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| Galaxy S7 Vs iPhone 6S |
Everything you know about the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6S is
wrong. Once accused of becoming increasingly identical, in 2016 the ranges
offer very different propositions. The result? A tantalising contest where each
phone scores big wins and takes heavy losses.
So which should you buy: Galaxy S7? iPhone 6S? Neither? My
detailed review has the answers. Let’s go…
Design – Style Vs
Style and Substance
Welcome to the year the master surpassed the apprentice.
Having spent years making plastic ugly but highly practical phones, in 2015
Samsung launched the Galaxy S6 and proved it could craft handsets every bit as
well as Apple. One year later Samsung has now surpassed them.
Yes, the iPhone 6S remains a beautifully sculpted phone.
Carved from a block of aluminium, it exudes quality. Every port, speaker hole
and curve is machined to within an inch of its life and the quality of the
iPhone 6S is obvious the moment you pick it up. But that’s where the good news
stops.
Where the iPhone 6S is luxurious so is the Galaxy S7 but,
unlike Apple’s handset, the Samsung’s phone is actually nice to hold. It’s
curvature feels far more comfortable and secure in hand. Meanwhile the Galaxy
S7’s top and bottom bezels are far narrower making the 5.1-inch device feel
little bigger or heavier than the 4.7-inch iPhone 6S:
Galaxy S7: 142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9mm (5.61 x 2.74 x 0.31in) and
152g (5.36oz)
iPhone 6S: 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28in) and
143g (5.04oz)
On top of this the Galaxy S7 adds substance: wireless
charging, the return of expandable storage and water resistance – none of which
the iPhone 6S can match.
I’ll deal with wireless charging and expandable storage
later and focus on water resistance now because it works brilliantly. Yes the
iPhone 6S has some (unofficial) water resistance, but the Galaxy S7 fully lives
up to its claims of surviving full submersion for up to an hour in 1.5m of
water. Being able to take that call in the shower, adjust your music playback
in the bath and not worry about emailing during a heavy downpour makes for a
very welcome differentiator.
And yet neither of these phones are perfect. Both remain far
too slippy in hand and you’d need to be Spider-Man not to drop them at some
point without a case. The glass back of the Galaxy S7 is a key factor in this
and it also gets sticky when warm as well as being a fingerprint magnet. So why
have it? Currently glass is key to wireless charging, but a solution could be
on the horizon.
Winner: Galaxy S7
– all the build quality of the iPhone 6S with a lot more practicality
Displays – Brains Vs
Beauty
In 2010 Apple changed the smartphone market with the ‘Retina
Display’ in the iPhone 4, but in 2016 it is Samsung which is now way out in
front.
Galaxy S7: 5.1-inch, 2560 x 1440 pixels, 534 pixels per inch
(ppi), Super AMOLED
iPhone 6S: 4.7-inch, 1334 x 750 pixels, 326 ppi, LCD
Yes the stats imply Samsung has a significant edge, but in
truth their resolutions and panel types are not the main factors. The Galaxy S7
simply gets the big stuff right: it is brighter, sharper, has more vivid
colours, deeper blacks and works better in bright daylight. Side by side
there’s simply no comparison. The Galaxy S7, coupled with the Galaxy S7 Edge,
have the best smartphone displays currently available, period.
Also looking good – though of less value, in my opinion – is
the S7’s new ‘Always-on’ display.
What this translates to is the ability to permanently show
the time/date/calendar or an image at all times which can be handy. That said
it isn’t as useful as similar screens on Google and Motorola’s Nexus and Moto
ranges which provide glanceable information that includes Android
notifications. So yes, Always-on looks nice and battery drain is reasonable
(circa 1% per hour) but I ended up switching it off.
And yet where the Galaxy S7 has beauty, the iPhone 6S has
brains.
Arguably the headline feature of the iPhone 6S is ‘3D
Touch’, a pressure sensitive panel which can differentiate between taps, firmer
presses and pushes. The good news is this adds a new dynamic to iOS – you can
deep press on icons for quick launch options (eg on the camera: selfie, video
and slow mo modes) or ‘peek’ (preview items with a press – like emails and
URLs) or ‘pop’ (open the aforementioned items with a further push).
This isn’t original (the BlackBerry Storm had similar
functionality in 2008), but in theory it is brilliant and the potential for
third party developers (particularly in gaming) is vast. So why is the reality
a lot less appealing? I put it down to software implementation.
As it stands iOS has no obvious way to indicate when 3D
Touch options are available. Consequently you just hard press everything and
see if anything happens: app icons, UI elements, etc. It’s complete guesswork
and there’s no consistency between how third party developers implement it.
Consequently using 3D Touch currently degenerates into speculation and memory.
In time I’m sure this will improve and 3D Touch, like the
Retina Display, will prove a hugely important and influential feature (probably
copied by others) but for now it’s a work in progress that doesn’t make up for
a screen which is falling far behind the competition.
Winner: Galaxy S7
– the iPhone 6S has the more interesting tech, but many will forget about 3D
Touch until it becomes more intuitive. Conversely the S7’s jaw dropping display
will make you smile every time you wake up the phone.
Performance –
Efficiency Vs Brute Force
On paper the Galaxy S7 display easily topped the iPhone 6S and
in practice it also prevails. But that’s not what happens when it comes to
performance:
Galaxy S7 – Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core chipset:
Dual-core 2.15 GHz Kryo & dual-core 1.6 GHz Kryo CPUs, Mali-T880 MP12 GPU;
4GB of RAM
Galaxy S7 (International variant) – Exynos 8890 octa-core
chipset: Quad-core 2.3 GHz Mongoose and quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex A53 CPUs,
Adreno 530 GPU, 4GB of RAM
iPhone 6S – Apple A9 chipset: Dual-core 1.84 GHz Twister
CPU, Six-core PowerVR GT7600 GPU, 2GB of RAM
Yes the Galaxy S7 appears to have the iPhone 6S’s number and
in pure benchmark terms it does (especially when normalised at the same native
screen resolution), except that’s not how it works out in practice.
Ultimately there is a massive difference in the perception
of speed using these phones.
The Galaxy S7 is brutally quick but ragged. Apps jump and
stutter and there’s noticeable lag, particularly in the browser but even when
navigating basic menus or Flipboard (built into TouchWiz to replace the infinitely
more useful Google Now). This doesn’t manifest itself out the box, but once
setup with all your apps you’ll spot the so-called ‘jank’ setting in.
By contrast the iPhone 6S is silky smooth. It doesn’t
necessarily open apps or web pages faster and games run superbly on both
devices, but the lack of any stuttering on the iPhone 6S gives the impression
of a far more seamless user experience. There’s no phone on the market right
now to match this, though the Nexus 6P is getting closer.
In fact this in itself is worth nothing. The Nexus 6P offers
a significantly smoother experience than the Galaxy S7 despite using an older,
slower chipset and 1GB less RAM.
Consequently the finger has to be pointed squarely at
Samsung for TouchWiz’s ongoing inefficiency and bloat. You still get around 50
pre-installed (non-removable) apps (excluding carrier garbage), needless
duplication (two email clients, two photo apps, two voice control systems, two
app stores, two SMS apps, three media players, etc) and – despite looking
better – it’s still full of rough edges.
For example, the TouchWiz app drawer has the option to sort
installed apps alphabetically but should you choose this you’ll have to resort
them every time you install a new app as it will just be dumped at the end of
the list by default. How did that escape testing?
Of course Apple is not immune from criticism. For years now
every new iPhone has been blazingly fast but then miraculously suffered when
the next generation of iOS has launched alongside a new model. There are plenty
of conspiracy theories about this, but the reality is iPhones tend not to
impress so much after their first year. But this is about the here and now and
right now the iPhone 6S (and by extension iPhone 6S Plus) is untouchable.
Winner: iPhone 6S
– until Samsung dramatically cuts down on its exaggerated and unnecessary over
customisation of Android its phones are unlikely to be able to deliver real
world performance with anything like the seamlessness of iPhones or Google’s
Nexus range.
Fingerprint Readers –
Class Leading Vs Improving
The iPhone 6S also continues its fightback with its Touch ID
2.0 fingerprint reader. Samsung has improved a lot since the horrible
swipe-based reader on the Galaxy S5, but the iPhone 6S still holds both speed
and accuracy advantages over the Galaxy S7 having upped its game again since
the iPhone 6 in 2014.
Consequently whereas the iPhone 6S (and Nexus Imprint on the
Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X for that matter) will ask you to ‘Try again’ perhaps once
every few days, this will happen 3-5x a day with the Galaxy S7. Given we unlock
our phones hundreds of times a day that is a very high accuracy rate, but not
quite up with the best.
Winner: iPhone 6S
– Samsung has made great strides, but it still needs to overcome some accuracy
issues to catch up with Touch ID 2.0 and Nexus Imprint.
Cameras – Stagnation
Vs Innovation
And yet when it comes to the camera the iPhone 6S comeback
gets stopped in its tracks. Samsung stole the best camera phone title away from
Apple with the Galaxy S6 in 2015 and with the Galaxy S7 it has now extended
this lead.
Interestingly this has happened despite what might appear to
be, at first glance, a backwards step in resolution:
Galaxy S7 – 12 megapixel Sony IMX260 F1.7 sensor (some
Samsung ISOCELL variants exist), OIS, LED flash, Dual Pixels, 4K video. Front
facing 5MP F1.7 camera, 1080p video
iPhone 6S – 12 megapixel sensor, F2.0 lens, Focus Pixels,
EIS, dual-LED flash – 4K video. Front: 5MP sensor, F2.0 lens, 1080p video
Yes, Samsung has dropped from the Galaxy S6’s 16MP to 12MP
while Apple has jumped from 8MP to 12MP – and yet that is the only time the
cameras are close.
To be clear, the iPhone 6S still has an excellent camera but
it hasn’t really improved from the iPhone 6. You’ll find more detail in good
lighting conditions, but almost every high end smartphone camera will provide
great results in good lighting conditions (aside from the HTC M9!) and a
reduction in pixel size from the iPhone 6 (1.5 vs 1.22 µm) means it is actually
worse in low light than its predecessor. And this is where the Galaxy S7 takes
the iPhone 6S apart.
As you’ll see in the two low light street images, the Galaxy
S7 is a world ahead of the iPhone 6S. It is brighter, sharper and picks up
colour and detail completely lost by the iPhone 6S sensor. The iPhone 6S photo
is barely usable while the Galaxy S7 photo looks great – it isn’t even close.
‘Why?’ It comes down to a number of factors. While the two
phones have 12MP sensors, the Galaxy S7 has larger pixels (1.4 vs 1.22 µm) to
pick up a lot more light, a significantly faster F1.7 lens which it needs less
exposure time to capture light (and so reduces blur) and lastly there’s the
headline feature ‘Dual Pixel’.
Remarkably 100% of the pixels on the Galaxy S7 are also used
to help the camera focus which means it snaps photos and videos into focus
almost instantaneously, even in poor lighting. By comparison the much hyped
‘Focus Pixels’ in the iPhone 6S use less than 5% of its pixels to help it focus
and the lag compared to the Galaxy S7 is dramatic.
All of which makes the Galaxy S7 the fastest, most
consistently reliable camera I’ve ever used on a smartphone. And it’s a similar
story with the front facing camera and video. The former again benefits from
having an F1.7 lens so shots are extremely fast (though even with beauty mode
off, they can be a little over processed) while video is class leading thanks
to those Dual Pixels. It’s a move everyone else will need to follow.
And yet the Galaxy S7 camera is not perfect.
At times the auto HDR mode can be flaky – as seen in this
Galaxy S7 vs Galaxy S7 Edge shot of the tree, the S7 (left) blew out the sky by
incorrectly picking the non-HDR mode while the Galaxy S7 Edge nailed it.
Meanwhile in good conditions the drop in megapixels can be
seen as the Galaxy S7 actually has less detail in its shots than the Galaxy S6.
At times low light specialist the Nexus 6P (which has even larger pixels – 1.55
µm) can also produce even better shots – but it is much slower to open and
focus meaning the moment is sometimes lost.
Winner: Galaxy
S7. The iPhone 6S has a very good camera, but Apple has stood fairly still for
the last three iPhone generations while Samsung has revolutionised the sector.
If I were to rely on just one smartphone camera for a vital shot, right now it
would be the Galaxy S7.
Battery Life –
Stagnation Vs Crowd Pleasing
And from here the Galaxy S7 builds on its lead because it is
streets ahead of the iPhone 6S:
Galaxy S7 – 3000 mAh battery capacity
iPhone 6S – 1715 mAh battery capacity
As with performance, iPhone specifications on paper usually
don’t tell the full story but this time there’s just no denying the benefits of
the dramatically bigger battery inside the Galaxy S7.
Whereas Apple controversially downsized the iPhone 6S
battery from the iPhone 6 (1810 mAh), Samsung has increased it by almost 20%
from the Galaxy S6 (2550 mAh). The result is the Galaxy S7 has regained the
famous stamina prowess of the Galaxy S5 and even heavy users should get through
a day without needing to charge.
By contrast the iPhone 6S can be flat by lunch time. Yes iOS
still sets the benchmark for efficiency in standby (even if ‘Doze’ has improved
Android Marshmallow), but in use the iPhone 6S drains quickly, particularly in
games.
Furthermore the Galaxy S7 wipes the floor with the iPhone 6S
when it comes to charging, both in terms of speed and flexibility. Whereas the
6S only accepts power from a wall charger and takes up to 2.5 hours to fully
charge from flat, a Galaxy S7 can be charged in about an hour from the wall (it
hits about 30% in the first 15 minutes) as well as wirelessly in about two
hours (with support for both major wireless standards – Qi and PMA).
The Galaxy S7 could’ve been even better.
It actually omits Quick Charge 3.0 sticking with Quick
Charge 2.0 (as the Exynos chipset doesn’t support it). Quick Charge 3.0 doesn’t
bring massive speed increases, but it does reduce the power consumption
required for charging by up to 40%. Meanwhile some will never forgive Samsung
for ditching its removable battery option as the Galaxy S7 battery (like the
Galaxy S6 before it) is fixed.
In addition Samsung has chosen to stick with the ubiquitous
microSD port. Many will love this, but as a fan of cutting edge tech I’d rather
have seen it hop aboard the newer (and ultimately all conquering) reversible
USB Type-C.
Still these feel like minor complaints, especially when
Samsung has the battery capabilities of its rival so thoroughly beaten.
Winner: Galaxy S7
– Samsung is simply miles ahead of Apple right now with its super fast wired
and wireless charging. Meanwhile Apple desperately needs to address this with
the iPhone 7 later in the year.
Speakers – Mediocre
Vs Regressing
One area where Apple and Samsung have trailed their rivals
for some time is their stubbornness to adopt front firing stereo speaker
designs, and the iPhone 6S and Galaxy S7 continue this depressing trend.
Both feature single, mono speakers and while the iPhone 6S
is underwhelming (it’s loud but very tinny), the Galaxy S7 is actually a step
backwards from the Galaxy S6. Why? It’s a side effect of the S7’s water resistance
and this means the phone has one of the weakest premium smartphone speaker
experiences around.
As for Apple, iPhone 7 renders show Apple may finally
incorporate a dual speaker design this year, leaving the Galaxy S7 well and
truly behind.
Winner: iPhone 6S
– Apple’s win here is more a sign of Samsung’s regression than notable
improvements in the iPhone 6S. Both must do better next time and the signs from
Apple at least, are it will.
Value – Storage By
Different Names
iPhone and Galaxy customers don’t usually place value at the
top of their requirements, but this year the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6S present
intriguingly different approaches to their pricing:
Galaxy S7: $699 (32GB)
iPhone 6S: $649 (16GB), $749 (64GB) and $849 (128GB)
Your first thought seeing these prices is probably to think
I’ve forgotten several Galaxy S7 variants, but no – bizarrely – Samsung has
decided it will only release its new phone in a single 32GB edition in the US.
Why would Samsung do this? Because of the return of microSD
support. So whereas iPhone 6S owners have to pick their storage option on day
one and are stuck with it, Galaxy S7 owners can buy the 32GB option and quickly
and easily expand its storage with capacious and affordable microSD cards.
For example, while you’ll need a fast one (I suggest nothing
less than UHS Speed Class 3), quick 128GB microSD cards can be bought for
little more than $50 and this means owners can attain a 162GB Galaxy S7 for
just $749. Meanwhile 200GB microSD cards are available from $100-150 dollars
giving users a 232GB Galaxy S7 for $799 to $849.
But there is a downside to this. MicroSD storage is nowhere
near as fast as native storage and it represents a compromise for those who
would’ve prefered to pay for more inbuilt storage. Here Apple rides to the
rescue, though the company deserves severe criticism for continuing to offer a
16GB entry level storage as a cynical upsell tactic to the 64GB model.
Winner: Galaxy S7
– most users will get by on 32GB (25GB accessible) for apps and uses the
microSD card for storing photos and video which keeps the price down. Larger
internal storage sizes should be available, but there’s no denying the value of
the Galaxy S7 overall.
Bottom Line –
Samsung’s Big Win
Tallying the different section wins gives the Galaxy S7 a
5-3 victory over the iPhone 6S, but these numbers don’t tell the full story
because in reality there is a large gulf between these two devices. The reasons
for this are the win categories and margins.
The Galaxy S7 wins four crucial categories (design, display,
camera and battery life) by a long way, while the iPhone 6S has only one clear
win: the speaker (hardly a high point) and the other two category wins
(performance and fingerprint sensor) are attained by smaller margins. Meanwhile
the Galaxy S7 throws in two more uncontested benefits: water resistance and
expandable storage.
And yet there’s still one big reason not to buy the Galaxy
S7: Samsung’s butchering of Android. It’s needless, inefficient, self serving
and yet self inflicted.
That aside it is easy to see how Samsung has been so
successful with the Galaxy S7: it listened. The Galaxy S7 improves in every
major area compared to the Galaxy S6 and addresses customers’ biggest
complaints. By contrast Apple has been moving at a more incremental pace and
the iPhone 6S display, ergonomics, battery life/charging and storage options
feel well behind the times.
If Apple doesn’t address these with the iPhone 7 (a phone
which will also remove the headphone jack) then Samsung could enjoy a phoenix-like
revival over the next 18 months.
Why? Because not only is the Galaxy S7 better than the
iPhone 6S, Samsung makes another phone which is better than them both…
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