When comparing Samsung Galaxy S7 vs Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, the Slant community recommends Samsung Galaxy S7 for most people. In the question“What are the best smartphones releasing for Spring/Summer 2016?” Samsung Galaxy S7 is ranked 3rd while Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Samsung Galaxy S7 is:
the 3000mAh battery combined with the efficient SoC (system on a chip - CPU and GPU on the same chip) and Amoled display offer great battery life. Users on Reddit have been reporting 5+ hours of screen on time
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Pros
Pro Long battery life
the 3000mAh battery combined with the efficient SoC (system on a chip - CPU and GPU on the same chip) and Amoled display offer great battery life. Users on Reddit have been reporting 5+ hours of screen on time
Pro Industry leading camera
The camera may only be rated at 12MP, but it uses 'dual-pixel' technology which means there are actually two sub-pixels for each pixel. These dual-pixels will be able to capture much more detail than a regular 12MP camera. Each pixel has also been enlarged, allowing more light to enter. This means that lowlight photography will be drastically improved.
Pro Waterproof
The Galaxy S7 is rated IP68 for water and dust resistance. This means that it can be totally submerged in 1.5m (nearly 5 ft) of fresh water for 30 minutes. There are no flaps - just don't use the charging port until it has had enough time to dry out.
Pro Fantastic display
The 5.1" 1440p Amoled display is the best display ever put on a phone. The Amoled display technology allows individual pixels to turn off (IPS LCDs have the whole backlight either fully on or fully off which is why they still produce light on a totally black image), meaning that black colors truly are black. Colors appear to pop out of the display as well.
Older generation Amoled panels used to suffer from screen burn-in, however this issue was addressed last year and should no longer cause any issues.
Pro Fast performance
In America the S7 uses the Snapdragon 820 processor, the worldwide edition uses the Exynos 8890. Both of these processors are brand new as of 2016, and will offer great performance for years to come.
The Exynos version is about 10% faster when it comes to loading apps, and performs 44% better when loading recent apps
Pro Expandable storage
The Galaxy S7 has brought back the SD card slot (the Galaxy S6 didn't have the slot), which allows for 2TB of theoretical storage. The only problem is the largest micro SD card on the market currently is 200GB, but that's still a lot of storage. Because there is a SD card slot, you can add more storage after buying the phone - something not all phones offer.
Pro VR available
The Galaxy S7 is compatible with Samsung Gear VR. It costs $99, but sometimes can be bundled with the phone for less. It is a great affordable introduction to virtual reality, although it isn't the best solution available.
The phone clips into the headset, and connects via the USB port to act as the brains and display for the unit.
Pro Great design
Pro Amazing display
The S7 Edge has a 5.5" 1440p Super-Amoled display. It has a very high resolution which means blocky text and grainy images are things of the past - it's got enough pixels that it will work great even as a VR (virtual reality) display. The Super-Amoled technology allows individual pixels to turn off, which means that black colors are true black (IPS panels need to keep black pixels illuminated which means that very dark blue glow you'll find on most screens when displaying black). Colors really pop as well.
Pro Great camera, especially in low-light
Samsung has reduced the resolution to 12MP (the S6 had 16MP), but they have changed the way the camera works. Each individual pixel is larger which allows more light to enter - this means brighter looking pictures even in very dark situations. They also use dual-pixel technology, which makes focusing laser fast. The camera also protrudes less from the back than the S6 (it just barely sticks out now).
Pro Excellent performance
This is one of the first phones with the all new Snapdragon 820 system on a chip (SoC - that just means that there's a CPU and GPU bundled in the unit). It has the newest and most advanced CPU and GPU available in early 2016. It's accompanied by 4GB of RAM - that's enough for most laptops, so plenty of RAM as far as phones are concerned.
Pro Comfortable design
The Galaxy S7 Edge has a curved screen on the front, as well as curved glass on the rear. The rear curve makes it groove into your hand better than regular corners on most phones. On the front of the screen, the edge invites you to swipe all the way to the side of the screen, and there are features that take advantage of this. Swiping in from the right edge brings up panels which you can customize - quick one-touch calling contacts, quick launching apps - you can configure it to whatever you want.
Pro Waterproof (with no flaps)
The Galaxy S7 Edge features IP68 dust and water resistance - you can submerge the S7 into 1.5m (5ft) of fresh water for 30 minutes without worrying about it. Just make sure to let the ports dry before using them.
Pro Good battery life
The 3,600mAh battery is large enough to last a full day, and Samsung boasts that you can binge watch an entire season of Game of Thrones without needing to charge (these claims have yet to be tested, but users are reporting 7 hours of screen-on time during mixed use which is still impressive).
Pro VR Compatible
The Galaxy S7 Edge is compatible with Samsung Gear VR. It costs $99, but sometimes can be bundled with the phone for less. It is a great affordable introduction to virtual reality, although it isn't the best solution available.
The phone clips into the headset, and connects via the USB port to act as the brains and display for the unit.
Cons
Con Poor speaker placement
The single speaker is on the bottom of the phone, which is easy to block just by holding it. Because it's facing downwards, you'll want to cup your hand around it or put it in a cup to direct the sound better.
Con Most of the reviews of this on the Internet are sponsored
Samsung pays a lot for 'loving' his phone
Con Rather expensive
Con TouchWiz software
TouchWiz isn't as bad on the S7 as it has been in the past, however it's still one of the most bloat-ware (apps that come pre-installed that don't really serve a purpose) filled UI skins out there. In this iteration at least TouchWiz doesn't make the phone lag
Con Battery life is not that great
Although it's not a small battery, and it charges really fast with a fast charge, you get the feeling it won't last a full day. Having to disable a lot of stuff to get through the day, especially if you are going out at night can be a compromise many do not want to make.
Con No USB-C port
For a cutting edge phone this is an oddity. It may because the old style non-reversible USB port is needed to use it with the Gear VR but wouldn't it have made more sense to update the Gear VR to the new standard?
Con Bloatware
The Galaxy S7 runs TouchWiz software, which is known for its abundance of bloatware. Bloatware is the term used to describe pre-installed apps that add little to no functionality. Samsung's offerings (S-Voice, Chat-On, Flipboard, Kies, Samsung Hub, and the list goes on) are often inferior to Google's offerings and/or third party apps.
Con Slippery back
While it feels premium, it's more prone to damage than aluminum or plastic backs. Also, it feels fairly slippery meaning it's more likely to slide off surfaces.
Con No USB-C
Samsung opted out of using the next generation USB-C which is quickly becoming the industry standard and is a much more convenient reversible port.
Con Edges reduce usability slightly
Hitting the q and p keys on the keyboard is harder than on flat screens, as about 30% of the key is slanted away. Also, on white screens you can see the slight color distortion on the edges if you look for it, although in regular use you won't notice it.