The galaxy S7 was one of my favorites back in 2016, and it still is. It was a stunning phone with a beautiful QHD display, great battery life and possibly, the best set of cameras. But just like any other great gadget, this thing also gets old. It gets replaced(happening soon w/S8) and forgotten. But such a wonderful phone cannot be given justice with just a single impression, at the time of it's launch. So here's another look at the Samsung Galaxy S7, one year later.
Samsung's display is still gorgeous. Even after there have been several great displays out there on the LG V20 and iPhone 7, the galaxy flagship still holds it's own ground! The beautiful AMOLED panel ensures great viewing angles and vivid and a bit oversaturated colors. Though purists may not like the color accuracy on a Samsung AMOLED panel, you can't deny that this 'unnatural beauty' looks great. Even if you buy it right now, I can assure you that you'll have one of the greatest AMOLED panel of all time (note 7 excluded😥).
Design is still more eye catching than other plain old flagships. Especially the S7 edge, with the dual edge display and curves on the back for easy handling. The regular S7 isn't any sour sap by any means, it's a bit more flat approach, with a regular flat display and curves on the back panel. Nevertheless, it's great and easy to handle. You'll have a premium phone, with a design that you'll appreciate every single time you pick it up!
The camera is still on top of everything out there. The 12 mp dual pixel sensor still has blazing fast autofocus and amazing dynamic range capabilities to it. It's not as good as the pixel's dynamic range, but absolutely stunning when viewed without comparison. The super large f/1.7 aperture is still the largest on any smartphone and helps to get great shots, even in really low light. This is one phone that's not afraid of the dark😎👏.
The front camera takes really good 5 mp QHD photos, though they tend to be a little bit overexposed sometimes. Samsung's image processing tries to brighten your face by overexposing the whole shot, which sometimes doesn't look so nice. But you can always go into settings and dial down the exposure yourself. The video stabilization combines OIS and EIS together. It's quite effective at keeping the footage nice and smooth. You'll have the best camera around with this guy, even in 2017!
The battery life is really good on both S7 and S7 edge. The edge has a larger capacity, so it lasts longer. But the S7 isn't a slouch either. Both lasts through a day of moderate usage. There's also Qualcomm quick charge supported, so recharge time isn't a concern either.
Performance has been my biggest concern with Samsung devices. TouchWiz UI only gets slower overtime and it's true here too, unfortunately! The S7 brothers have the same specs underneath, so performance will be the same. Smooth at first, but as time goes on, it gets slower and laggier. If you're planning on using this phone for over 2 years, which you probably will, considering all the other great features, you should resort to a factory reset or two during the course of your usage. Otherwise, it'll just be a slow and bloated mess of a phone, as data builds up everyday from apps like Facebook and Instagram. Thats always been my biggest complaint with Samsung phones. Nomatter how powerful their phones are, the UI always ruins the experience. So to maintain some level of smoothness, you have to do some housekeeping in your device's memory. If you got that covered, you'll have no major issues.
Of course, there have been a few problems with the display on these, especially the S7 edge, where users reported a consistent pink line along the edge. That hardware issue was there in the beginning and now it has resurfaced again. Samsung really needs to focus more on their phones and get the basics right. That's the problem with the company, they always try to cram as much stuff as possible into their phones, and end up screwing up the basic things.
I hope they'll take it easy with the feature loading and get the basics perfect first. Anyway, now that the S8 is coming up, S7 duo are bound for a price drop. So, should you get the S7 in 2017? Absolutely! You'll have a wonderful display, second best camera, waterproof design, really good battery life. The only small compromise you must take is that UI. If you know a few tricks to root and clean your Android or even basics, like cache cleaning, you're all set for upto 2 years of using this flagship.
