The Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge Review, Part 1
by Joshua Ho on March 8, 2016 9:00 AM ESTGPU Performance
On the GPU side of things, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 is equipped with the Adreno 530 clocked at 624 MHz. In order to see how it performs, we ran it through our standard 2015 suite. In the future, we should be able to discuss how the Galaxy S7 performs in the context of our new benchmark suite as we test more devices on our new suite to determine relative performance.
At a high level, GPU performance appears to be mostly unchanged when comparing the Galaxy S7 to the Snapdragon 820 MDP. Performance in general is quite favorable assuming that the render resolution doesn't exceed 2560x1440.
Overall, the Adreno 530 is clearly one of the best GPUs you can get in a mobile device today. The Kirin 950's GPU really falls short in comparison. One could argue that turbo frequencies in a GPU don't make a lot of sense, but given that mobile gaming workloads can be quite bursty in nature and that gaming sessions tend to be quite short I would argue that having a GPU that can achieve significant levels of overdrive performance makes a lot of sense. The A9 is comparable if you consider the resolution of iOS devices, but when looking at the off-screen results the Adreno 530 pulls away. Of course, the real question now is how the Adreno 530 compares to the Exynos 8890's GPU in the international Galaxy S7, but that's a question that will have to be left for another day.
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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.