The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is the curved-screen version of this year’s best smartphone. It offers a bigger battery, a more stylish design, and many of the same features as the standard S7.
One thing that sets the two apart is software. Android Marshmallow runs on the device, with Samsung’s TouchWiz skin added in.
Display
The Galaxy S7 Edge has an awe-inspiring display with excellent brightness, color reproduction, and viewing angles. It also has the usual TouchWiz customisation options and a screen grid’ which helps you fit more app icons on the screen.
The screen is a Super AMOLED display with a 5.5-inch resolution. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4 and is water resistant to a depth of 1.5 meters for 30 minutes.
The Galaxy S7 Edge has a high screen Brightness (Luminance), comparable to or higher than most LCDs in this size class. Its Screen Reflectance is 4.6 percent, one of the lowest we have ever measured for a mobile display.
Camera
Its excellent camera is one of the Galaxy S7 Edge’s most significant selling points. Its 12MP snapper isn’t the biggest on the market, but it still offers exceptional quality and resolves detail better than most high-end smartphone cameras.
The camera also has a new tech called dual pixels, where each pixel has two photodiodes to aid auto-focus. This helps the sensor pick up objects much faster, making your pictures more crisp and accurate.
The S7 Edge’s camera also shoots various modes, including panorama and hyper-lapse. It’s also got some cool new features like Motion Panorama, which lets you shoot a panoramic image that moves as you scroll down the screen.
Battery
Running out of battery on your smartphone is one of the most frustrating parts of owning a mobile phone. Fortunately, Samsung’s new Galaxy S7 Edge is designed to last long on a charge.
The Galaxy S7 Edge is powered by a 3,600mAh battery. This is a considerable amount of juice to keep a big display, powerful processor, and excellent camera running all day.
The S7 Edge leads the pack in our video playback battery test, lasting 18 hours and 45 minutes. It also matches the iPhone 6s Plus in our daily usage test.
Performance
The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is the curvier version of the standard Galaxy S7, with a bigger battery and a more attractive design. It also has a microSD card slot and runs on a powerful processor, so it should be much more fun than the standard model.
The display on the S7 Edge is one of the best we’ve seen on a smartphone: it’s sharp, bright, and has an excellent range of brightness. It uses an AMOLED panel that’s a little over-saturated but still makes colours pop.
Performance is pretty good, too – the S7 Edge uses a powerful octa-core processor that should be capable of running everything you throw at it. It also has a Game Launcher app that lets you cap frame rates to 30fps and reduces resolution to save power while gaming, so playing games on the S7 Edge should be a pleasure.
Design
The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is one of the most visually stunning phones on the market, with a glass back that almost wraps around the rear. It’s a gorgeous design, and it feels incredible in hand.
For a larger 5.5-inch phone, it’s pretty slim – only 2mm wider and 8mm taller than the standard S7. That’s a significant change from last year’s S6 edge, which was a bit too big for some users.
It’s not just impressive aesthetics on the S7 Edge, though – it also reclaims several features from the Galaxy S6 line, such as water resistance and expandable storage using micro SD cards. This makes it a desirable option for those who didn’t buy last year’s flagship because it lacks micro SD card support.
