Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge - Unboxing & Review

Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

 

Picture: the all new Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge at expo

How would it be if you have a smart phone that’s way smarter than you? What will be your expression if I say there is a smartphone that’s way too sexy to handle? What might be your answer if I say there’s a smartphone that has one of the finest and best camera? Asking question might lead to an answer always, right?

Samsung has launched a new phone called Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Yes, you heard me right. Its edge. The smartphone features dual edge panel feature which looks so cool and also way cooler when you hold it. This smartphone is also a premium phone. Which promises premium features like virtual reality, HD sound, dual pixel camera, water & dust proof, a wide front facing camera, heart rate monitor, Super Amoled display, edge display, finger print security and custom baked touch wiz with Marshmallow (of course, there are really a ton of features but let me put important ones first).

How did I get this?

Well, actually I have had ordered a new Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Unfortunately, it died prematurely and had cost the company literally a 5-billion-dollar hole in the pocket. I have already explained the birth and demise of Note 7 in my previous post, you may want to read that if you’re curious. So, Samsung struck a deal with its loyal customers for a discounted S7 Edge with some goodies. The goodies list includes a free gear VR, a wireless Bluetooth headset, an oculus voucher of 3300/- rupees and one year screen replacement at a discounted cost of 990/- rupees only. Now all the goodies are good but they have not reached me yet so, I shall not talk about them now. I got this new device through a FedEx courier on 26^th October, 2016. Bound by the FedEx cover there was a little box which had the name Savex printed on it. I believe Savex is an affiliate (may be for distribution) to Samsung India. The warehouse is in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Now slowly using scissors to cut around the duct tape revealed a black coloured carton. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge was etched on the box. Looking at the box I could feel that it isn’t an ordinary smartphone. Middle to the right side one can see a hard tape having Indian sim only printed on it. Opening the box revealed a smartphone neatly seated in the box with screen guard on it but with air bubbles. My doubts arose once I saw the air bubbles trapped in the screen guard. Anyway, my mum convinced me enough to explore the other accessories in box. The box included a smartphone, a travel adapter (charger, fast charger to be specific), a micro-USB connector (white in colour, IDK why would someone use white colour for a black onyx variant), a wired headset, sim ejector, an OTG adapter and a bunch of manuals (start-up guide, SAR certification and others). Firing up the phone, one can see Samsung text animation with marshmallow icon. Once booted up, it will ask you for details and tries to connect to a wireless network or data. Well if you remember my previous post on note 7, I had whined about my 256 GB SDXC card that I bought along with my Note 7 pre-booking. Unfortunately, Sammy never supported me for its mistake. The good news is my 256 GB SDXC card is supportable with my new s7 edge. Hurray!! Later I was able to add the SIM card and SD card together in the sim tray. If you’re wondering how to remove the sim tray, you may want to use the sim ejector tool that comes along with the package.
Setting up the options and personal details was too easy. Later, I had to get into my Galaxy app to get a coupon for free gear VR and wireless Bluetooth headset. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it. I have mailed about this to a customer care executive. If you need any assistance you may want to mail your query to my[dot]galaxy[at]samsung[dot]com or click here

I took few photos in low light conditions, which was amazing and front shooter was a promising performer of the phone. Although it might soften the image to a little extent, that may not be an issue unless you are a professional photographer. The Android Marshmallow runs smoothly on the S7 Edge and I found no hiccups. Touch Wiz has been refined a lot even though they could have removed. Finger print scanner works like a charm so does the heart rate sensor. The phone is little large but you won’t feel that when it’s on your palm. The phone also features curves on its front and rear panels.

Around the phone:

Phone has great screen at the front and a camera, flash and a heart rate sensor at its back. The bottom of the phone has a head phone jack, speaker (mono, was expecting stereo :( ), a micro USB port and a microphone hole. At the top is the sim tray and a microphone hole. Yes, it has two microphone holes for better signal processing and noise cancellation. On the right side, you can see a power button which is small and sleek and on the left side there is a volume rocker button. Both front and back are etched with a Samsung text. The camera doesn’t have a bump or a protruded section to retain its compactness. Both front and back glasses are made from Corning Gorilla Glass 4which is a finger print magnet. You may want to put a screen guard on both the faces or a cover or skin at the back. If you’re planning to buy a screen guard please be careful since it has curves on its front and back, you may not want to choose a tempered glass. Normal glasses might not fit correctly, but there are other screen guards which is called PET screen guards that promises to hold on to the screen tight and fit snugly. They will cost you around 500 – 1500 rupees, so choose it wisely. And one has to approach a professional to apply these type of screen guards.

 Spigen has introduced a lot of variants of screen guards and back covers, you can have a look at it before you go to any other retailers. Spigen is a reputed company with very high quality products. And in India you can purchase them at TekkiTake. It is an official reseller in India.

 

Specs of the beast:

The phone is released in two variants, one being Snapdragon 820 chipset and other home baked Exynos 8890 chipset.
Indian variants are Exynos version, which is little faster, cooler in its operation and a good performer for multi-tasking. Let’s get into further specs now,

• Exynos processor [octa-core]/Snapdragon 820 [quadcore]
• 4 GB LPDDR4 Ram for all your tasks
• 32 GB Rom (out of which 24 Gigs can be used), expandable up to 256 GB
• 3600 mAh battery for all day long
• 12 Mega pixel camera at back and a 5 MP shooter in front with dual pixel technology
• Has a flash and a heart rate sensor
•  Finger print scanner for better security (although finger print scanner is there, a pattern or password has to be set at first)
• Water & Dust proof (IP 68 certified)
• Wireless fast charging capability
• Ambient light sensor for adaptive brightness
• Dual edge technology for display of colour notifications (SMS, Call etc.) and much more
• Super Amoled screen (2560 X 1440) for highest picture quality and VR (534 ppi)
• Clean capacitive touch button at its front for back and recent apps
• Last but not least wired fast charging capability for juicing in 0 to 60 % in 30 minutes

Display:

One of the reasons why there are many fans for Samsung is truly because of its display. Samsung mobiles have a gorgeous, brilliant and eye catching colour production system. The display resolution is around 2560 X 1440 and has 534 pixels per inch. That’s huge in terms of ppi. So, you can see the crisp and vivid photos and videos. More importantly S7 Edge shares a huge, 5.5 inch, screen. It also has curve edges on both the sides. It has ALWAYS ON DISPLAY feature which allows you to see the time, date & few notifications when your display is turned off. Samsung says that with a new update the battery power drain is less than 1% for every hour. That’s a sweet deal. Sammy, you nailed it at the display and I’m amazed.

The screen also features multi touch. The display can be set to vivid, super Amoled or basic settings in the display option which can reduce the battery draining to some extent. It also features smart stay i.e., when you’re reading something on the screen, the screen won’t turn off.

 It has adaptive brightness which allows to see the screen in any light condition. Well most of the display are same as other Sammy phones so I might switch to the next topic now.

Camera:

One of the amazing features of S7 or S7 Edge is the camera. The camera is only 12 Mega Pixel sensor. The primary camera sensor sports 12 MP, f/1.7, 26mm, phase detection auto-focus, OIS, LED flash1/2.5" sensor size, 1.4 µm pixel size, geo-tagging, simultaneous 4K video and 9MP image recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, Auto HDR, panorama with video recording in 2160p@30fps, 1080p@60fps, 720p@240fps, HDR, dual-video recording. The Secondary camera is 5 MP, 1/4.1" sensor size, 1.34 µm pixel size, f/1.7, 22mm, dual video call, Auto HDR. So, both cameras are f/1.7 aperture and they are good at any light conditions. The mega pixels will count only when you’re cropping the images. For a camera to be better it should have manually adjustable features like exposure, focus and ISO settings. S7 Edge has all these features and is number one contender in camera on a smartphone.

Processor, Ram, Memory & N/W:

The Edge 7 has 8890 octa core variant worldwide or a snapdragon 820 chipset under its hood. Although SD 820 is a quadcore processor it stands over Exynos variants in terms of benchmarks with single and multi-core operations. SD version is a good performer in games and video playbacks. However, there is an issue with SD versions since it heats up more easily. The Exynos variant is clocked at 2.3 & 1.6 GHz splitting four and four, whereas SD variants are 2.15 & 1.6 GHz with dual by dual splits. The SD has Adreno 530 as its GPU and Exynos has Mali-T880 MP12. Both variants have 4 GB LPDDR4 Ram.

Memory of the stock phone is 32 Gigs which is very small space however it can accommodate SDXC card of 256 GB. The sim card tray is a hybrid, meaning that you can either use two sim cards or one sim card with SD card that can expand your storage.

One of the greatest feature from Android Marshmallow was Adoptable storage system, which means you can make the memory card that you have added in sim tray to work as system memory rather than individual or a separate one. This feature is not there in Sammy. Both devices are LTE capable which is 4G. 

Smart features:

Smart features include a finger print scanner that unlocks your device in a matter of seconds (let’s say <0.4 secs).

Smart stay – Smart stay allow you to hold your mobile unlocked with screen on for better convenience till you put your phone away. 

Smart location – this features allow your mobile unlocked without any pass or pin till you’re either connected to personal PC or laptop or tablet or even a personal Wi-Fi. 

Smart switch – one of the greatest options to copy all your data from an old phone to new is by using a smart switch application. This allows you to switch almost all data including bookmarks, contacts, messages etc.

Smart manager – this app allows you take control over your smartphones ram management and security things like knox.
 

Smart capture – you can take screen shot by just swiping your palm on the screen.

Smart alert – any missed call or a sms can be notified just by a gentle vibration by the phone when you pick it up.

Easy mute – to mute incoming calls and alarms, place your hand on the screen or turn the device over.

One handed feature – this features allows you to control your device by one hand by reducing the size of the display.

Games – this feature allows you to take full advantage of smart game features like recording the game session, mute all notifications and even take screen shots.

Private mode – use this mode to keep your photos, videos or even folder privately. This can be enabled in the settings option; it will work with finger print security.

Samsung pay – this app allows you to pay money without having a physical credit card. It uses RF signals and is more secure. It is available only in US and Korean markets.

 

Battery:

The battery that comes with this device is around 3600 mAh being slightly greater than our Late Mr. Note 7. Battery management is quite good when compared to other smartphones.

Speaker, microphone and usb port:

The speaker is mono and is situated at the bottom of the phone. 

There are two microphones, one on the top and other at the bottom which has noise cancellation filter.

There is a small micro usb port at the bottom for charging or data transfer via cable connection. However, I do miss usb type-c in this device. The micro usb features adaptive fast charging. In fast charging, one can see 0-60% juice in less than 35 minutes. 

Conclusion:

• Samsung has neatly designed the edge panel and display that allows you to handle the mobile neat and easy.
• Samsung has its own processor called Exynos 8890 chipset. This processor really is a phenomenal piece of work that competes with Snapdragon variants.
• S7 Edge has one of the best cameras on the smartphone that features dual pixel technology. This technology allows the lens to concentrate its 100 % pixel over the subject under focus, making this device next to a DSLR camera.
• S7 Edge is getting always on display ported from Note 7, that allows to have calendar, wallpapers etc. when screen is turned off.
• Finger print reader is fast.
• Android Marshmallow allows the device to sleep during long unused hours. Marshmallow calls it as Doze feature, fyi.
• Volume rocker allows you to take snaps when you’re in camera mode.
• Considering 4 gigs of Ram allows tons of apps running behind although there are really some hiccups with that.
• The screen replacement is huge let down or a down side. It might cost half of the price of this phone.
• The display might be little huge for a small hand but it fits great in any palm. Thanks to its curved glasses on both ends.
• Front shooter is an amazing 5 Mega pixel camera that allows a wide or normal selfies. But there is also a small problem with that, images taken will be little softened which might be a little set down for me.
• Curve or fillets or chamfers at top and bottom gets you a good feel with this premium phone having redesigned antennas. Although I know that there are multiple antennas in the snapdragon version, I have no idea about my India version.
• There is a good news for the people who love coral blue variant. Samsung is releasing the coral blue variant. But, however I don’t know the exact date and places where it will be released. So, you may buy coral blue if you love it.

My Two Cents:

• It is one of the best smartphones in 2016 with camera and display. So, if you are looking for a best phone with these two features you can opt this one. Surely, you will never regret it.
• If you are looking for something new in mobiles and would love to handle curves, this is the right mobile phone for you.
• If you had pre-ordered Note 7 and was disappointed but still want to stick with Samsung, this is the best one.
• Samsung, with one of leaks has announced that there will be a new smartphone around in MWC – 2017 mostly in February or March, 2017. The device is supposed to be named Samsung Galaxy S8, project named Dream.

With this I would like to conclude about S7 Edge features, specs and my two cents.

Thank you for reading this. 

Happy Diwali to all, may this festival bring good health abundant prosperity, limitless happiness and spiritual progress in everyone’s life.

With love, peace and respects. This is Simon.