Galaxy Note 7 Review, You should Galaxy avoid This Phone

Despite its S Pen camera easier to manage, amazing and long battery life, a global retreat and several reports of replacement phones that keep us from catching fire to recommend this phone.

It's rare these days that my 8-year-old son-in-law is quite interested to see what dad is currently reviewing. But here he put his arm around me as the S Pen upgraded the Galaxy Note 7 to draw a landscape, mix colors and draw a little frog in a pond. "This is a great app," said my son. "It's a brilliant phone," I answered.

And then I let go how much it costs. "$ 850!"

Yes, that's a lot of money for a cell phone with a big screen, but the Galaxy Note 7 has a lot to recommend. It has a better camera than the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, a waterproof design, a larger 5.7-inch display (with HDR video support) and even the ability to unlock your phone with your eyes. Nevertheless, the main reason for rating 7 remains compared to other Phablets of the S Pen, and Samsung has added some features to make the pen more attractive to users.

The design feels natural, it twitches with the water
It looks like a marketing gimmick that Samsung jumped out of Grade 5 Note 7, but this phone looks and feels two generations earlier than its predecessor. End the straight edges of the previous phone, replaced by a symmetrical body double curvature of Gorilla Glass that has the natural feel of a phone that you had. It is noteworthy that the edges are rounded in the middle, with little sign of a seam.

At 6.04 x 0.31 x 2.9 inches, grade 7 is slightly thicker than the thin 0.29-inch grade 5 but slightly lighter at 5.96 ounces (less than 6 ounces). Although I have not stretched out your thumb on the screen to reach the icons on the left side, this note feels a lot more manageable than the iPhone 6s Plus (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 inches)), too big and too high, it's a lot heavier at 6.77 ounces. The OnePlus 3 is slightly wider than the Note 7 at 6.01 x 2.94 x 0.28 inches, but also a bit 5.57 ounces, thanks in part to the smaller 5.5-inch screen.


Note 7 contains three other notable design differences compared to Note 5. A waterproof rating is IP68, which means you can immerse your phone in 5 feet of water with its S-pen for 30 minutes and continue driving perfectly. After leaving the phone in a bowl for half an hour, all I had to do was clean the phone to use it again. I notice, however, that a pinhole left Water S Pen when it was ejected.

S Pen: smarter features, but still not for everyone
The first thing you should notice about the S Pen is to write and draw feels more like paper and pencil than ever, thanks to a narrower tip and supports up to 4096 sensitivity levels. This is a great tool for artists, and I like that Samsung has combined many of its old pen-compatible apps into one to take notes, draw, comment on pictures, and more.

Samsung has also enhanced the "disable memo screen" feature that allows users to eject the pen and begin writing on the screen. You can always set your notes on the display to show the time and notifications without using the color screen. You can also write to the screen in this mode before pressing the down arrow. I just want Samsung's handwriting to be converted to text in this mode, as in the Notes application.

Other new features include S Pen Translate highlight and translate text, but I could see a lot more people Magnify, a flying screen made 300 percent where to place the S Pen. This could be very useful for people with vision problems, especially when it comes to clicking on the small links.


Iris Scanning and Secure Folder: just for your eyes
I surprised some people with my Grade 7 note when I held the phone in my face, which was apparently a good reason. But what looked like a very close selfie was to open the camera with her eyes. Note 7 has a built-in iris scanner that works for a fraction of a second if it works.

After a quick install, the next time you try to unlock Note 7, you will see the top screens. Each time I put my face close to the secondary camera and the IR sensor on the screen, the note 7 is unlocked almost immediately. But sometimes the screen showed messages to get closer to the phone or to open more eyes. The good news is that you can always enter your PIN as a backup or simply select the fingerprint reader in the Start button.

The double-sided screen is completely immersive
It's still Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) and remains a scrumptious Super AMOLED panel, but there's something about treating the double curve on the screen. Note 7 lets movies, photos, and games hover over the rest of the device. The screen of the iPhone seems honestly boring in comparison.

When I saw the Rogue One trailer on Note 7, I could see small scratches on the Droid K2SO, and yellow sparks flew overhead as the stormtroopers raced through the screen during an explosion. The image will be improved once Amazon has optimized its video application for HDR (High Dynamic Range), which offers better contrast and more realistic colors.

Note 7 has increased to 187% of the sRGB color space, which is comparable to the OnePlus 3 OLED display (192%). However, the OnePlus 3 had more specific nuances as its delta E score of 2.9 (0 is perfect) surpassed 7 (3.45).

The camera is always the best



Samsung has taken the 12-megapixel rearview camera and the 5-megapixel front trigger on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge and set it to grade 7, and that's pretty good for us. Based on our detailed comparisons, the S7 Edge is still the best camera phone, also thanks to Samsung's dual-pixel technology to accelerate the autofocus. In addition, the 7 Camera rating leaves 95% more light than the 5 rating, resulting in better low-light images.

A subtle TouchWiz
Samsung continues to perfect its overlay software so it does not look like it, and Note 7 goes one step further. When using Android Marshmallow, the TouchWiz interface provides more subtle icons without the usual sea of shadow. It is much flatter than before. I noticed the quick setup menu looked cleaner, with no circles behind the icons.

Note 7 also handles the Edge Edge Screen Software from S7 Edge, which you can access by sliding your finger from the right. You can program shortcuts to applications, access your favorite people, and multitask at the push of a button. Take Selfie or Write Message. Samsung has also allowed edge-screen developers to have fun. I liked to scan CNN's four main titles at a glance.

Performance: fast, but not the fastest
The Note 7 Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM are the same components in the Galaxy S7, but combine to deliver a lot of power. After launching the camera in less than a second to juggle more than a dozen applications, this phablet rarely let me wait. Ok, I had to wait 7 seconds for the levels to load in Unkilled, but I got a smooth and silky frame rate while cutting hordes of zombies with my machine gun.


Long battery life
Note 7 is one of the most durable phones. It contains a rugged 3500 mAh battery, more than 3000 mAh in Note 5. The battery test, which involves continuous surfing on the 4G LTE Web, Note 7 took 10 hours and 26 minutes. It's almost an hour longer than note 5 (9:35) and half an hour longer than the Galaxy S7 Edge (10:09). The OnePlus 3 and the LG G5 did not interrupt for 9 hours.

Note 7 provides fast charging thanks to its USB-C port. For example, the phone went from 55 to 75% after just 15 minutes of charging. Although it took 14 minutes to reach 90%.


If you want a phone with a big screen, the Galaxy Note 7 should be at the top of your list. It features a stunning 5.7-inch display on around writing design, which in addition to a first-class camera offers water resistance and a long battery life. However, $ 850 is a lot of money for a phone, even if it is divided into 24 payments of $ 32.50, and that was paid to T-Mobile after $ 70 in advance.

The Galaxy S7 5.5-inch ($ 779), with the exception of the S Pen and Iris security scans, has just about everything to consider. The S Pen offers a calmer performance this time, and it's fun to draw more accurately, create GIFs, and take notes spontaneously, but not all need this versatility. If you have a budget, you may prefer the OnePlus 3, which costs only $ 399 and offers faster performance than Grade 7 OLED display, ut costs 2 hours less.

Overall, Note 7 is the easiest to beat for advanced users who want to spend more on everything.