The Samsung Galaxy Note 7, a much-anticipated successor to the popular Samsung Galaxy Note 5, was unveiled yesterday during Samsung’s Unpacked event in New York. Samsung decided to disrupt the naming convention, skipping a number and going with ‘Galaxy Note 7’ instead of naming it the Note 6. Bold curves, a refreshed design, water resistance, S-Pen and various other features set this new phablet apart from its older sibling, the Galaxy Note 5.
Starting with the construction and design, the Galaxy Note 7 maintains the metal and glass structure of its predecessor, although it is slimmer and feels slightly better in the hand it seems. The Galaxy Note 7 is also slightly lighter than its predecessor, weighing about 169 g. The screen size remains the same at 5.7 inches although the screen is now dual-edge, a significant departure from Galaxy Note 5’s flat screen panel design. Both panels are Super AMOLED and Quad HD, having the same pixel density of 518 ppi. Galaxy Note 7 features the Always On display, an options which was not a part of the Galaxy Note 5 experience.
Under the hood, the Galaxy Note 7 is powered by the Exynos 8890 or Snapdragon 820 SoC, depending on where you buy it, as compared to Exynos 7420 in the Galaxy Note 5. Samsung has upgraded the connectivity options as well, offering LTE Cat.9, Cat.10 or Cat.12 support (depending on where you buy it). Both of these phones come with 4 GB LPDDR4 RAM, but the Galaxy Note 7 has only one storage capacity variant – 64 GB. An interesting feature to note is the comeback of the microSD card slot in the Galaxy Note 7. The decision to drop the option of expandable memory from the Galaxy Note 5 drew a lot of criticism, and Samsung replied positively. The rear-facing camera in the Galaxy Note 7 houses a 12-megapixel f/1.7 sensor, while a 5-megapixel snapper is located on the phone’s front side, with the new dual-pixel autofocus technology, a notable upgrade from Galaxy Note 5’s 16 MP f/1.9 rear shooter. The new camera produces much better results in low light (we’ve seen it in action in both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge), owing to the larger pixel size.
The battery capacity of Galaxy Note 7 has been upgraded from 3,000mAh to 3,500mAh, and a significant improvement is the inclusion of a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer. One notable improvement over Galaxy Note 5 is that the Galaxy Note 7 is IP68 certified water and dust resistant. It is also the first phone which comes equipped with Corning Gorilla Glass 5, providing additional damage protection to the screen.
Samsung has added a new layer of security and convenience by introducing the iris scanner in the Galaxy Note 7, along with the fingerprint sensor. The array of sensors remains the same, with both phones containing the barometric, Geomagnetic, Gyroscopic, Hall, HRM, Proximity and RGB light sensors. As far as software is concerned, the Galaxy Note 7 comes with Android 6.0 Mmarshmallow out of the box, with Samsung’s custom UI on top of it. Also, Samsung learned its lesson from the Galaxy Note 5 S-Pen fiasco, as the new S-Pen can no longer be inserted backward.