Samsung Galaxy S7-Beautiful,Waterproof,Fragile

THE GOOD   : Polished design. Awesome camera. Long battery life. microSD storage slot and water-resistant (again!).

THE BAD    : Annoyingly reflective. Smudge magnet. Plastic-looking selfies even with no filter. No removable battery, which isn't surprising, but is still a compromise compared to 2014's S5.

THE BOTTOM LINE   :The fast, powerful, beautiful Galaxy S7 phone is 2016's all-around phone to beat.

With a 5.1-inch flat AMOLED screen that is the envy of every other phone, and a gentle curve to its back, the S7 is very comfortable to hold in your palm. It’s almost identically sized to last year’s Galaxy S6(and the Galaxy S5 for that matter). Overall, it’s a comfortable smaller phone that most people should be able to hold (unless you prefer very extra tiny phones like the old Iphone 5s).

But glass is still glass, and the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are covered in the stuff, potentially making them the most fragile phones available this year. Because that Gorilla Glass is proprietary and curved on the back, it may also cost hundreds of dollars to replace broken or cracked screens, should the slippery phone fall from your grasp. Don’t buy a Galaxy S7 without a case.

The other major caveat to the glass design this year is how easy it is to cover in fingerprints. A week of use left our S7 so caked in fingerprints that it feels downright grimy to hold (another reason to get a case). If this sort of thing bothers you, consider a competing phone, or buying a nice case. Seriously, you’ll want a case. We can’t stress that enough.

A POWERFUL, WARM PHONE

If impressive specifications help you sleep at night, the Galaxy S7 may as well be Ambien. It runs on a new quad-core 2.15GHz + 1.6GHz processor, but the maker of that processor will vary by region. In the United States, we’re getting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, but in the rest of the world, Samsung is using an Exynos chip of its own design. Samsung claims the new processors are supposedly about 30 percent faster than the Galaxy S6, and the integrated graphics processor is about 64 percent faster. Initial benchmarks are showing that the Galaxy S7’s Snapdragon 820 processor runs circles around most every competitor. Luckily, our model runs on the 820. It’s done very well in our initial tests, performing just above the Google Pixel C tablet in 3D Mark’s Sling Shot 3.1 test and narrowly outperforming the iPhone 6S on the Ice Storm Unlimited graphics test. On AnTuTu, it blew away all competition by a massive margin, outperforming every listed Android device, including the Galaxy Note 5. Other benchmarks have shown similarly good results. This is a great phone for gaming. It’s also a great phone for calling. We had no issues making or receiving calls on the Verizon network.

Be warned, however. Though it doesn’t get “hot,” the GS7 feels noticeably warm at most times, despite its new liquid cooling. Even with a case, this is a warm phone.

Aside from the processor, the Galaxy S7 comes with 4GB RAM, 32GB of storage, and the Nano SIM tray also has a Micro SD card slot that can hold any cards available today (up to 200GB). Samsung has even struck a deal so the GS7 and S7 Edge are the first phones compatible with the Vulkan API, which should aid high-end game development.

An improved camera

Samsung really wants a better camera than the iPhone, and it has one, by some measurements. The S7 has a 12-megapixel rear cameras that operates faster thanks to an F1.7 lens (up from F1.9 in last year’s), and focuses faster thanks to its “dual-pixel” design. Samsung claims that every pixel in the lens also acts as a focus pixel, and that this is a first for smartphones.

In a direct shoot off in low-light and dark conditions, the Galaxy S7 often outperformed the iPhone 6S. Samsung’s camera was able to capture sharper images in the dark and illuminate areas that the iPhone could not. The speed of focusing also helped it grab a few shots of moving scenes that the iPhone was unable to shoot as smoothly. It’s a victory for Samsung, but the GS7 camera is not perfect. Samsung’s photos often come out warmer (more yellow and orange) than in reality, and than on the iPhone. So while it can grab a clearer, lighter shot, Samsung has some work to do in making that photo look realistic. Some S7 shots came out looking like they already had Instagram filters applied.

Selfies on the S7 were not noticeably worse or better than competing phones, like the iPhone.