In the smartphone world there's only one comparison worth checking out to some: how does the new Samsung Galaxy S7 compare to Apple's latest iPhone 6S?
Both phones are smaller than their bigger brothers (the 6S Plus for Apple, the S7 Edge for Samsung) but still have the same impressive internals.
So if you're one of the agnostic few wondering which to go for, then here's our early comparison from our time fingering the two phones.
Design
The Galaxy S7 is the chunkier of the two phones, rising a little higher than the iPhone when placed on its screen. However in the hand there's very little to tell between the two of them, thanks to the rounded back of the S7 (which has been taken from the design language of the Note 5).
The camera protrusion, which is irking a few smartphones owners the world over, is less pronounced on the Galaxy S7. While it's a larger sensor it's more flush with the phone, where the iPhone has a real point of snapping on the back.
Both phones have a very similar bottom edge, and if Samsung had joined the USB Type-C party then it would have been even more similar - but it's keeping the same microUSB slot for some reason this time around.
I wasn't willing to dump both phones into the water, as only one would have come out still working (probably) as the Galaxy S7 is now IP68 rated, so it can survive a simple dunk. The iPhone, although rumoured to offer an element of waterproofing, is not officially tagged as such.
The Galaxy S7 has a larger screen at 5.1-inches, and it's much, much higher resolution at QHD, where Apple's got the smaller 4.7-inch choice but has a rather low-res 720p pixel count - the difference is marked between these two when it comes to the display.
Key features
The main selling point of the iPhone 6S is the 3D Touch screen, where poking it harder will open new features on the phone - this was something Samsung was rumored to be doing, but it never materialised on the S7.
Samsung's big push this year is the Always On Display, which is just a permanent clock or calendar on the standby that bops around the display when your phone is left quietly on the table. It consumes less than 1% per hour but will have an impact on battery life as a result - something to be wary of if Samsung hasn't managed to sort out its power management.
The other 'big' features from the Galaxy S7 is the Game Launcher, a sandboxed area where you can stick your games and get access to in game tools, letting you record your game play or disable notifications to stay immersed in the world.
Oh, and Samsung's gone back to adding in a microSD card slot, claiming that it's fixed the performance issues that forced its removal in the S6 as the company sought to offer a clean and new design - something that's sure to please a lot of expandable memory fans, and is another real point of differentiation over the iPhone, which only comes in 16GB, 64GB and 128GB internal storage choices.
The iPhone 6S doesn't really build on the extra functionality it baked into the phone on the iPhone 6, and as a result doesn't have a great deal to add in terms of headline features beyond the aforementioned proddable screen.
Interface
This is something that won't come as a shock to many - Samsung is once again taking the Android method of a 'top level' of homescreen widgets and apps, with a separate menu letting you see all the programs you don't want to see daily.
Apple's stuck with the same multiple screen approach: download an app and it'll pop to the right.
Samsung's new interface is more streamlined than ever though, with the icons looking flatter and more in keeping with Google's new design ethos from Android Marshmallow, with a sleeker notification bar that pulls down from the top of the screen.
The lack of an 'app drawer' aside, you could argue that the Samsung is now the simpler phone to use - and given LG is the first of the big Android manufacturers to drop such a drawer it could be that Samsung follows suit on the Galaxy S8,
In terms of slickness under the finger, the early tests conducted suggest that Samsung has the jump on Apple here, with more cores, RAM and slickness to play with - but on reality both are lightning fast and you'll struggle to find a real difference.
Battery
The Samsung Galaxy S7 may, MAY finally be a phone with a decent battery life from Samsung thanks to upping it from 2550mAh to 3000mAh over the Galaxy S6.
It's a big jump for a phone that's not much larger than last year's choice, and combined with the new Doze Mode in Android 6 Marshmallow should see the Galaxy S7 lasting much longer than its predecessor. It promises 13 hours of HD movie watching on a single charge, a lofty claim we're looking forward to properly testing out.
Apple, on the other hand, actually lost a little bit of battery capacity in the iPhone 6S compared to the 6, thanks to needing that chassis space to fit in the fatter 3D Touch display. The performance suffered a touch as a result, so it's going to be interesting to see whether the 10 hour web browsing claim matches Samsung's media performance title - it's no surprise Samsung didn't give a figure for the same metric Apple uses.
Camera
It's back to all square in the camera specification wars between these two manufacturers, as both are now offering a 12MP sensor to play with.
However, while Apple has slowly warmed up to this sharper pixel density, Samsung's actually dropped from the 16MP sensor it offered last year.
That drop has apparently brought a number of benefits though, with improved low light performance and a dual pixel sensor offering a lightning fast autofocus - my early tests showed that it was much quicker than Apple's in terms of getting the crispest image.
The performance of the two sensors is something I'm looking forward to trying in real time, as Samsung prefers more smoothed, colorful photos where Apple's all about the realism - it's a choice that divides consumers so it'll be interesting to see if Samsung's managed to eke out more performance.
Early verdict
So you're unsure about whether to buy the Samsung Galaxy S7 or go for the iPhone 6S? Well, there's not a lot to choose between them right now. Early tests have shown me that Samsung's claims about improved camera and battery life look like they could hold up, as all the right elements are in there.
That said it'll be interesting to see whether the expandable memory really does have no effect on performance, and if Samsung has finally worked out how to make a phone with a decent battery life.
For now, it seems like the battle lines are in the same place as usual: Samsung's got the more functional device, Apple the simpler one. But while the Galaxy S7 lacks any real killer features, it's a decent-looking phone with a lot of power, which is the minimum you'd expect from this kind of brand.
No comments:
Post a Comment