Galaxy S7

Galaxy S7 vs. iPhone 6S Plus Camera Shootout ‘Proves iPhone Still Best’ →

March 9, 2016 · 12:46

Daniel Bader writing for iMore:

It’s not easy to tell which device wins this contest, as both the iPhone 6s Plus and Galaxy S7 dominate a couple of categories. The iPhone’s strengths are in situations with ample light, particularly with the sun as a source; Apple manages to capture photos with more natural colors and less artificial sharpening. This is especially evident in shots with lots of minute detail, or in macros.

The Galaxy S7, on the other hand, performs well in lower light, owing to a larger sensor and wider aperture. That said, the device doesn’t outright dominate, as photos taken in dim situations tend to emerge warmer and less lifelike.

I hope I get a review unit to test this out personally, but it appears from the samples Daniel posted, that the iPhone takes the more naturally pleasing and technically better photos, while the Galaxy S7 prefers to go for more ‘pop’ (eg. in HDR mode). Having said that, many users prefer the latter, just like they like the screen’s colours to be unnaturally saturated.

Duplicate Software on Samsung Galaxy S7 →

March 9, 2016 · 12:42

Walt Mossberg:

I agree that the S7’s have the cleanest software build of any Galaxy I’ve tested, and that Samsung’s TouchWiz interface has been toned down. But there’s still too much duplicate software for my taste. For instance, out of the box, there are still two email apps, two music services, two photo-viewing apps, two messaging apps, and, except on Verizon, two browsers and dueling wireless payment services.

I still don’t understand this.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Has ‘Basically Perfect’ Colour Saturation →

March 9, 2016 · 10:15

Joshua Ho writing for AnandTech in his preliminary review:

The next portion of our testing is the standard saturation sweep test. Here, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are basically perfect. It’s great to see that Samsung continues to provide their Basic color mode with a real focus on providing accurate color calibration for those that care about these things, and the user experience with getting to the right color calibration is pretty much as painless as it can be compared to some other devices where things like saturation curves, white balance, and other parts of a display calibration can only be adjusted using unitless sliders that basically require a spectrophotometer to actually use.

Unfortunately, nothing is perfect:

It’s likely that the green tint issue may only appear on a device to device basis, but to see that such issues haven’t been resolved for years is somewhat concerning given that phones costing hundreds of dollars less don’t seem to have the same problems.

Samsung Galaxy S7’s Confusing Camera →

March 9, 2016 · 10:11

Phil Nickinson:

It’s the end result that’s … well, it’s a little confusing. We’re gotten some great shots out of the Galaxy S7 in daylight, for sure. But we’ve also gotten some that have a good bit of yellow tinge to them. Or others with details that aren’t as crisp as we expected. Or a beautiful blue sky that’s noisy when viewed at 100 percent. Or sometimes the shot is simply blown out with any sort of direct sunlight. It’s good, but maybe there’s a little more tuning to be done?

One thing that I want in any hardware that I use is consistency — I don’t want to come home and find that half of my shots are unacceptable to me in some way.