Samsung Galaxy S7 review: A refinement act

Gallery

The TouchWiz gallery orders photos by time, but you can switch to folder-based Album view. Thumbnail sizes can be resized with a pinch gensture and the album selection pane on the left can be hidden.

TouchWiz Gallery

Sharing options include wireless printing, Android Beam and Wi-Fi Direct, but no DLNA (or other way to send an image to your TV). Several image editing tools are available - from basic cropping, to collage making, to a more capable editor (which supports image correction, effects and drawing).

Viewing an image • Image details • Sharing options *Powerful editor

Music player with advanced EQ features

Google Play Music is the default player for your tunes on the Galaxy S7. The app has been treated to the material design a while ago, and its functionality remains unchanged - it can play your local files, as well as stream music from the cloud.

The Samsung sound enhancements are available, of course, you can access them from Play Music, too. They include the SoundAlive tool, which has an intuitive interface to tuning the equalizer (a manual 7-band equalizer is available for more knowledgeable users).

Music player

Adapt Sound is even simpler. It tunes the EQ to your hearing and your particular pair of headphones by playing multiple frequencies and asking how well you hear them. Smart Volume automatically adjusts the volume of tracks from multiple sources.

UHQ sound resolution enhancer is available, Surround sound emulation and Tube Amp Pro simulator are onboard, too.

Equalizer and other settings

Video player

There is no video player app pre-installed and the Gallery handles the videos by default. It has full subtitle support and pop-up player.

Video player

There's an "Editor" option too though that may be overstating it - it just lets you trim the video. If you want a more capable video editor, there is such in the Galaxy Apps store for free, courtesy of Samsung.

Audio output doesn't disappoint

The Samsung Galaxy S7 almost perfectly matched the output of its predecessor with an active external amplifier. This is to say the smartphone delivered flawlessly clean output with just above average volume levels for an excellent showing.

Stereo crosstalk did increase a bit more compared to what the Galaxy S6 had, but output remained very solid when headphones came into play. Volume didn't drop either, so it was all very good and worthy of a modern-day flagship.

Anyway, here go the results so you can do your comparisons.

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Samsung Galaxy S7	+0.01, -0.04	-92.5	92.6	0.0027	0.0078	-92.7
Samsung Galaxy S7 (headphones)	+0.05, -0.05	-91.9	92.1	0.0044	0.063	-82.4
Samsung Galaxy S6	+0.01, -0.04	-95.6	92.8	0.0024	0.0094	-94.5
Samsung Galaxy S6 (headphones)	+0.02, -0.05	-92.6	91.9	0.0025	0.042	-83.4
Sony Xperia Z5	+0.01, -0.04	-95.5	89.5	0.0033	0.012	-94.8
Sony Xperia Z5 (headphones attached)	+0.22, -0.24	-95.1	89.5	0.0057	0.212	-59.8
Apple iPhone 6s	+0.03, -0.04	-93.5	93.5	0.0016	0.0075	-73.2
Apple iPhone 6s (headphones attached)	+0.10, -0.06	-93.8	93.9	0.0030	0.101	-68.2
LG G4	+0.04, -0.07	-93.4	93.3	0.0021	0.050	-92.6
LG G4 (headphones)	+0.93, -0.13	- 91.4	91.9	0.013	0.244	-50.4
Nokia Lumia 950	+0.01, -0.03	-91.3	91.2	0.0036	0.012	-91.6
Nokia Lumia 950 (headphones attached)	+0.59, -0.03	-92.0	91.9	0.011	0.316	-63.9

Samsung Galaxy S7 frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.