After the popularity the Samsung S6 Edge received, the Galaxy S7 Edge clearly had to be one of the most anticipated smartphones this year. The S7 Edge is the second edition of their flagship smartphone that features a dual-curved screen. Samsung unveiled the phone at CES this year and it was clearly one of the most talked about phones there. Although it looks the same as last year’s S6 Edge Plus, Samsung has made significant changes this time. Starting with a 5.5-inch screen, which fits perfectly between the screen size of the S6 Edge and the S6 Edge Plus. Besides that, there are some major hardware updates, which make it one of most powerful phones available in the market now. It’s retailed just under Rs. 57,000, which is no doubt a lot. But does the S7 Edge justify the hefty price tag? Let’s find out.
Design and build
The Galaxy S7 Edge is easily one of the best looking phones you can get your hands right now. At first glance, you won’t notice a lot of difference between the S7 Edge and the S6 Edge Plus. However, when you hold them it’s a different story. The S7 Edge is curvy around the edges at the back, where the screen blends with the metal. It’s also a bit thicker than the previous model at 7.7mm. The biggest difference between the two phones is not in their appearance though. The Samsung S7 Edge sports an Ingrees Protection rating of IP68. This means that it is both, dust and water-resistant. You can use it carelessly on a rainy day or a when you are out swimming. The IP68 rating allows you to submerge the phone at least 1.5 meter under water for up to 30 minutes. 
Even with a bigger 5.5-inch screen, the S7 Edge manages to fit perfectly in one hand. It doesn’t feel too big, mostly because of the smaller bezel, at the top and bottom. Thanks to that, we were able to access most of the screen with minimum effort. Our biggest concern though was the metal build at the back. It doesn’t provide a good grip and there is always a fear of the phone slipping out of your hand, if you’re not very careful. If you have clumsy hands, we would recommend getting a cover to safeguard your investment. 
All around, the Galaxy S7 Edge features a very clean look. There are no textures on the front or at the back. It helps accentuate the Gorilla Glass 4 coating. The phone is available in three colours, gold, silver and black. We had the silver variant. Because of the clean reflective surface, the phone actually looked gold in dim lighting. The glass finish makes the phone look premium, but it is a huge fingerprint magnet. Scratches will also be very prominent on the phone, especially on the silver and gold variants.
The rest is identical to the predecessor. You get a solid metal frame around the edges. The button placement is also the same. We for one really like the click and feel of the buttons. The bottom of the phone is packed with the USB port in the centre, with the speaker grill and the 3.5mm headphone jack placed on either sides. At the top, you have the SIM card slot. Overall the Samsung S7 Edge is a phone that stands out, no matter where you go. It maintains the sleek look, while being sturdy. The mix of the double-edged screen and the Gorilla Glass 4 is bound to grab everybody’s attention when you take the phone out of your pocket.
Features
Most of the changes brought in with the Galaxy S7 Edge are related to the hardware. The Samsung S7 Edge comes with the proprietary Exynos 8890 Octa-core processor and a whopping 4GB of RAM. Samsung claims the processor to be 30 per cent faster than the one featured in the S6 Edge Plus. A better gaming performance is also promised, with less battery drain and little heating. We’ll put that to the test a little later in the review. However, looking at the smooth interface and its quick response, we are compelled to believe them. There is no doubt that with 4GB of RAM, you can do some serious multitasking on the phone. 
Samsung has also paid close attention to critics. The Samsung S7 Edge supports dual SIM, but the second SIM is hybrid and can also be used as a storage slot, which was missing in the S6 Edge Plus. If that is not enough, they have added in support for a 200GB micro SD card. It’s the highest you can find on any smartphone right now. The on-board storage is a 32GB, which should also be sufficient for some people. Another major hardware change is the battery. The Samsung S7 Edge sports a bigger 3,600 mAh battery over the 3,000 mAh battery on S6 Edge Plus. You even get wireless and fast charging. 
The biggest highlight of the phone still is the dual-curved 5.5-inch screen. It carries a 2K resolution of 2560 x 1440 with a pixel density of 534 ppi. The AMOLED screen looks sharp and offers vibrant colours. It also features the new Always On-Display. This means that the screen won’t completely go blank even when the phone is on standby. You can configure it to display either the time or the calendar. There are other backgrounds you can choose as well. It’s a good feature and looks quite refreshing; its best quality being that it has little to no impact on the battery. 
Samsung has focused a lot on adding Edge feature over the existing ones. For starters, Samsung has expanded the size of the Edge Apps panel to display ten apps and not five. You can choose which apps you want to place here. There is also a Tasks Edge panel, where you can add a list of ten shortcuts from different apps. For example, you can add a quick shortcut to the front camera or access to alarms in the Clock app. These nifty shortcuts are well thought-out but they are only limited to a few stock apps, which is a little disappointing. 
Including the Edge Apps and Tasks Edge, you can load about 9 panels on the Edge screen. You can swipe through them one-by-one. Like the last S6 Edge, you can still add shortcuts to five favourite contacts on the panel, which can prove to be handy for some people. Most of the content provided on the Edge is gathered via Yahoo. You can get news feeds from Yahoo! News in the form of a thin strip on the side. Samsung has also included Yahoo! Sports. Here you can tag your favourite teams from popular leagues, in order to get live scores and match results. The list isn’t very big, but most football fans might still find their favourite teams here. Finally, Yahoo! Finance is also present to help you keep in check with your stocks, using the Edge feature. 
To give the edge screen more functionality, some basic tools have also been added to Edge panel. This includes a flashlight button, a ruler with both centimetre and inch readings and a compass. Plenty of customization options have also been added. You can even add to the Edge features by buying more panels from Samsung’s proprietary app store. 
Besides the curve features, everything else looks standard on the TouchWiz UI, layered on the Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) operating system. The interface looks pretty much the same as any other Samsung smartphone. For example, you have quick access to Flipboard on the homescreen and even get the same PowerSaver mode and UtraPower Saver mode. 
There is plenty of bloatware. Some are useful while some will be irrelevant to many people. Samsung has included a set of their own apps such as the Galaxy App store, Voice Recorder, S-Health and S Voice, which is this their proprietary voice assistant. They are not very useful and redundant to some extent. Some of Microsoft’s apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype are also included, which is good. One feature worth mentioning is the Game Launcher. The app compiles all your games in one place. It even suggests top trending games and lets you watch videos of others playing the games you have on your device. Before playing a game, the app lets you switch off alerts on the phone, so you can have uninterrupted gaming sessions. There are power saving modes available here, that reduce the resolution of the game and help save battery. You’re guaranteed not to run out of juice while playing games constantly for hours. 
There are in-game tools also that can be accessed while playing a game. The tool lets you minimize the game, take an instant screenshot or even record a certain part of the gameplay. The tool also lets you lock the back and recent apps buttons, so you don’t interrupt the game by accidentally pressing them. On the camera part, the Samsung S7 Edge comes with a 12MP rear camera that is also capable of shooting 4K videos. Even though the rear camera has been bumped down from the previous S6 Edge Plus, Samsung promises a much better performance. The lens offers a maximum of f/1.7 aperture which should be good in low lighting situations and even macro photography. The camera is also equipped with Dual Pixel technology, which Samsung promises to offer faster and accurate focusing; a feature that will benefit in sports and fast photography. The camera interface is the same as seen on previous phones. You have the range of settings available at the top and the modes at the bottom. You have some creative modes. For starters, you have the Pro mode, which gives you the advantage of changing metering modes, ISO, Exposure and even shutter speed. We would have also loved an aperture dial, which is sadly missing. The Pro mode also saves RAW photos, if you’re planning on using heavy editing tools like Photoshop.
You also get a Selective focus mode which allows you to change the focus area in an image, even after you’ve clicked them. The other modes are not something you’d want to use daily, but are quite interesting. One we like the most is Motion Panorama, which captures wide shots, while tracking all the motion in them. There is also the Virtual Shot feature, which lets you capture a 360 degree image of an object. Interesting videos modes are also present. We noticed that you can shoot Hyperlapse videos at full HD, while slow motion recording is available at HD resolution. There is also a Live Broadcast mode. It might not be for everyone. The feature links the camera to YouTube and lets you post videos or Vlogs instantly, a feature useful for popular and aspiring YouTubers The front camera is 5MP and can record full HD videos. It even shares the same f/1.7 aperture value as the rear camera. It only supports 5 modes, including the Virtual Shot, Video collage and Live Broadcast. It also gets the added the Wide Angle Selfie, which works in the same way as Panorama mode, but for the front camera. There is not notion Panorama though. Besides these, the S7 Edge is loaded with latest features. It has Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2. NFC also makes the cut. It also comes equipped with nine sensors including an Accelerometer, Barometer, Fingerprint Sensor, Gyro Sensor, Geomagnetic Sensor, Hall Sensor, HR Sensor, Proximity Sensor and RGB Light Sensor. The Samsung S7 Edge is loaded with pretty much everything you’d expect from a flagship device.
Performance
From the moment you start using the Galaxy S7 Edge, you know how quick and responsive it can be. The fingerprint scanner at the front does not take more than a second to unlock the phone. The interface is smooth and the response is quite snappy. Opening and closing apps happens very fast, even when you are dealing with heavy apps. We noticed some minor glitches occasionally but they happened very rarely. When dealing with general tasks, the phone runs flawlessly. Armed with good internet speeds, surfing the web is quite a delight on the S7 Edge. Scrolling through stories on Flipboard is quick and there is no lag, which is good to see. 
It’s good to see that the Exynos processor is powerful enough to hold its ground very well, when pushed to its limits. No game we played on the S7 Edge was a problem for the device. We tried our hands on HD games like Real Racing 3, UFC, Brother in Arms 3 and a few others. The games both looked good and were fun to play. There was an occasional stutter we noticed while playing UFC, but it wasn’t very prominent. We probably wouldn’t have even noticed it, if we weren’t paying close attention. 
Although most games played on the device ran seamlessly, we did notice the phone heat up a lot. This happened within ten minutes of playing UFC. It’s something you can’t look past. In some occasions, it was bothering enough for us to switch off the game. The Metal frame around the edges gets really hot. We also noticed the phone to heat up a little bit when playing with different modes on the camera. The same thing happens when switching between multiple apps in the front, while downloading heavy apps or media content in the background. The performance though is still very consistent. To get a better idea of the performance, we ran a couple of benchmarks on the phone and got the following results. 
With the help of the new Exynos 8890 processor, the S7 was able to get staggering scores in every benchmark we ran on it. The AnTuTu scores are quite impressive; the processor was able to get the second highest score we’ve seen on the benchmark. The Quadrant Standard scores are also very high. The 3D mark score benchmark claims that the S7 Edge is one of the best devices for gaming and there is no doubt about it. It’s worth mentioning that the display on the Samsung S7 Edge is very good. We’re big fans of how the dual edged screen looks with the extremely thin bezels. It creates an immersive experience for everything you do on the phone, be it watching videos, browsing photos, reading articles or just scrolling through your Facebook Timeline. The higher pixel density also helps a lot. It makes it impossible to spot pixels and this reflects very well when you’re watching HD movies and playing games.
The screen offers amazing brightness levels. You can use it in broad daylight without any difficulty. The reflective glass on the front might pose as an issue under heavy lighting indoors, but not a very big one. The colour reproduction is well for most part of it. Samsung has included different modes to adjust the tone of the colours. We find the Basic one to be the best. It has the right amount of subtlety while still looking vibrant. In other modes, we found the colours to be a little overwhelming. For example, brighter tones of red looks over-saturated and slight bit gaudy. This is a problem we’ve noticed on Samsung Phones. Samsung has made quite the upgrade in terms of camera. The Dual Pixel technology enables a faster focus response. In indoor lighting, the camera takes roughly a second to focus. Not a single photo we clicked seemed out of focus or blurry. The wider aperture helps in capturing clearer pictures as well. You can best use it in the Pro mode. You might not have access to set the Aperture value, but you do get to set focus range as per your choice. The lower aperture thus helps in getting great photos in which the background is fairly blurred. 
The front camera is equally good. It sports a wide angle so incorporating more people or bigger scenery behind you is not a big problem. Thanks to the wide aperture, seflies come out looking great even under low light conditions. The Auto White Balance works fine and you don’t have to keep changing settings all the time to get the right skin tone. 4K video recording is a great feature to have, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense using all the time. With 4K recording, the focus isn’t as quick as it is on full HD video recording. We found the focus to be accurate even on Slow Motion recording. You can track the movement and the video still looks sharp. Motion Panorama photos are easy to shoot, but some of images we clicked did not have a good output. While scrolling through the wide shot, the camera just skipped a little part in the image.
Verdict
The Galaxy S7 Edge is undoubtedly one of the most powerful Android phones you can buy right now. The Exynos processor and the 4GB of RAM make a significant difference, but we think that the bigger battery, micro SD card slot and waterproof feature give it quite the edge. There are more functions to the curve screen this time, but we still wouldn’t call it the best feature about the phone. We’re expecting to see a few more features over time that might make it more functional in day-to-day life. There is no doubt about the unique looks it gives the phone. The S7 Edge looks stunning from every angle. If the hefty price doesn’t bother you, then we urge you to get the Samsung S7 Edge. It’s everything you would want in flagship smartphone and more.
