant all around Apple products review just to make the Apple shine when they should and when they are not, just move the discussion elsewhere.
I mean, qualifying the S7 design of average? Really?
- Look at the CPU performance and you see that the 820 and Exynos both struggle to hit the top of the charts. -
This is the ONLY area where iPhone are constantly shining. The iPhone 6 CPU was the best thing after slice bread here on this site: "the A8 SoC performs admirably ... It remains to be seen if other SoC manufacturers will catch up in their CPU architecture at one point or another, but for now Apple seems to be quite far in the lead in CPU performance".
But now that the S7 is having the same performance, you have: "the Galaxy S7 in its Snapdragon 820 variants performs pretty much as you'd expect with fairly respectable performance about on par with the iPhone 6 at least part of the time, which frankly still isn't enough ..." and "I have to install either a variant of Snapdragon Browser or Samsung's stock browser in order to get remotely acceptable performance".
So the performance is not enough and not remotely acceptable when it is not an iPhone?
And then come the GPU where it is very competitive and of course... the iPhone is nowhere to be seen.
Honestly, those kind of reviews are a reference for journalist school as the bias is becoming quite too much.
KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, July 9, 2016 - link
"There is something wrong with you"retrospooty and his brand obsessiveness in a nutshell
pablo906 - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
Have you thought that maybe it's because Apple is doing amazing things with their hardware currently. They have the highest performing underlying storage of any phone by a wide margin, they have the fastest mobile SoC's out right now, and they have a very tidy app ecosystem with a very cohesive GUI that receives focused improvements in usability and performance. The other phone makers are measured in many categories against the bar that Apple sets. That's just a fact at this point. It's also impossible to discuss smart phones today without talking about iPhone vs. Android as that is literally the competition in the space today. iPhone vs Android.MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
The iPhone 5s came out almost 3 years ago. I think we can move on.The Garden Variety - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
Nope, some people apparently cannot. For retrospooty and a huge number of other regular visitors to Anandtech, ferreting out their bias boogeymen are an all-consuming passion. They honestly believe it's a "justice" issue—right and wrong, good and bad. It's instills the same feeling in them that religion or politics does in others.Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs at work.
retrospooty - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
No, its not justice, its like i said in another comment below "That is OK, it's not like there aren't other Apple-centric sites out there and it is perfectly within the sites rights to run things the way they want to... But if you are looking for unbiased reviews on any products that compete with Apple, this site is no longer one of them, so browse accordingly." - It's just sad that this once well respected tech site is no longer trustworthy. I kid you not, Anandtech was my homepage, my first stop every time I launched my browser from 1998 to 2014. That is how often I was here. Now it is just another page in my feedly feed. Still pop in now and then to see whats up, and still sad to see the site has lost it's heart.