Samsung Galaxy S7

What is the Galaxy S7?

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S9 at MWC 2018 in Barcelona. If you’ve been holding on to your Galaxy S7 since launch then should you start thinking about upgrading? Check out our Samsung Galaxy S9 vs Galaxy S7 to find out more.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is a stellar phone. It's a handset that packs great battery smarts, excellent camera abilities and loads of raw power into an increasingly affordable package.

Even though Samsung has replaced the Galaxy S7 with the new Galaxy S8, it's still worth taking a look at the 2016 flagship Samsung phone for your next big purchase. The price has begun to drop quite impressively, and the Galaxy S8 lacks a killer feature that makes it a must-have over the Galaxy S7. 

See all Samsung Galaxy S7 deals

The design is similar to 2015's Galaxy S6 - meaning some have said the Galaxy S7 should be called the Galaxy S6S - but this in-depth review shows there's a lot more going on under the hood to supplement the improved design.

If you're looking for the curved phone variant of this design, the Galaxy S7 isn't competing as closely with the Galaxy S7 Edge as the S6 did with the S6 Edge, with the curved display variant getting a bump in screen size this time round, taking it more into phablet territory.

Update: Good news for those who have hung onto their trusty Samsung GalaxyS7: Android Oreo is coming...at some point. Samsung is currently trailing the beta software for the Samsung Galaxy S8, but it should make its way in the coming months. 

Better yet, you can get one of these still-awesome phones for lower than ever with our curated selection of the best Samsung Galaxy S7 deals. But since we love you, you might want to know about this little phone coming soon in 2018 called the Samsung Galaxy S9.

Samsung Galaxy S7 – Design

After the massive, and much needed, change in design direction Samsung took with the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge in 2015, all rumours pointed to things staying pretty much the same for the Galaxy S7.

Well, it’s not like Apple, HTC or Sony make drastic changes to their industrial design every year.

And that’s exactly the case here. Place the Galaxy S7 next to the S6 and you’d be hard pushed to instantly pick which one is which. Frankly, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The S6 was already one of the best-looking phones around, and the Galaxy S7 follows suit.

Both the front and back are covered in Gorilla Glass 4, while a metal rim snakes Gorilla Glass 4, while a metal rim snakes in between. Two volume buttons sit on one side, with a lock/standby switch on the other. It’s a clean look, with the back free from any markings aside from a Samsung logo.

The camera lens now sits just about flush with the glass body too. This might seem a small change, but it makes a big difference. I can now tap out an email with the phone flat on my desk without it jumping and rocking from side to side.

Samsung Galaxy S7 – Display

Close to perfection. That’s the best way to describe the display on Samsung’s Galaxy S7.

Not much has really changed from the outgoing S6, but this still holds up as the best screen on a smartphone.

It’s still a 5.1-inch QHD panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, and just like every Galaxy flagship so far, it uses Samsung’s Super AMOLED tech, rather than the more common LCD.

AMOLED displays are a lot better at showing off blacks than LCDs. Instead of looking slightly grey and washed out, the blacks here are inky deep. Some say AMOLED screens produce colours that are too oversaturated, so reds will look way brighter than they should, but that isn’t much of an issue here. And if you really prefer things toned down, there’s a picture setting for that.

Having so many pixels jammed into a relatively small space means you can’t really spot one pixel from another, and that sharpness makes everything from gaming to watching YouTube an absolute pleasure. Play a round of Alto’s Adventure or Monument Valley on this display and you’ll instantly be drawn in by the crisp details and vivid colour reproduction.

I wouldn’t normally watch a film on a screen this size, but the panel here is so gorgeous that I can’t help getting lost in it.

The one thing that has changed this time around is the addition of a new ‘Always-on’ display.

Due to the way AMOLED screens work, they don’t need to light up the whole display all of the time. They can select individual pixels and just show them, keeping everything else off. So, when the Galaxy S7 is locked it can still show the time, date and a couple of bits of other information on the screen without eating through too much battery.

It’s a nice touch, and great for quickly checking the time when the phone is resting on your desk or a bedside table. But it’s a good software update or two short of being really useful.

First off, it’ll only show notifications from a few apps – it’s currently limited to Samsung’s own Messages, Email and Phone. If you, like me, regularly use WhatsApp, Gmail and Facebook Messenger, none of these will appear. That’s a shame, and makes the notification side of things a lot less useful.

I’d also like a lot more control over the mode. There’s no setting to alter the brightness, which causes some problems when you’re in a darker room, and aside from choosing whether or not you want a calendar showing, there’s no customisation allowed.