Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Full Review: The Next Big Thing is Already Here

The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is a beautiful iteration of an award-winning phone and took the Galaxy franchise another step closer to perfection. S7E features some brilliant changes adding a zest to already eye-catching edgy design. Samsung has followed Apple’s strategy of their “S” lineup i.e. adding more features and beefing up the specs and launching a new product based on the success of an existing model.

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S7 Edge is built on blueprints of S6 Edge and Samsung improved it in every possible way. The most notable changes occurred in the Camera and battery department. Although the camera Megapixels may look downgraded, the actual amount of light it can capture has improved significantly. The result is a device that takes the whole experience a step closer to perfection.

S7E is surely going to give a tough time to the competition and upcoming flagships like HTC One M10, LG G5 and even iPhone 7 may struggle to beat it. It’s the beginning of 2016 and we may already have the phone of the year with us. The expandable storage is also back this time which will make many users happy allowing them to expand the storage cheaply and easily.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Key Specifications and Features

5.5 inch Super Amoled Quad-HD Display, 1440 x 2560 pixels (~534 ppi pixel density)
4 GB RAM
Camera: 12 MP, f/1.7, 26mm, phase detection autofocus, OIS, LED flash
Camera Features: 1/2.6″ sensor size, 1.4 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, simultaneous 4K video and 9MP image recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, Auto HDR, panorama
Video: 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps, 720p@240fps, HDR, dual-video rec
Secondary Cam: 5 MP, f/1.7, 22mm, dual video call, Auto HDR
Battery and Charging: 3600mAh NonRemovable battery, Fast battery charging: 60% in 30 min (Quick Charge 2.0), Wireless charging (Qi/PMA) – market dependent
Always-on Display
Corning Gorilla Glass 4 Back Panel
Android Marshmallow 6.0
Dimensions and weight: 150.9 x 72.6 x 7.7 mm, 157g
Processor: Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820, Exynos 8890 Octa
CPU: Dual-core 2.15 GHz Kryo & dual-core 1.6 GHz Kryo, Quad-core 2.3 GHz Mongoose + quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A53
GPU: Adreno 530, Mali-T880 MP12
Internal Memory: 32/64 GB
Expandable storage: microSD, up to 200 GB
Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot, Bluetooth v4.2, A2DP, LE, apt-X, GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
Features and Sensors: Fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, barometer, heart rate, SpO2

Galaxy S7 Edge Design

The spec sheet is surely convincing and the phone packs the latest hardware available out there. What makes the phone stand out from the crowd is its metal and glass build with a curved display and IP68 certification. S7 Edge is a beauty to look at and is probably one of the best-looking devices (if not the best). It even makes iPhone 6S look boring, blocky and dated.

The front of the phone is where an elongated physical home button is located along with dedicated on-screen navigation keys. The home button also acts as a camera launcher i.e. double pressing the button opens the camera app. Despite the fact the display measures 5.5 inches, Samsung still managed to cram it into the body of a smaller-sized phone. It can be used comfortably with one hand, but some people with smaller hands may find it difficult to do so. When compared to iPhone 6S Plus, the phone feels shorter, lighter and narrower.

The best thing about the phone is its sloping curved edges making S7E the forth Samsung phone to use them. It just looks beautiful and is probably Samsung’s best design implementation to date. S7E is also IP68 certified meaning it is water resistant for up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. It is never recommended to intentionally dip the phone in deep water “just to check” and the feature is generally intended to protect the phone from rain, accidental water splashes and drops etc.

Galaxy S7 Edge Display

We expected the display to be gorgeous and weren’t disappointed at all. Images, videos, web pages, text and everything else looked beautiful on the screen with accurate and vivid colors and true blacks. Samsung also introduced an Always-on Display mode, but it isn’t something that’d get many people excited about. The Always-on mode displays things like time, date calendar, some Samsung apps etc. and there isn’t much other than that the feature offers. Samsung may improve the feature over time through software updates, but for the time being there is nothing too exciting about it.

Galaxy S7 Edge Battery

S7E features a 3600mAh battery supporting fast and wireless charging. Compared to the 2600mAh battery of S6 Edge, S7E battery is able to deliver better battery timings and users shouldn’t have any problem to still have 25-30 percent of battery left after using it for a day. The battery is non-removable, but it does benefit from fast charging and for 10 minutes of charging, it’ll provide up to 4 hours of use time.

Android Marshmallow and TouchWiz Customizations

S7E comes with Android Marshmallow offering a fluid user experience backed by some powerful hardware. Samsung’s customizations on top of vanilla android i.e. TouchWiz also offers some good functionality and aesthetics including Dialer, S-Health, S-Planner etc. One of the most notable features includes the Game Launcher allowing users to record and stream their games, taking screenshots and pausing notifications during the game.

Galaxy S7 Edge Camera Specs and Features

This is where things get more interesting as a 12MP camera may look like a downgrade, but it’s actually quite better than the previous one. The camera is no longer merely a game of megapixels and there are other important factors to consider like aperture size, OIS support etc. Low-light performance has been improved significantly and Dual-Pixels are used to capture clearer images more quickly.

The auto-focus also works like a charm and taking crisp and vivid pictures in an instant are now possible. The images captured by the phone are full of detail and colors are accurate and vibrant. An aperture size of F.1/7 means that the night-time photos are less murky and grainy translating into clear, visible and detailed pictures.

On the other hand, pictures taken in day-light don’t show much of an improvement over S6 Edge, but it isn’t much of an issue as S6 Edge already takes some pretty good and detailed pictures in daylight. S7E’s camera takes pictures very quickly, thanks to its speedy auto-focus and quick access of the camera app by double pressing the home button.

Is S7 Edge Really Worth the Hard-Earned Money?

The answer depends on what you need and how much money are you willing to spend. To the loyal fans, none of this matters and they’ll go straight to grab one for themselves. For others, if money really isn’t a problem then it’ll be hard for them to ignore a phone that not only looks stunning but is also packed with features to make life easier and efficient. A gorgeous display, an outstanding camera, decent battery life, software enhancements and most importantly a curved display; S7E has got it all.

Conclusion

Samsung’s shift from an all plastic design to metal and glass clearly tells that the company has been listening to the customers. Right now there aren’t many Android phones that can directly compete with it, and even if there were many, the curved display still makes it stand out from the crowd.