The Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge Review, Part 1
by Joshua Ho on March 8, 2016 9:00 AM ESTSoftware UX
As is always the case, there’s a perpetual debate over the role of the OEM when it comes to Android devices. For better or worse, Samsung seems to believe that they need to add their own framework and UI over Android. To some extent, I suspect that most users are going to find stock Android to be rather spartan out of the box, so it does make sense for OEMs like Samsung to continue adding their own custom applications and frameworks to help differentiate themselves from the competition.
With the Galaxy S5, it was evident that Samsung had dramatically changed their design direction for TouchWiz, but I would argue that their design aesthetic still wasn’t quite perfect, and performance wasn’t completely there either. With the Galaxy S6, Samsung had gotten closer to the mark in some ways, but the continued use of excessively neon colors just made parts of the UI feel off at times, and performance still wasn’t perfect.
With the Galaxy S7, performance has improved noticeably, but it’s really hard for me to say whether this is because Samsung has improved their codebase, or if a faster SoC is just making it harder to notice areas in need of optimization. At any rate, while the Galaxy S7 isn’t perfectly smooth - dropping frames now and then - it is sufficiently performant that you’re not going to find distracting lag.
The default theme of the Galaxy S7 continues to feel pretty similar to the Galaxy S6, so for the most part things are acceptable here, but the use of color is still a bit excessive as a number of icons still use neon colors rather than more neutral pastel colors. Of course, the theme store now has a number of Material Design themes, which greatly improve the situation. I installed one pretty much immediately, which helps make the device feel a lot better in everyday use. However, I’m still of the opinion that this is something that a user shouldn’t need to do out of the box, so this is an area where Samsung can improve.
The other features that Samsung touted for the Galaxy S7 are interesting, but I’m not really sure they’re all that well executed. Always-On Display is nice to have, but for some reason it's quite reluctant to turn off the display when the ambient light sensor and proximity sensor are covered. As a result I turned it off as it’s clearly going to be contributing to idle battery drain in situations where it shouldn’t.
I also found that the fingerprint scanner is pretty much identical to the one in the Galaxy S6, which isn’t entirely surprising as both identify themselves as a Synaptics fingerprint scanner. Both still seem to be quite sensitive to the initial training period and in my experience won’t really work all that well if you don’t cover your entire fingerprint effectively during that period.
Other than this, TouchWiz doesn’t really stand out in any way as of now. Of course, Samsung Pay will be interesting for me to try as I still regularly run into terminals that don’t support NFC in any shape or form, but I haven’t really been able to spend much time testing Samsung Pay yet. I don’t really find TouchWiz to be a bad thing at this point, but I’m not really sure it’s a good thing either. With a serious emphasis on optimization and a major aesthetic overhaul, it’s entirely possible that I could find myself saying quite differently in the near future, but for now if you found the Galaxy S6 and Note 5 OEM UIs to be usable you’ll find the Galaxy S7 to be usable as well.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
202 Comments
View All Comments
danbfree1 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
As a brand-agnostic consumer, I had gone with the LG 2/3 for my previous phones but recently picked up an S6 due to a deal I couldn't refuse... I'm impressed with how Samsung, beginning with the S6, significantly toned down the bloat of Touch Wiz and also got rid of the cartoonish oversatured colors of the screen. With the screen setting in Basic mode, colors are very accurate... It's only weakness is average battery life, which is silly because of how much the camera sticks out anyway, there was no reason to make it so thin. Even with a thin case that I prefer, it STILL sticks out...Also lack of expandable memory and waterproofing was sorely missed in the S6. With the S7 they addressed these issues and beefed up processing and RAM even more. Great job, Samsung! Now just make the battery removable next time! With the LG G5 coming out soon, it;s nice to see such good competition in the Android flagship market!Homerr - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I made the jump from iPhone to S6 3 months ago. The only thing I miss and had hoped to see on a successor is the physical mute switch on Apple products.theduckofdeath - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Samsung's solution has always been to use the sensors as a "physical mute". Place your phone face down on a table and it'll auto-mute, even speaker phone calls.mrochester - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
It's a shame that Samsung haven't improved the fingerprint scanner. Using an iPhone 6S and Galaxy S6 Edge+, it's frustrating how much the S6 Edge+ shows the 'no match' message when trying to unlock the phone quickly. Definitely room for improvement and something they need to sort out.Sttm - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I just went from an iPhone 6s Plus to a S7 Edge and so far I have no regrets. That is not to say its not without issues.The actually edge parts of the screen seem to be if anything a detriment because it causes image distortion looking head on. The web browsing is not as fast as on the iPhone, though it doesn't feel slow. This could be due to the superior single threaded performance of the iPhone or it could be due to Chrome not having adblock like Safari does now. Then finally the fingerprint reader is not as good as the iPhones, with constant fails, though I wonder if it is because of its smaller footprint and not a software issue.Otherwise I am quite happy with it. AMOLED kicks LCD's ass. Anyone trying to argue for LCD over AMOLED is insane in my book. The colors, the blacks, the edges of this screen might be distorted, but everything still looks far better on it than the iPhone. TouchWiz is no longer laggy, I've yet to experience any animation that didnt feel fluid. Having a back button again is like having had your left arm fall asleep and then wake up, Apple really needs this basic control.
Now I just have to wait for my VR headset to actually get here! Got my phone a week ago, and it still hasn't shipped, and it was already released and my phone wasn't!
grayson_carr - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
If you switch over to using Samsung's browser instead of Chrome, you can install Ad Block for it from the Galaxy Apps store.lilmoe - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
You could have at least measured the difference in efficiency between Chrome and Samsung's stock browser.................................. Sigh.Why insisting on using Chrome???? MOST GALAXY USERS AROUND THE WORLD USE THE STOCK BROWSER.
sachouba - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
That's right !And the stock browser is much more optimized for Samsung devices, most of the time (particularly this equipped with an Exynos processor) : everything is faster (and less energy-consuming).
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Unfortunately Samsung's browser is not available on our Verizon-branded sample phone. The phone only ships with Chrome, and it is not possible to install Samsung's browser at this time.The Verge is reporting that this is a Verizon decision, and that all Verizon S7s are like this.
phexac - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
And this is yet another reason I don't miss my Android phones after making the switch to the iPhone. The dysfunctional relationship between manufacturers, carriers and Google is such an enormous pain the ass between performance hits, weird permission choices and crapware from everyone who has touched the phone's creation process.