SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 review

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 Review

WHAT IS THE SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7?

Big phones weren’t big until the original Samsung Galaxy Note came along. Its radical resizing of the smartphone was bonkers to some, but a revelation to others.

The phablet was born, people criticised it, but now every manufacturer makes one – even Apple with its iPhone 6S Plus and upcoming iPhone 7 Plus.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 proves that Samsung still makes big phones properly, rather than just stretching a smaller phone to a bigger size.

It’s got stiff competition from the HTC 10, incoming Nexus devices and the Galaxy S7 Edge, but the Note 7 is the one to beat – even if its price can only be described as eye-watering.

I wouldn’t be surprised if next year’s Samsung Galaxy S8 takes a similar approach and ditches the flat version, going curvy all the way.

The Galaxy Note 7 is the pinnacle of Samsung’s design and is the culmination of everything the company's learned since ditching faux-leather and plastic disguised as metal.

The curved display is the headline trait, but even that’s come a long way since it was first used on the ill-fated Galaxy Note Edge. It’s even been improved over the one on the Galaxy S7 Edge, as the curve is less obvious and, well, less curvy. It juts down at a steeper angle and takes less screen real estate away, but it’s just as eye-catching as ever.

Following the curve on the front is a similar roundedness to the back, which was a small design alteration introduced on the Galaxy Note 5. The biggest achievement here is just how comfortable the phone feels, considering it has a 5.7-inch screen. It’s smaller in every dimension than both the iPhone 6S Plus and Huawei Nexus 6P, making it easier to hold and use than both of those phones.

This is huge, because finally you get all the benefits of the big screen without worrying about juggling it in your hands.

The Note series has always been marketed as more of a ‘business’ device, and while this is just marketing speak that isn’t really relevant, it feeds into the design. The Note 7 is more straight and boxy than the rounded Galaxy S7 brothers, which are a little more fun to look at.

It’s still completely formed from metal and glass, and stands out as being the best-looking phone you can buy right now. It’s more ergonomic than the HTC 10, less boring than the iPhone 6S and not as sharp as the Nexus 6P. It's also water-resistant enough to be dunked in the bath for about 30 minutes.

Another ‘first’ for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is Gorilla Glass 5. This glass not only covers the front, but the back too, and it should protect the phone if you happen to drop it – which no doubt you will at some point. I’ve been vocal in the past about how my biggest annoyance with these flagship phones is their delicate nature.

I’ve dropped my Galaxy S7 Edge from about 2ft onto a wooden floor and it caused a snaking crack down the back, while a colleague dropped one from a similar height onto concrete and destroyed the whole front.

Thankfully, and I’m sure the Samsung PR folk will be happy to hear this, I haven’t dropped the Note 7. Yet. So I can’t really say if Gorilla Glass 5 is a whole heap better than 4, but I’ll definitely update this review once I've used it for a few months (and probably dropped it).

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 – DISPLAY

Its size was once the story with the Note series. Its size set it apart. It was huge, unmanageable, basically a tablet. How big was the display on the original Note? It was 5.3 inches. That’s now considered small.

And while the Note’s display has grown to 5.7 inches, it’s no longer the differentiator. Other phones, such as the Nexus 6P, are the same size, and while the iPhone 6S Plus has a smaller display, it has a bigger footprint.

But even though it may not stand out for its size, the Note 7 does so because of its quality – something arguably much more important.

Like all of Samsung’s flagships, and even some of its cheaper phones like the Galaxy J3, the starting point is the Super AMOLED panel. It might not have the viewing angles you get with an IPS LCD, but the oomph and joyous colours more than make up for that. Samsung’s honed this display technology over time and it’s now the best it's ever been.

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Colours are strong and vibrant, blacks are dark and there’s no muddiness in the whites. It’s a joy to look at, and its brightness means it’s perfectly viewable even in direct sunlight. This is the brightest phone screen I've ever used, and it’s mightily impressive. There are some minor reflections if you look very closely near the edge of the display, but it doesn’t affect use.

Instead of upping the resolution to 4K – something that was heavily rumoured – Samsung has kept it at quad-HD. With a pixel density of 518ppi, individual pixels are impossible to spot, even if you get really close.

While it hasn’t added 4K, it has added HDR (high dynamic range). Well, Samsung calls it 'Mobile HDR', but it works in a similar way to how it functions on an HDR-compatible television. It’s a display tech that improves contrast while retaining extra detail in the brightest and darkest areas of the picture. Many in the TrustedReviewsoffice will tell you that HDR is more important than 4K. It’s a big deal.

Most HDR content comes from a service, such as Amazon Video or Netflix, piped through a dedicated box or supported television. The new Xbox One S, for example, can play both HDR content and games if you’ve got the right television to display them

It works a bit differently on the Note 7, though. Along with streaming actual HDR content, there’s a mode that bursts into life when a supported app is opened. Start up Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime or the dedicated video app and a ‘Video enhancer mode’ will kick in. This simulates the idea of HDR, boosting the brightness and fiddling about with the contrast settings.

It does make a very visible difference, but at times It can be a little jarring. The move from a typical phone screen to one that feels like it’s trying to sear your retinas is odd, but the results are great.

I do feel this would work better on a tablet, as that’s meant to be used for media, whereas I rarely sit back and watch anything other than YouTube on my phone. Still, it's typical of the Note series to deliver something we haven’t seen before, perhaps as some sort of trial. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see this tech trickle down to the Galaxy S8, and hopefully the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S2.

Just like the Galaxy S7, the Note 7 has an ‘Always-on display’. Even when the phone is locked, a clock and a row of notification icons glow on the screen. The bonus with AMOLED tech is that it only needs to light up individual pixels, so there’s not a huge drain on battery from this feature. My biggest issue with the original way the AOD worked has been resolved, as it’ll now display icons from every app rather than just Samsung’s own.

It’s a nice, if unessential, feature that can be both annoying and useful. But at least you can turn it off

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 – PERFORMANCE

The Galaxy Note 7 has the same CPU and GPU as the six-month old Samsung Galaxy S7, but that's no bad thing. The 4GB LPDDR4 RAM and Exynos 8890 CPU is a potent combination that can handle intensive and day-to-day tasks with ease.

During my synthetic benchmarks, the Note 7 scored a respectable 2,118 in the single-core Geekbench 3 test and 5,924 in the multi-core version. That’s pretty much on par with all the flagship phones I've reviewed this year. The Note's 129,729 score in Antutu 6 is also almost exactly the same as the Galaxy S7 Edge's. Its 2,139 3DMark Sling Shot score confirmed its solid graphics performance.

Galaxy phones of old were packed with high-end components, but still lagged due to software issues. Luckily Samsung's fixed the problems on the Note 7. Apps open instantly on the Note 7 and there’s no slow animations or janky scrolling.

There’s also 64GB of extremely speedy UFS 2.0 internal storage. Samsung isn't offering any other storage options, but there’s a microSD card slot that can be used to add a further 256GB of space.

Past Samsung phone speakers have always been a little disappointing, and this hasn't changed on the Note 7. The downward facing speaker is loud and fine for YouTube, but it’s poor compared to the HTC 10.

Call quality is absolutely fantastic, with the mics picking up clear audio and managing to block out any irritating background noise. 4G/LTE signal, on both Three and EE's UK network, is also strong and steady.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 – S PEN AND IRIS 

SCANNER

Steve Jobs famously said that ‘if you see a stylus, they blew it’, but Samsung has long marketed Note phones' S Pens as a key selling point.

I must admit, even though I have used every iteration of the Galaxy Note line I haven’t found myself itching for a stylus once I switched to another phone. I have no qualms saying that the S-Pen in the Galaxy Note 7 is the best one yet. But has it converted me?

In some ways, yes. There are certain tweaks and software enhancements that make the S Pen more than just a writing tool. GIF creation, for one, is intuitive and fun. Start a YouTube video playing, pop out the pen and you can create up to a 15-second GIF. It works as advertised, but it’s the easiness that makes it great.

I’ve also fallen slightly in love with the translation mode, even though I don’t think it works very well. The idea here is that you bring up a picture of a menu completely written in French, drag the S-Pen across specific words and it’ll translate them in real time. It’s quick and intuitive, but not always accurate.

It managed to translate some very basic words and knew ‘pain’ was bread, but it couldn’t work out ‘oignons’ meant onions. At this stage it’s unreliable, but could be great if Samsung spends a little time fixing it.

The S Pen's increased 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity makes it the most precise S Pen yet. The figure puts the Note 7's S Pen on par with the Surface Pro 4's Surface Pen and over twice as sensitive as the Note 5's stylus. This makes drawing and writing much smoother and the change is instantly noticeable on the Note 7.

Watercolours blend into each other, pencils shade and pens are pin sharp. I’m no Picasso, but I could still get some averagely drawn stickmen out without much trouble.

Note taking is also better’, but the Note 7's screen is still a bit small for me personally. That’s probably because I have been using the iPad Pro for so long. Either way,I love how you can pop out the pen and write on the blank screen, sliding it back inside to save the memo.

Samsung has tidied up its software on the Note 7, combining all its S Pen related apps into ‘Samsung Notes’. It’s very similar to Apple’s Notes app, with drawing, painting and text all bound together in one spot. It looks good, has a simple UI and offers a nice range of pens, effects and brushes.

I haven’t really spoke much about the stylus itself, because there isn’t much to say. It’s thin sliver of plastic, with an addictive clicky top and a single button halfway down. It satisfyingly slots in and out of the phone and as usual doesn’t need to be charged or paired. It’s small, but still feels big enough to write comfortably.

I'm less impressed with the Note 7's iris scanner. The iris scanner backs up the Note 7's fingerprint sensor and aims beef up the phone's security.

Setting it up is easy – it’s quicker than adding a fingerprint – but in real life use it’s little more than a James Bond-esque addition that sounds way cooler than it is. The scanner is finicky to use as you have to have it level with your retinas to get it going and then swipe up on the lockscreen. This makes it a much slower overall process than the fingerprint scanner.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 – SOFTWARE

Samsung’s approach to software has always been strange. The company has traditionally taken a very heavy approach skinning Android. The end result is a unique looking user interface that's radically different to stock Android.

The UI on Note 7, which runs atop Android 6.0.1, is the sleekest and starkest version Samsung has ever made. It’s whiter, with pastel shades and less in your face colours. But, it’s still recognisably Samsung software and looks nothing like Marshmallow on a Nexus 6P. Samsung pushes you towards its own apps, its own services (it still has its own app store and cloud backup) and Google’s versions are hidden away in a folder.

To give Samsung credit, the software is so much better than it was even two years ago, but I still prefer Google’s alternatives for browsing the web, email and so on.

There are a couple of Samsung software tweaks that I really like, though. Split Window – having two apps side by side – might be coming to Android in Nougat but Samsung has been doing it for years and manages to make it work without any sort of slow-down or dodgy behaviour.

A new Blue light filter mode reduces blue hues and turns the screen orange, making it better for late-night reading. Like Apple’s Night Shift, it can be scheduled so it kicks in at the same time every night.

Instead of having Google Now on the leftmost homescreen window, there’s Upday. This is a basic news aggregator that works in a similar way to Flipboard, pulling in the latest articles from your favoured topics. The feature is a little hit and miss with its recommendations, during my time with the Note 7 it seemed to think I love celebrity gossip, but I generally found it useful nonetheless.

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.

The big question though is when will the Note 7 will get Android 7.0 Nougat? Well, Samsung says ‘soon’. Hopefully that means before 2016 ends, but I won’t be holding my breath.

One major negative I still hold against Samsung’s phones is that they don't yet have an Apple Pay rival set-up and available in the UK. Samsung Pay has been around for ages in the USA, South Korea and a smattering of European countries but it still hasn’t hit the UK. I’ve been repeatedly told it’s coming soon, but until then at least there’s Android Pay.

To make those ‘Edges’ – the curved portion of the display – seem more than just something to lust over, Samsung has Edge apps that aim to put the curves to use.

Developers can build extensions for the Edge, but there hasn’t been a whole load of them introduced since the launch of the Galaxy S7. Yahoo, for instance, made one for quickly swiping in and checking the news. It’s more of a novelty than something you’ll actually use everyday, but it’s nice to see Samsung is at least trying to do something different here.

samSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 – CAMERA

Another part plucked straight from the Galaxy S7 is the 12-megapixel rear camera. This is far from a bad thing, though

I’ll happily say this set-up is the best on the market and easily outmuscles the cameras on the iPhone 6S Plus, Huawei P9 and HTC 10.

It’s got everything you want in a smartphone camera – it’s super-fast to open, simple to operate and has a wide f/1.7 aperture for better low-light performance. There’s optical image stabilisation too, for keeping everything steady.

Like HTC and Huawei, Samsung lowered the amount of megapixels in the its phone cameras and instead went for bigger pixels that theoretically let in more light. In the Note 7, they’re known as dual pixels and they work great. The Note 7 is one of the best phones for low-light snaps. The camera setup reduces blur and brings out more colours than Huawei’s P9, which has an extra bespoke sensor to take better night photos.

These also help the auto-focus work fantastically well. The sensor has two ‘photobodies’ instead of one and this means the camera can focus much quicker, and more accurately than before.

The camera app is also excellent. Too many phones have fallen by the wayside because of their awful, unintuitive camera apps, but Samsung avoids this. Double-tapping the home button takes you straight into shooting mode and then it’s a case of swiping to the left for manual options and to the right for live filters. A ‘Pro’ mode lets you alter the focus points, ISO, white balance and so on while the ‘Live Broadcast’ option lets you beam videos straight to YouTube.

Pictures look absolutely fantastic. They’re packed full of detail, colours are vibrant yet accurate and you can get lovely blurry background when taking macro shots. Results are almost indistinguishable from Galaxy S7, but I have noticed there’s a little more exposure on the Note 7 that leads to less pop, but more realism.

The auto-HDR mode has developed into something I keep on all the time, because its reliability has increased with every release. It manages to keep all the colours accurate, but give great contrast and better black-levels than the regular shooting mode. The mode is turned on by default, which shows just how confident Samsung is about it.

The wide aperture, OIS and larger pixels all combine to create great low-light, night time shots. Noise is kept to a minimum and photos don’t look over processed.

If you’re used to the Galaxy S7 there isn’t much different here and you won’t be blown away again, but if you’re coming from another older phone the camera will feel like an incremental improvement.

UHD (that’s 4K) video recording is an option too, but picking this higher resolution does restrict your use of some of the cooler video features. If you go for 1080p there’s HDR, video effects and tracking auto-focus that makes a real difference for quick moving footage.

It I had one complaint, it would be front-facing 5-megapixel selfie camera. It’s fine, but nowhere near as memorable as its rear-facing brother. It struggles with faces and smooths out details, giving the impression you're wearing heavy make-up. If you’re all about the selfies, the HTC 10 is a better overall pick. Still, for the odd Snapchat this is fine.

SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7 – BATTERY

The 3,500 mAh – still non-removable – cell tucked inside the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 has impressive stamina, but it’s not going to redefine how long a smartphone can last for. The Galaxy S7 Edge has a 100 mAh bigger battery, but I didn't see any discernible differences between the stamina of the two phones.

I can comfortably go from morning to bedtime with 25% of the Note 7's charge left. From there, if I leave it unplugged overnight I can get to between 2-3pm without reaching for the charger.

An hour of Netflix streaming eats through 8-9% (depending if you have the HDR video enhancer mode off or on) while a basic 2D game takes off 7%. Something more intensive, in this case Asphalt 8, takes off 10%. These scores are all comparable with other similarly sized phone

 The Note 7 is the first Samsung to use USB-C, but there's still wireless charging

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.

Samsung has included a handy Micro USB to USB-C converter in the box, so you can use your old cables. That’s a nice touch, and makes the switch to the new reversible port a little easier to handle.

Fast charging is one of my favourite features on any phone and I think I would struggle without it. This sounds like a ridiculous first-world problem, but fast charging makes a huge difference.

Fully charging the phone with the included block and cable takes 92 minutes. Using a charger that doesn’t support Quick Charge 2 takes twice as long. It’s a similar story with wireless chargers. Samsung’s own Fast Wireless Charging juiced the Note 7 from 0-100% in about 110 minutes, but it took nearly four hours on a standard Qi plate.

SHOULD I BUY THE SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 7?

I started this review saying the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 wasn’t for everyone, and it really isn’t. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a truly fantastically complete phone. Galaxy S7 aside, there aren’t any other phones (iPhones very much included) that are this close to perfection.

The screen is sublime, the camera makes me want to go out and take pictures and the engineering that must have gone in make a phone with a 5.7-inch display this good to hold is beyond impressive.

But I'd expect a phone this price to be great. Whether you pony up the gigantic SIM-free price or pay monthly, this is one of the priciest phones on the market. If you’re not going to take advantage of the S Pen, then you’re probably better off with the Galaxy S7 Edge. You could also buy two OnePlus 3’s for the price of a single Note S7.

OVERALL SCORE

SCORES IN DETAIL

• Battery Life9
• Calls & Sound7
• Camera10
• Design10
• Performance9
• Software8
• Value7