View image in fullscreen The apps edge with 10 app shortcuts is just one of the edge panels available. Changing the S7 to a Type-C plug would have required Samsung to make a new Gear VR, and we'd guess the company wasn't ready to do that.

The Galaxy S5 bezels were beefier than the Galaxy S4, a change that we felt made the S5 design look like a step backward. My first day with the phone, I saw some odd behavior involving the phone not recovering or trading up to 4G LTE from dead zones, but that seemed to sort itself out after a few days. The improved burst shot mode captures twenty full-resolution photos per second up to one hundred photos per row. The display is turned off if the device's proximity sensor detects that it is in an enclosed space such as a pocket. Meanwhile, the IP68 water resistance has improved from the S5, allowing submersion of up to five feet for 30 minutes, plus there's no annoying flap covering the charging port.inch size still looks absolutely pin-sharp, and it's very hard to see any artefacts lying around on the screen. MIMO will make for faster speeds on T-Mobile and Verizon while 3x20 carrier aggregation becomes important on Sprint. It takes the most cutting-edge engineering to get all of the innovations and functionality of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge into their streamlined, glass-and-metal bodies. Not much has really changed from the outgoing S6, but this still holds up as the best screen on a smartphone. The S7 edge also has a significantly bigger battery and offers up to 27 hours of talk time (3G) or 74 hours of music play (with wired headphones), as opposed to 22 hours and 62 hours respectively for the S7.

The Korean company has been criticised over the years for complicating the excellent standard Android with unnecessary features and bloat, slowing it down and making it worse, not better. There's been a lot of talk over the last year about how smartphones are getting boring—essentially, how they've plateaued in terms of changing our lives. The Snapdragon 820 processor makes for perfectly smooth motion with no lag, but the content in Samsung's MilkVR app is disappointing in terms of resolution: as I watched movies and music videos, I could see the pixels in a distracting way.

I like to use the controls of Asphalt 8 to check for responsiveness, and the S7 is as smooth as butter—as you'd expect. This results in a pixel density of 577 ppi, making it one of the sharpest currently available on a phone. The Galaxy S7 maintains the same basic style and construction as the Galaxy S6—it's still a glass sandwich with an aluminum band. The bottom houses the headphone socket, another microphone, a speaker and a micro USB port for charging. USB Type C's mainstream debut on the Chromebook Pixel 2 and 2015 Macbook happened almost a year ago, and Type C phones started hitting US soil almost seven months ago.

They allow you to swipe in to reach your favourite contacts, and you can add your favourite apps and shortcuts there too. Battery life: Simply put, having a phone with a good battery life will improve your phone's staying power. For me, this is a plus – it feels better pressing the Galaxy S7’s home button than the iPhone 6S’s – but a couple of the TrustedReviews team think otherwise.There is one notable design change on the back – the sides now curve ever so slightly, just like they did on the larger Galaxy Note 5, and it makes a huge change to how the Galaxy S7 feels. The Galaxy S7 is an evolution of the prior year's model, with upgraded hardware, design refinements, and the restoration of features removed from the Galaxy S6, such as IP certification for water and dust resistance, as well as expandable storage with a MicroSD card.