The Samsung Galaxy Note7 (S820) Review
by Joshua Ho on August 16, 2016 9:00 AM ESTVideo Performance
For this portion of the review we can take a look at video performance, which provides an extra test of encode block performance in addition to ISP, sensor, and optic performance. In the interest of not wasting time on retreading topics that are basically unchanged relative to the Galaxy S7, I would redirect readers interested in an in-depth exploration of this subject and comparisons to other devices to the Galaxy S7 Part 2 review as this part of the review will be almost entirely focused on just comparing the Note7 to the Galaxy S7 to see what’s changed.
| Samsung Galaxy Note7 Video Encode Settings | ||||
| Video | Audio | |||
| 1080p30 | 17 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
| 1080p60 | 28 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
| 4K30 | 48 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
| 720p240 | 76 Mbps H.264 Baseline | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
Starting with encode settings, we can see that the Note7 retains the same exact encode settings as the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, which probably isn’t a surprise given that we’re probably seeing the limits of what the Snapdragon 820’s encode blocks can handle in cases like slow motion video, although 1080p30 is likely not encode-limited at this point.
Galaxy Note7
Galaxy S7
In 1080p30 video the Galaxy Note7 and Galaxy S7 look basically identical save for some slight differences in color rendition. The Note7 seems to be slightly more accurate here as the sky is closer to the color of blue that it should be but detail and most other colors look fairly comparable and both still have some jerky OIS reset behavior.
Galaxy Note7
Galaxy S7
In slow motion video the Galaxy Note7 again seems to have slightly improved color rendition but detail and pretty much everything else is identical. I don’t think this is a reason to go out and buy the Note7, but hopefully these improvements to color rendition come to future OTAs for the Galaxy S7.
Overall I don’t think video results appreciably change the Galaxy Note7’s results here. The camera is great from a speed perspective and it’s good for video but in a lot of cases HTC really does have them beat with the camera on the HTC 10. I think the major win for the Note7 continues to be speed and consistency as the one major weakness of the HTC 10’s camera relative to the Note7 is somewhat unreliable contrast AF in low light, although in better conditions PDAF has no issues achieving perfect focus.
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thunderwave_2 - Thursday, August 18, 2016 - link
Look at the S7 Exynos stock browser results. Yes, the iPhone 6s still outperforms it, but it isn't exactly "wiping the floor" with it.Also, consider that although the onscreen benchmarks seem to be in its favour, the S7 is rendering almost 4 times the pixels. While the Mali T880/Adreno 530 is ahead though, the iPhone 6s does admittedly have superior sustained performance.
iOS runs less background processes and is less resource intensive than Android, leading to the great battery figures.
trparky - Saturday, August 20, 2016 - link
Which tells me that Samsung didn't equip the device with a strong enough GPU to push the amount of pixels and sustain high frame rates. If you ask me, there's no reason why that device should have such a high pixel count. Once you go past a certain point it becomes nothing but bragging rights.As for iOS running less background processes, that's a good thing. Yeah, Android is pretty bloated under the hood. And then you throw Samsung's garbage on top and you make it even worse. Android's not nearly as optimized as iOS is.
slyronit - Tuesday, August 23, 2016 - link
The device has a high pixel count because it uses a Pentile display, so the effective resolution is always less than advertised. A Pentile 1080p on such a big screen would look like crap.lilmoe - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
It was surpassed in performance and efficiency a long time ago, by the Exynos 7420... The 8890 widened the gap further.I know you guys want to believe that Apple's chips are the best. I feel your pain. But it's not, no matter how many "reviewers" preach browser benchmarks. Geekbench is by no means a legit benchmark. lol.
Even on the GPU side, the PowerVR has long been surpassed.
Stop blaming Google's shortcomings on Samsung, Qualcom and others. Google's _services_ are great, but their software and optimization level is absolute brown stuff. Samsung, LG and everyone else has to literally fix Android before releasing a phone/update...
CloudWiz - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
Performance...only in multi-threaded benchmarks. Twister absolutely destroys A57 in any single-threaded benchmark and since for the vast majority of use cases (i.e. web browsing) the OS only uses one core, the overall user experience is so much better with the A9. Mongoose is catching up but still not at Twister's level.As for efficiency, the modem on the S6 makes it last a ridiculously short amount of time on LTE and even on Wifi the 6s lasts half an hour longer with a battery two-thirds the size of the S6. The 6s Plus lasts a full 2 hours longer with a similar size battery.
The GT7600 was only beaten in GFXBench this year by the Adreno 530 and surpasses both Adreno 530 and the T880MP12 in Basemark (it also has equal performance to the T880 in Manhattan). You make it sound like the GT7600 is multiple generations behind while it is not. It absolutely crushes the Adreno 430 and the T760MP8 in the Exynos 7420. The GX6450 in the A8 was underpowered but the GT7600 is not.
I do hope that at some point Apple adds two Cortex-A53s to help with low power tasks, but given that their dual-core design already achieves insanely good performance (with the A10 seeking to equal the performance of A9X in a mobile device), they might not even need to.
lilmoe - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
"and since for the vast majority of use cases (i.e. web browsing) the OS only uses one core"False. On Android, the vast majority of applications take full advantage of 4 or more cores.
"As for efficiency, the modem on the S6 makes it last a ridiculously short amount of time on LTE and even on Wifi the 6s lasts half an hour longer with a battery two-thirds the size of the S6. The 6s Plus lasts a full 2 hours longer with a similar size battery."
Also, false. As proven by personal experience, with good reception, the modem on the modern Exynos chips can be more efficient than WiFi. What you're seeing in the charts, my friend, is that Safair (or any browser for the matter), is more efficient that Chrome (shocker). What you're also seeing is that, 720p and 1080p are more battery friendly than 1440p (another shocker). It's amazing that the GS6/GS7 can keep up with that much overhead and more pixels to push.
osxandwindows - Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - link
Not really, those cores are waisted cores.The scheduler sucks, therefore making android inefficient overall when it comes to the use of multiple cores.
thunderwave_2 - Thursday, August 18, 2016 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9518/the-mobile-cpu-...This piece shows that, on the S6 at least, not all of those cores go to waste.
osxandwindows - Thursday, August 18, 2016 - link
Nope, you don't get it.osxandwindows - Thursday, August 18, 2016 - link
I'm not saying it can't use them, I'm saying it can't use them an a way that doesn't affect performance or battery life.