Samsung Galaxy S7 review: A refinement act

Telephony and loudspeaker

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is available as a single-SIM phone, but there is a model with dual-SIM support, too.

The dialer and the phonebook are pretty much the usual TouchWiz deal.

Dialer • Smart dial • Favorites • Contacts

The Do Not Disturb mode can be put on an automated schedule. When it's on, only priority notifications can get through and you decide what counts as "priority" - it can be anything from calls from select contacts to reminders from key apps.

Do not disturb

The Galaxy S7 delivered the same loudspeaker performance in our test as its predecessor, posting a Good score. The speaker sound quality is quite nice, too.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
LG Nexus 5X	61.2	65.8	61.7	Below Average
Sony Xperia Z5	65.1	62.3	66.3	Below Average
Apple iPhone 6s	66.5	64.6	65.8	Below Average
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)	65.8	66.0	66.5	Below Average
Huawei P8	66.7	66.0	68.5	Average
Sony Xperia Z5 Compact	66.3	65.0	70.5	Average
LG G Flex2	66.5	65.8	70.5	Average
HTC One M9	65.2	64.6	76.1	Average
Samsung Galaxy S7	69.5	69.3	71.1	Good
Samsung Galaxy S6	68.1	66.3	73.7	Good
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge	69.7	66.5	73.5	Good
LG G4	66.9	71.8	74.7	Good
Oppo N1	73.7	67.7	78.7	Very Good
Huawei Nexus 6P	74.7	77.8	72.1	Very Good
Oppo R7 Plus	73.7	72.8	79.9	Very Good
OnePlus 2	75.7	73.5	80.7	Excellent
Samsung Galaxy Note 4	79.5	74.4	89.3	Excellent

Text input

The Galaxy S7 uses the good old Samsung keyboard, there's no sign of the A9 (2016)'s secondary symbols upon long press. That aside, it's quite feature-packed, with a dedicated numbers row, a row above that for word suggestions, as well as swipe input.

Keyboard

The keyboard can be resized, but the range is quite limited, and in this case you might as well stick with the default size. There's a high contrast keyboard mode, to help combat eyesight problems.

Keyboard size: Smallest • Default • Biggest | High-contrast mode

Additional typing tools include swipe input, My Hot Keys (predefined phrases that can be typed by long-pressing a number key) and voice dictation.

Other apps

Samsung continues to bundle the Microsoft app package that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Skype.

Microsoft app package

Google Drive is pre-installed, however, the actual document editors are not (they are a free download, though).

The Samsung-customized web browser features Web sign in - a feature that works as a password manager secured by your fingerprint. This makes log-ins as simple as unlocking the phone.

With the Samsung browser, your fingerprint is your password

S Health is on board and it can fully utilize the hear-rate and blood oxygen sensors. It also tracks walking/running/cycling and you can manually input water and coffee intake and so on.

S health is Samsung's fitness app

Smart Manager is a hub that controls several key areas - battery, RAM, Storage and Device security. This gives you tools to track down apps that drain the battery, use too much RAM and clean-up unnecessary files.

Smart Manager • Cleaning up the storage • Cleaning up the RAM

The Device Security tab lets you activate KNOX (protects the phone and OS from hacking but makes for longer boot times) and scan for malware. The My KNOX app lets you separate work and corporate apps and access by creating a secure, isolated space on the phone, which becomes inaccessible as soon as KNOX detects an unauthorized change in the OS.

KNOX security manager

The My Files app is the default file browser. It features Google Drive integration. You can ZIP folders to make them easier to share as a single file. It also allows batch file operations.

My Files

Finally, there's Galaxy Apps, Samsung's own app store. Galaxy Essentials is a good place to find great tools (like Kids Mode), but for general app shopping, you would probably be better off with Google Play.

Galaxy Apps