Samsung Galaxy Note7 review
Introduction
All great speeches start with
carefully prepared notes. For yet another year Samsung has taken the role of a
modern-day orator, pushing for a return to personal handwriting against the
trend of detached digital text.
It's the S Pen that gives the
Galaxy Note7 and its predecessors their unique identity and writing on the
screen with the new S Pen feels the most natural yet. And with this generation,
you can even scribble notes where the screen is off and it would happily
venture where most electronics would not dare - underwater.
The Note7 also represents the
first major design change in the flagship Galaxy line since the S6 (the S7 was
just a thicker version of that). The symmetrical dual-curved design makes the
beautiful screen appear borderless while making a big phone feel smaller than
it is.
Main Key Features :
Main Shortcomings :
- S Pen stylus; 4,096 levels of pressure, 360Hz tracking; works underwater
- Curved 5.7" Super AMOLED display of 1440p resolution; 518ppi; Always On capabilities; HDR
- Gorilla Glass 5 front and rear panels; metal frame
- IP68 certified - dust proof and water resistant (a first for a Note)
- 12MP f/1.7 main camera with dual pixel autofocus, optical image stabilization, LED flash
- 2160p video at 30fps; 1080p@60fps; 720p@240fps; HDR
- 5MP f/1.7 front-facing camera, 1440p video recording at 30fps
- North America model: Snapdragon 820 chipset - quad-core Kryo processor (2x 2.15GHz and 2x 1.6GHz cores); Adreno 530 GPU; 4GB of RAM
- Global model: Exynos 8890 chipset - octa-core processor with four 2.6GHz Mongoose and four 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 cores; Mali-T880 MP12 GPU; 4GB of RAM
- Android 6.0 Marshmallow at launch; 7.0 Nougat later
- Iris and fingerprint scanners; Knox and Secure folder; Samsung Pay
- 64GB of built-in storage (~52GB user available); microSD slot up to 256GB (hybrid slot)
- Optional dual-SIM; up to Cat. 12 4G LTE (600Mbps); Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, ANT+; NFC; GPS, GLONASS and Beidou
- USB Type-C; USB On-The-Go
- 3,500 mAh non-removable battery, fast charging (wired, wireless); wireless charging (Qi/PMA)
- Heart-rate monitor, barometer, SpO2 sensor
- Unless you need the S Pen, the S7 edge offers the same specs for less money
- Iris scanner needs you to hold the phone awkwardly close to your face
- Hybrid slot means people using the dual-SIM model can't expand the storage (64GB should be enough for most, though)
While the S Pen is undoubtedly
the heart of the Note experience, the screen is a close second. The Edge
features that debuted with 2014's Note Edge were perfected through the S6 edge
and S7 edge of the following years. Even the Always on screen was improved,
despite being only months old (perhaps it was just waiting for the S Pen, their
interaction is the best new feature).
Some things may not sound
particularly exciting, but users have waited a long time for them. The S5 was
waterproof, but there hasn't been a waterproof Note before, the Note7 is the
first one. The microSD slot came back after only a year of absence but to some
Note 4 users looking for an upgrade that was a year too long.
Then there are features that are
completely new to Samsung phones in general - the iris scanner, the USB Type-C
port, and the HDR video capable display. We think at least two of those will
become a mainstay of flagship phones.
Perhaps we mentioned the Note5
too often for an intro to the Note7 review. But you have to understand that the
5 was the trouble child of the family, and it left a void, especially in
Europe, where the S6 edge+ had to replace it.
And it didn't do too good with
the Note crowd, which swears by their S Pens. But the dual-curved screen stuck
and that's how the Samsung Galaxy Note7 was born.
The Galaxy Note7 is available
with two different chipsets - Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890. We're covering
both with this review.
Unboxing the unit :
The Unit!
