Samsung launched the Galaxy S7 and the S7 Edge. The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge comes with dual curved screen with Edge features and priced slightly higher than the Galaxy S7. The Edge version is powered by same hardware but sports a bigger screen and higher battery capacity.
Galaxy S7 Edge Unboxing
Box pack contents : Handset, user manual, warranty card, some other guides, data cable, travel charger (fast charger) 9V/1.67A, USB adapter, SIM tray ejector pin and premium quality earphone.
Design and Display
The S7 Edge looks awesome much better than the Galaxy S7. This handset comes with dual curved screen that not only look cool but are also functional. There are a lot of thing you can do on the edge screen, moreover you can customize it as per your need.
Like the Galaxy S7 the S7 Edge is also made of metal and glass, its using a metal frame and glass on the front and back. Both front and back glass comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection. The handset is IP68 certified – dust and water resistant. It can be immersed in water for up to 30 minutes (1.5 Meters max depth). Handset weight with built in battery is 157 grams and dimensions are 72.60 x 150.84 x 7.68 (mm).
Power button is on the right side. Volume buttons are on the left side. SIM tray is on the top along with secondary mic. Audio jack, micro USB port, primary mic and speaker vent is at the bottom.
Handset is comfortable to hold and operate. Build quality and the finishing is so good that when you move your finger from metal to glass and glass to metal you hardly feel anything, it is so smooth.
S7 Edge sports a 5.5 inch Super AMOLED screen with always on display and supporting 2560 x 1440 pixels (Quad HD) resolution. The always on screen also hardly consumes any battery juice. Colour reproduction, touch response and viewing angles are excellent.
This is a dual SIM handset – you can use nano SIM on SIM 1 and SIM 2 is a hybrid slot you can either use micro SD card (200 GB max) or a nano SIM.
There is LED notification and following sensors – accelerometer, light, proximity, Gyro, Magnetic, Barometer and Hall.
Memory, Storage and OS
There is 4GB RAM and 32GB ROM. On the first boot you will get around 20GB free ROM (internal storage space) and 1.7GB free RAM. OTG is supported and apps are getting installed on the internal storage by default – there is no option to move to external SD card.
S7 Edge is running Touch Wiz UI over Android 6.0.1.
Performance
This handset is powered by Samsung Exynos 8890 64 bit 2.6GHz Octa Core processor (big.LITTLE) coupled with Mali T880 GPU. Performance is smooth, lag free and handset does not heat up. Max battery temperature I encountered was 36 degrees. Like the S7 the S7 Edge is also using liquid cooling technology to keep the heat up under control.
Benchmark
- Quadrant – 54434.
- Antutu (64 bit) – 87256 | 3D score – 18362
- Antutu (64 bit) 2nd time with latest version 6.1.2 – 116627 | 3D score – 40457
- Nenamark 2 – 59.8fps
- Internal storage Speed – Read (324MB/s), Write (135MB/s)
- Multi Touch – 10 Point.
Gaming
I played Asphalt 8 in high visual quality mode. This game got installed on the internal storage. Game play was very smooth and lag free. There are advance features related to gaming and if you have enabled them you will see an icon on the left side of the screen when playing any games.
When you press the icon you can choose to disable alerts when you are playing a game, there are also screen shot and record options you can use if you want. This feature works even when you are playing and has no impact on the performance.
Camera
There is Dual Pixel 12MP (f/1.7) camera on the rear with Flash and 5MP (f/1.7) camera on the front. Thanks to the Dual Pixel technology the camera can shoot much better in low light conditions. Camera (Samsung Make) quality is excellent. Do check the sample images and videos below.
Rear camera can record in 4K resolution at 30fps. There are some new camera modes available – Hyperlapse and Food.
S7 Edge Rear Camera Sample
Front Camera Sample
4K sample shot using S7 Edge
Video shot using S7 Edge with Zhiyun Smooth-C Gimbal
Others
Like the other Samsung premium handsets this one also comes with built in heart rate sensor and finger print sensor. The FP sensor is on the front doubles up as the home button. Finger Print is accurate and pretty fast.
Loudspeaker sound is loud and clear, even the in call sound is pretty good. I did not face any issues with network call quality or signal. 4G LTE, WiFi, NFC, GPS and Bluetooth worked well without any issues.
S7 Edge Battery
The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge comes with 3600 mAh non-removable battery with fast charging capabilities (with Fast Charger / Wireless charger). You can expect about 5 to 9 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage on a full charge. With normal to moderate mixed usage you can easily get one and a half day of battery backup with always on screen enabled.
Battery Performance (time / battery % drop / battery temperature)
- Running Benchmark app – 10 minutes / 3% / 36 degrees
- Played Asphalt 8 – 17 minutes / 3% / 36 degrees
- 4K video playback with full brightness (WiFi /4G on) – 46 minutes / 10% / 35 degrees
Full Wall Charge using 9V/1.67A fast charger – 1 hours 21 minutes from 13% to 100%.
Verdict
The S7 Edge is better variant when compared with the Galaxy S7. The handset looks awesome and even the performance is excellent. If you were to choose between the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge, I would suggest go for the Edge.
Rating : [4.5 out of 5] Cannot use decimals in the rating box below.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is available in 3 different colour options for ₹56,900.
Update :
Got an update today (12-04-2016) that fixes some camera big (minor distortion – wide angle lens), fixes other bugs, improves haptic vibrations and added mobile print plugin.