août 2016 ~ electronicnews

dimanche 7 août 2016

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 review

KEY FEATURES

5.7-inch, quad-HD Super AMOLED display
Octa-core CPU
4GB RAM
64GB internal storage
microSD expansion
S-Pen
Android 6.0.1
Fingerprint and Iris scanner
USB-C
Fast and wireless charging
3,500 mAh battery
IP68 water resistance
153.5 x 73.9 x 7.9mm, 169g
12MP camera, f1.7 aperture
5MP selfie camera
Manufacturer: Samsung
Review Price: £749.00

The 12-megapixel camera has large Dual Pixels that let in more light, and the wide f/1.7 aperture makes it surprisingly easy to achieve shots with lovely bokeh, where the background blurs out and you’re left with the subject in focus.

Testing a camera in a demo room is tricky, but from what I've seen the Note 7 should perform just as well as the S7 and S7 Edge. The camera app opens almost instantly with a double-tap of the home button, and it’s got all the tricks you’d expect – 4K recording, auto-HDR, slow-mo and much more.

Like the Galaxy S7 Edge before it, the Note 7 is an absolutely stunning phone, with curved edges making the display melt into the metal rim.

The 5.7-inch screen is big, but the Note 7's curved back makes it easier to hold than the iPhone 6S Plus and Nexus 6P – though you’ll probably still need two hands to use it most of the time.

My only gripe with the design is the phone's glass back, which, if it’s anything like those of the S6 and S7, won't be the toughest around. I’ve been using a Galaxy S7 Edge for the best part of four months and the back cracked quite dramatically in the top corner after a single tiny drop.

The 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display only comes with that Edge-style curvature – there’s no ‘flat’ option like there is with the S7. It’s still quad-HD too, not 4K like the rumours suggested, but in my mind this isn't a big deal. 4K on mobile is overkill and the Note 7's screen is one of the best phone displays I've ever used, if not the best. Colours are bright, but not oversaturated, text is crisp and blacks are inky.

The screen also comes with new ‘Mobile HDR’ tech. Mobile HDR is a riff on the high-dynamic range feature that makes high-end televisions look so good. It gives you increased contrast and brightness, with a wider differentiator between light points and dark points.

During my demo I was told you’ll be able to use HDR when watching videos on Amazon Prime, but it wasn’t confirmed whether it’s a benefit of the screen itself or if the selected app can simply harness the screen's capabilities better. The display didn’t look noticeably brighter than the one on my S7 Edge, but I didn’t get to try out any video. I'll just have to wait until I get a full review model before I can test out Mobile HDR.

The iris scanner is another exclusive feature that beefs up the Note 7's security. There’s a small sensor above the display that, once set up, will read your eyes and unlock the phone. It sounds simple, but I doubt I’ll be using it instead of the fingerprint scanner.

During my tests I found the scanning process to be a little slow, and I could open the phone quicker with my thumb than my eye. You have to turn the screen on, press the home button and wait for it to scan your eye before it unlocks. I'm also concerned it won't work very well for people with glasses – the person demoing it to me had to repeatedly remove his specs to get it to work – and that it'll struggle in poor light.

The biggest Galaxy Note 7 feature, and the thing that really sets it apart from the S7 Edge and pretty much every other phablet, is the S Pen. If you’re new to the Note series, the S Pen is a stylus that fits snugly into the bottom of the phone, popping out when you want to jot down a note. I've never been a fan of styluses, though – they seem unnecessary when my finger is good enough to jot notes and navigate menus.

But I know a lot of you love the S Pen and for existing fans it's a great stylus with a bunch of really nice abilities. It’s slim and sturdy, and it’s water resistant just like the phone. Pop it out and a menu will appear, highlighting all its functions. The most basic is jotting down notes, but its 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity make it great for arty drawing too.

The S Pen has some other tricks, too. Hover over text and you can instantly translate it, or press down on a YouTube video and you’ve got yourself a GIF. Cooler still, bring out the pen while the display is off and you can write a note on the blank panel.

The Note 7's battery is actually smaller than the one in the 5.5-inch Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, measuring in at 3,500mAh rather than 3,600mAh. It's a small difference, but I've found the S7 Edge’s battery life to be wildly inconsistent, so I have some initial concerns about the Note 7's. Thankfully there’s Fast Charging on board – both wired and wireless – and this is the first Samsung phone to utilise USB-C, which was a surprising omission from the Galaxy S7.

That does mean, though, that the Note 7 won’t work with your old Gear VR, but – surprise! – Samsung has you sorted. It’s selling an updated Gear VR with a USB-C port that comes in a sleek black colour and has an improved design. It’s also much comfier to wear, thanks to a toughened foam wrapping and more customisable headstrap. There’s also an external port, so in theory you can plug a Galaxy Gear 360 directly into the headset.

Software has always been a sore point on Samsung devices, due to their use of the TouchWiz UI. I feel like I say this in every Samsung review, but the Note 7 has the cleanest TouchWiz UI layer yet. It’s sparser than before and a lot of the annoying bright colours have been replaced with pastel shades. The default apps are a lot cleaner, and the icons are less childlike.

A particularly nifty software feature is the Secure Folder. This is far more than just a folder that’s locked away behind a passcode, as it actually acts as a separate OS. Throw the Twitter app in there and it’ll be a clean install, letting you add a completely new account. It’s backed up by Samsung’s Knox software and can be secured by a fingerprint, iris, password or passcode. I can see this being useful to not only hide your secret second personality on Twitter, but to also, ahem, conceal those pictures you don’t want to accidentally scroll through in a business meeting.

EARLY VERDICT

In many ways, the Galaxy Note 7 isn’t a huge step beyond what Samsung already offers. There’s been no great leap forward in display resolution, processor power, RAM or battery capacity. Even so, this feels like it could be the must-have phone of 2016.

It's a gorgeous phablet that instantly catches your eye with its sloping sides and minimal bezels. Hold it and it feels fantastic. It might be big, but I never felt like I was going to drop it. The screen is stunning too, and it's going to be as fast as anything on the market.

I said this in my Samsung Galaxy S7 review, but Apple needs to do something exceptional with the iPhone 7 if it hopes to compete with Samsung in 2016.

Samsung's J-lineup may be following the Galaxy S and A-series from a respectful distance - but is in perfect lockstep in terms of upgrades. While the flagship pair and the upper midrange A-series are understandably grabbing the global headlines, the Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) was first announced for a number of Asian markets.

The affordable J-series are betting big on India - where the big-screened ringleader has been a popular choice. However, we found the original Samsung Galaxy J7 quite capable of making a splash in Europe too, and it didn't disappoint.

Less than a year later, the new generation is out and it looks perfectly happy with simply putting a proven formula to work.

The Galaxy J7 (2016) gets a new metal finish, a bigger battery and Marshmallow on top of a more recent, and slightly more capable, chipset. All welcome upgrades for the most prominent of the J-series but that's all Samsung could afford and stay on budget.

Just like the original, the 2016 model is offered in two versions on different markets: you can get either a Snapdragon or an Exynos chipset. The difference is negligible though, considering they both have eight Cortex-A53's.

Here go the rest of the specifications at hand.

Key features

Dual-SIM, Dual Standby capability, microSIM
5.5-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen of 720p resolution and 268ppi
Exynos 7870 ; octa-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A53; Mali-T830 GPU
2GB of RAM, 16GB of inbuilt storage, microSD slot (up to 128GB)
13MP main camera with f/1.9 lens, LED flash, 1080p@30fps video recording
5MP front camera with LED flash, f/2.0 lens, 1080p@30fps video recording
Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with TouchWiz
LTE Cat.4, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; Bluetooth v4.0; NFC, GPS, GLONASS, microUSB 2.0 port, USB host
3,300mAh removable battery
Plastic back, metal frame

Main disadvantages

No noise canceling mic
Only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi
No MHL (but USB OTG is supported)

Curiously, the very first announcement of the Galaxy J7's 2016-edition revealed a 1080p screen bur we can now officially confirm that this version of the phone will only be available in China.

The rest of the specs are more or less identical between the 2015 and 2016 editions. Obviously, the quality of selfies is still an important selling point, so the Galaxy J7 (2016) packs an updated 5MP front-facer with a fast f/1.9 aperture and an LED flash.

Overall, the Galaxy J7 (2016) seems like a small step forward for the J-series, but if Samsung found the right bits to tweak, we may be looking at simple and affordable package that just got better.

As usual, we get the review underway with the unboxing and hardware overview and hope to find out soon

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) 360-degree spin

One issue we had with the original J7 was that it used Samsung's old design language. Now that the new aesthetic introduced by the Galaxy S6 flagships is finally becoming available to the lower ranks, the Galaxy J7 (2016) is narrower, shorter and only a tad thicker than its predecessor at 151.7 x 76 x 7.8mm. And it packs a bigger battery as well.

nterestingly enough, the larger capacity hasn't come at the expense of weight, and due to improved materials and lighter components, the new Galaxy J7 is a gram lighter than the outgoing model.

Hardware overview

Just like the Galaxy J5 (2016), the bigger J7 comes with a new design compared to its predecessor. The plastic build of old makes way to a new, more stylish metal frame. To be fair, there's still plastic to be found but the back cover sports a tastefully done brushed metal finish that works pretty well.

There's a subtle camera bump, but it's not much of an issue. The ensemble including a LED flash and a speaker grille is well designed.

The Galaxy J7 (2016) display has a fair bit of bezel, but nothing that gets in the way. Below the screen, Samsung's traditional home button is surrounded by a capacitive Task switcher on the left and a Back button on the right.

Above the display, there's a front-facing camera on the left with the LED flash unusually positioned on the opposite side. In the center, there's an earpiece and a proximity sensor. Sadly, like in the smaller Galaxy J5 (2016) an ambient light sensor is missing here.

Handling the Galaxy J5 (2016) is a pleasure. If five and a half inches of screen diagonal aren't too much for you, the metal frame and solid weight make up for a pretty nice feel in hand.

Samsung galaxy j5 review

The Galaxy J5 (2016) is the centerpiece of the company's mid-range portfolio for the year. With its predecessor becoming a huge hit in developing markets, the company really needs the 2016 model to come out good and help keep Chinese makers at bay.

A quick glance at the specs sheet shows that Samsung followed the "If it's not broken, don't fix it" saying to the letter. With the internals mostly unchanged, Samsung chose to focus on the design instead, hoping that the metal body will help its offering stand out.

You also get a bigger battery and the screen grew by .2", but that's mostly it with other changes being so minor that they mostly fall in the adjustments category. Here's the full scoop.