Samsung S7 Edge: specifications and reviews

Until the Note 7 appeared, the Samsung S7 Edge was by far the most expensive device in the Samsung 2016 smartphone lineup. As a large and more curved version of the standard Galaxy S7, the S7 Edge is much more attractive than the flat younger "brother" and has a much more capacious battery, which provides the device more endurance.

Not worse than Note 7

Samsung S7 Edge, reviews of which even after the appearance of Note 7 remain commendable (it continues to be released), for many will be the best choice due to the relatively low cost and lack of a stylus. The smartphone has a lot in common with Note 7, because they have the same processor, camera and screen resolution. In addition, the 5.7-inch Note 7 display is only a few millimeters larger than the S7 Edge, which is unlikely to affect the feel of games or viewing downloads on iPlayer.

But the user will most likely notice the difference if he compares the S7 Edge to the usual S7, which has a diagonal display size of only 5.1 inches. Here, the screen magnification sets the distance between the models so that the buyer feels the need to update the flat phone.

Before delving into the device of a smartphone, it is worth mentioning that on September 7, 2016, a new iPhone 7 was announced - the main competitor of the model in question. In addition, the expected appearance of Samsung S7 Edge Plus, the characteristics of which are still unknown. Although it was previously reported that the company excluded the model from its product line.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge: specifications

What will surprise this smartphone? Device parameters are as follows:

• The chip is an octonuclear 2.3 GHz Exynos 8890.
• The screen size is 5.5 inches.
• The resolution is 2560 x 1440 pixels.
• The rear camera is 12 megapixel.
• Memory - 32 GB (24.8 GB).
• The supported standards are 3G, 4G.
• Weight - 157 g.
• The size is 151h73h7, 7 mm.
• OS - Android 6.0.

Design

In S7, it was decided many problems that were in the entire S6 family. However, there is still no removable battery, but the S7 Edge now has a micro-SD slot that allows you to expand 32/64 GB of memory to 200 GB, and also got protection from dust and water at IP68, which makes it more flexible and practical in terms of Compared with all the predecessors.

For some, this in itself can be a sufficient reason to switch to a new generation of Samsung smartphones, especially for Galaxy S5 owners, who deliberately shied away from updating due to the lack of expandable memory. However, one thing in the S7 Edge has definitely not improved - it's a huge amount of fingerprints that collects the glass cover of the back panel. Dirt and grease are not the best attributes for a flagship phone, and users often remember with nostalgia the back panel of S5 from leatherette. Nevertheless, the device conveniently lies in the hand, since its curved edges and metal frame form a slightly stiffer and flat edge than the conventional S7, and provide a decent grip, despite the larger size.

Bend for the sake of bending

The smartphone Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge screen characteristics are as stunning as the S7, but for the first Samsung made a number of software improvements. The edge panels, activated by a simple touch of a finger to a small translucent tab on the side, have become wider, allowing them to place more information on them and find more applications for them. The long-awaited application shortcut bar and quick access page appeared again, but now you can devote side screens to web bookmarks, compass, weather, the S Planner program, etc.

A favorite innovation of users is the Tasks Edge application. Perhaps it was a response to Apple's Force Touch technology. The program allows you to quickly navigate to some of the phone's functions, for example, to a set of text message or e-mail, browsing Internet bookmarks, creating a calendar event, a self-image or a quick set of favorite contacts. The My Places Edge screen copies some elements of the HTC Sense 7 home panel. It contains the 3 most commonly used applications that are tied to the current location. For example, if the user is at work, then S Planner or Google Docs is displayed, at home they will be replaced by Google Play Music, and in other places - Google Maps.

On the verge of expediency

All these additions are convenient, but given that the two best applications for side screens have already been implemented somewhere before (and, probably, better), one can assume that Samsung finds its side panels with difficulty. Although there is no doubt that some of their functions are very convenient, most shortcuts can be easily replaced by adding additional widgets to the main panel. Side screens allow you to reduce confusion at home, but there is no certainty of their absolute necessity.

The screen has other problems. Bending it, Samsung created a GUI problem, which is not talked about much. And if the manufacturer's software is usually prudent enough not to place vital areas in a curved part, in other cases often the edges cause irritation and inconvenience: it is difficult to crop a photo bent around the edges, a strong light source causes unexpected reflections, it is inconvenient to use any An application in which the user interface elements are located at the edge of the screen (for example, Gmail).

Samsung S7 Edge: the characteristics of the display

At least, there is one thing that you can not doubt. This is the quality of the S7 Edge display. The 5.5-inch 2560x1440 resolution panel using Super AMOLED technology is the best in its class. The screen covers 100% of the sRGB color gamut along with an ideal black level (0.00 cd / m ²⁾ . On the S7 Edge, the images look stunning, and its ultra-high contrast covers a large number of details. You can be sure that photos and videos will always look great.

As usual, Super AMOLED displays are not as bright as their LCD counterparts, as evidenced by a peak brightness level of 361.01 cd / m ² . Nevertheless, as in S7, in order to increase this parameter with very bright sunlight in automatic mode, a cunning method is used here. In this case, the peak brightness values reach 503 cd / m ² . This is roughly equivalent to the performance of LCD smartphones, so the achievement of Super AMOLED is quite impressive, given that the screen gives rich bright colors that are unattainable in liquid crystal displays.

In this model, Samsung introduced a permanently working element that shows the time, date and battery status when the phone is in sleep mode. This is an incredibly useful feature, since often the only thing that is required from the phone is to show the current time. The battery does not consume much power, since Super AMOLED only supplies the pixels needed to display information, and does not use the entire backlight.

Performance

Specifications Samsung S7 Edge are equally unparalleled, as its eight-core processor Exynos 8890 and 4 GB of RAM move it directly to the top of the rating.

It's interesting to note that the S7 series does not reach the Apple iPhone 6S when it comes to testing a single core - in this respect, the phone is 400 points worse than the 6S. But it only says that it is slightly less effective when it comes to low-level tasks. The S7 family has the advantage of multi-core performance (6323 points), as the iPhone 6s only gets 4417 points, but it's clear that the Samsung Exynos chip has much to grow, despite the fact that it is much faster than any other smartphone based on Android OS. True, this may change after testing the LG G5 with a new chipset from Qualcomm Snapdragon 820.

For now, Samsung S7 Edge phone features the performance of the video accelerator in comparison with existing Snapdragon 810 devices, since the GFX Bench GL test gives an average frame rate of 37 fps. This corresponds to S7, which is not surprising if you take into account identical hardware.

Web browsing is super-fast. With 1528 points in Peacekeeper, the S7 Edge smartphone easily manages complex web pages, providing fast and easy scrolling, even when loading a lot of photos and advertising.

Battery life

High performance is different smartphone Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. The characteristics of the battery of the device, however, make no less impression. After setting the display brightness to 170 cd / m ² and holding a continuous video playback test, the phone lasted an impressive 18 hours 42 minutes, which exceeded the S7 result by an hour.

A large battery with a capacity of 3600 mAh was supposed to work longer than batteries in the S7 with a capacity of 3000 mAh, but if you take into account the large screen, it is worthy of praise. In any case, a smartphone can be used all day, if not two consecutive days, in a sparing mode of operation.

Moreover, in the Samsung S7 Edge the fast charging characteristics improved, as the transition from 0 to 100% takes slightly less than two hours with the use of a standard 5-volt fast charger with a current of 2.0 A. The smartphone supports the wireless charging standards Qi and PMA.

If you have a wireless charger, then the S7 Edge can be fueled all day, which changes everything radically. It's convenient, just does not require attention. While the phone is on the charging panel, everything is in order.

Camera

On the rear panel is a new camera 12 megapixel. It may seem that it is a step back from the 16-megapixel sensor in the S6, but more megapixels do not always mean better image quality. In the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (32GB), the characteristics have changed: the size of a single pixel has increased from 1.12 microns in S6 to 1.4 microns, which allows everyone to get more light and reduce the amount of noise in low light conditions. The aperture has been increased to f / 1.7, it lets more light to the sensor to obtain higher quality images.

This is a risky step, but the S7 Edge lives up to expectations. When shooting outdoors, the smartphone allows you to make beautiful photos, high contrast and bright, accurately transmitting colors. Some parts of the frame are slightly overexposed, especially in bright sunlight, but it's easy to fix thanks to the camera's exposure compensation slider. It appears when you touch the screen during focus, but you can switch to HDR mode if you want.

Less is more

Indoors, the camera takes pictures even better. Pictures have not only very high level of detail, they also lack visible noise even when shooting in low light conditions, which is quite impressive for the phone. Nevertheless, if you compare the test images with the photo on S6, you can say that they look almost identical.

This is true, at least at first glance, but if you go into the shutter speed data, the S7 Edge allows you to shoot in low light conditions at 1/25 second exposure, not 1/15 second, like in S6. This means that the characteristics of the camera in the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge SM-G935F provide greater reliability in low light conditions, since a faster shutter speed less lubricates the images of moving objects, which gives a general advantage.

A virtual reality

Another feature of the phone, which is worth mentioning, is that it fits perfectly to the new Gear VR headset. This is a relatively affordable way to immerse yourself in virtual reality, as you do not have to shell out for expensive PCs or HTC Vive or Oculus Rift analogues. The implementation is a bit rustic, but it copes with a lot of entertainment applications, such as virtual roller coaster and even some shooters, for example, Suicide Squad: Special Ops VR. And if you buy a Gear 360 camera, you can record your own VR-video and view it using a virtual reality headset.

The best that you can buy

Currently Samsung S7 and Samsung S7 Edge, whose characteristics are among the best among the phones based on Android OS, except, of course, Samsung Galaxy Note 7, are out of competition. Since all three models are very similar in terms of performance, display and camera quality, the question is whether it is worth overpaying for S7 Edge, if S7 is cheaper? Like last year, curved edges look cute, and one large screen will be enough to convince some of the superiority of the model, especially if you take into account the best battery life.

However, the software of the side screens still does not convince them of their advantage. And the time it takes to scroll through each edge does not make the device more practical than having all the information on one main display.

Right choice

According to users, the best option is S7. The Samsung S7 Edge is a large-sized smartphone, but the S7 is more convenient, equally productive and the battery life is not too small. As the reviews say, for those who want to buy the most beautiful phone that can only be bought for money, the S7 Edge will be the right choice, and it's better for practical users to dwell on its flat "colleague".