Samsung Galaxy S7 edge Review

After the S5 flopped and the S6 traded the battery and the card slot for glass, the S7 edge was Samsung putting the good parts back without giving up the looks. The 12 megapixel Dual Pixel sensor, behind an f/1.7 lens with 1.4 micron pixels, focused faster than anything else on sale and shot low light frames the iPhone 6s could not match; it was the first year Samsung had the best phone camera outright.

The 3600 mAh battery, feeding an always on display and a 5.5-inch QHD Super AMOLED curved on both sides, lasted a full day where the S6 had not. IP68 water resistance and microSD came back. The chip split was at its most benign here: the Exynos 8890 in Europe and Asia and the Snapdragon 820 in the US were close in speed, and the Exynos, if anything, had the better battery. Carrier pricing ran from $779.99 at T-Mobile to $794.99 at AT&T, and the AT&T figure is used here.

The costs were the ones curved glass always carries: the edges caught palms and triggered false touches, the Gorilla Glass 4 back shattered from waist height, the curved front was expensive to replace and screen protectors would not fit. TouchWiz on Marshmallow was calmer than the S4 era and was updated to Nougat and then Oreo 8.0, after which support ended. Three years on, many of these had burned in pink where the navigation keys sat. In its year, no Android phone was better.