The S7 models aren’t hugely different from last year’s Galaxy S6 pair, in fact, they look almost identical. The Galaxy S6s were a watershed moment for Android devices: they were the first ones that could stand next to the iPhone in terms of design, materials, performance, and camera quality. So for the S7, Samsung didn’t rewrite its formula. Instead, it took what was good in the S6, refined and iterated upon it, and produced something much better.
Between the two devices, the standard S7 is the less interesting model. It’s the most similar to last year’s phone: same size display (5.1-inch, quad HD, Super AMOLED), same materials (metal and glass, no plastic to be found here), same overall shape and design. It’s a little bit heavier and a little bit thicker than the S6, but not egregiously so in either category.
The S7 has adopted the Note 5’s curved glass back, which makes it more comfortable to hold, despite its thicker profile. The home button doesn’t stick out as much and the rear camera housing doesn’t protrude as much as before (again, likely because the phone itself is just over a millimeter thicker than the S6). It’s a more refined version of the S6, but overall, largely the same hardware experience.
The camera is another hugely important aspect of a modern smartphone, and the new one on the Galaxy S7 is a home run. Samsung built upon last year’s already excellent camera and made it faster, in both time it takes to launch and time it takes to autofocus. This produces one of the most impressive smartphone cameras I’ve ever used.
The S7’s camera is actually lower resolution than the S6’s5, but it has physically larger pixels and a brighter lens, so the loss in resolution is made up for by better low-light performance. It still has optical image stabilization and can record 4K video. The S7’s camera produces bright, sharp, detailed images again and again, and I didn’t hesitate to rely on the S7’s camera when I needed to.
No comments:
Post a Comment