Philips Hue White Ambiance Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

Philips Hue smart LED lights are ubiquitous. In fact, we outfitted the whole CNET Smart Home with them. But a notable hole has persisted for some time in their product line: there is no Philips Hue color-tunable white light. The new Philips Hue White Ambiance, arriving this Spring, will change that.

The White Ambiance Starter Kit will include two bulbs, the requisite Hue Bridge, and a wireless dimming switch. The price has not been announced.

Philips

Philips Hue has taken strides toward more affordable connected white lights lately, particularly with the $15 (£10, AU$20) Philips Hue White bulbs. But color-tunability is a key feature of white-light smart bulbs, and Philips Hue White bulbs don’t offer it, nor did the pricier Philips Hue Lux bulbs that preceded them and have since been phased out.

White lights with color-tuning are important because they can imitate the changing brightness and color temperature of natural sunlight. The effects on users are significant: higher tones reminiscent of morning sunlight help you wake up, and warmer tones like those of a sunset help you relax and prepare for sleep. For users interested in daily health benefits or intentional home design, white lights like these are definitely worth checking out.

The introduction of Philips Hue White Ambiance is good for Philips and its customer base. White Ambiance bulbs will provide some competition for developers like Lifx, whose White 800 LED offers the same tunability for $40 (‎£30, AU$50). Hopefully, this will continue to encourage competitive pricing for both developers.

One feature Philips Hue has that its competitors don’t is Apple HomeKit compatibility. That means you can use voice commands with Siri to control your lights. Of course, that comes pretty naturally when you’re turning your lights on or off, or changing their colors. But I’m interested to see how the voice commands work with color-tunable white light. Color temperature is tricky. The higher the color temperature, the cooler (more blue-ish) the actual color of the light. So the language for sending commands via Siri might not be as natural as it is for sending commands to other Philips Hue products.

Another question for Philips is the price. Philips Hue White was a step in the right direction thanks to the $15 price tag. The Philips Hue Lux is $20 (‎£15, AU$25) per bulb. With a color temperature range of 2200k to 6500k, White Ambiance will likely be more expensive than both. How much more expensive it is will likely determine whether or not we can recommend it.

Features

• 800 Lumens
• 2200k-6500k color temperature range
• HomeKit compatible
• color-tunable

Samsung Galaxy S7 review

Buy it on eBay

From plastic in 2014 to glass and metal in 2015, last year saw the biggest revolution in Samsung’s mobile portfolio since the launch of the first Galaxy S itself. The Galaxy S6 family was certainly a looker and sought to address many concerns users had over what had previously been, a stagnating product line-up.

Rather than introduce one new smartphone, Samsung delivered two – the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge – with the latter proving to be the culmination of years of experimentation with flexible and curved displays. Both smartphones stood out from the crowd, but the Galaxy S6 was overshadowed by the S6 Edge as the latter saw significantly more interest from consumers and media alike.

One year on and Samsung has arguably learnt from last year and has sought to differentiate the two smartphones in size as well as stature. The Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge were definitely some of the best smartphones of 2015, but the question facing Samsung this year was how to make an already-very-good smartphone, even better.

• Best Android phones
• LG G5 and Galaxy S7 vs the competition

From further perfecting the design to improving features under the hood, and addressing consumer concerns over last year’s line up, Samsung had a few areas that it could improve on to truly make the Galaxy S7 a show-stopping device. Does it deliver, or is the Galaxy S7 a case of “style over substance”? This is what we aim to find out – and more – in this full review of the Samsung Galaxy S7.

As introduced earlier this year, this review follows our new dual review format with two different members of Android Authority reviewing the Galaxy S7 to provide the most comprehensive review possible. While I have put together the in-depth written review you’ll find below, the video embedded above was put together by Joshua Vergara. Through the course of several meetings to discuss our findings, together they combine to provide the most comprehensive review of the experience from two different perspectives.

Design

While this year saw Samsung increase the screen size of the Galaxy S7 Edge, the Korean manufacturer has largely kept the same design in the Galaxy S7. With no change to the screen size or materials, the Galaxy S7 merely aims to refine the Galaxy S6 design, as opposed to revolutionise it like we saw last year.

Which is definitely not a bad thing; the Galaxy S6 was certainly a striking smartphone – albeit it was overshadowed by the Galaxy S6 Edge – and by changing the screen size on the Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung has further ensured that sales of one of its new smartphones won’t cannibalize sales of the other. Out of the shadow of its bigger brother, what refinements have been made to the Galaxy S7, or is it a case of more of the same?

At first glance, the Galaxy S7 certainly looks very similar to its predecessor, but Samsung has managed to sneak in a few improvements to the design. First, the camera bump has been noticeably reduced so it barely protrudes from the rear; with the Galaxy S6, there was always a concern over laying it flat on its back, but with the Galaxy S7, this is no longer really a problem.

Secondly, the Galaxy S7 is noticeably thicker and heavier than the Galaxy S6 at 7.9mm and 152 grams (versus 6.8mm and 138 grams). The added girth definitely helps with gripping the smartphone, and the extra thickness means Samsung has been able to cram in a larger battery, which we’ll talk about later in this review.

By far, the biggest improvement to the user experience is the dual curved rear, which was initially found on last year’s Galaxy Note 5. Designed to make the smartphone more ergonomically friendly, the rear plate is similar to the curved front of the Galaxy S7 Edge (which also gains a dual curved rear) and, combined with a metal frame sandwiching two planes of glass, the Galaxy S7 is even nicer in the hand that the Galaxy S6 was.

The Galaxy S6 was certainly a striking smartphone and the tweaks in the Galaxy S7 have made it even nicer to use and hold. Talking with Josh, we both agree that:

The Galaxy S7 is the most perfectly designed and perfectly sized Samsung phone ever created.

Josh went on to say that once you begin to grip and use the Galaxy S7, the handset feels smaller than it actually is, and I have to agree with this. As a user who’s accustomed to larger displays – like the ones found in the Galaxy Note range for example – the Galaxy S7 does at times feel too small for me, but that’s a personal preference. Josh tends to disagree with me by saying that the smaller size makes the handset perfect for those who touch type, but we both agree that the Galaxy S7 is definitely the most comfortable in-hand experience you’re going to get. If you’re someone who’s accustomed to smaller displays or are moving over from the iPhone, you’ll likely find the Galaxy S7 is actually the perfect size for you.

One of the biggest issues I found with last year’s Galaxy S6 family was the glass back, as it was prone to attracting fingerprints, and although the company has introduced a new coating to reduce this, the Galaxy S7 is still rather prone to this. The glass finish also means the Galaxy S7 can be quite slippery – although I’ve not yet felt like it is going to slip out of my hand – but most people will keep their phone in a case rendering this, and the fingerprint nature of the handset, a relatively moot point.

Moving on to the rest of the Galaxy S7 and not a lot has changed over last year. On the front you’ll find Samsung’s home button – which houses the fingerprint sensor – flanked by the recent apps and back keys. On the left you’ll find the volume keys, while on the right is the power button. Up top is the microSD and SIM card tray (more on that later) while at the bottom, is the microUSB port.

In an era where more smartphones are moving towards USB Type-C and all the benefits (and problems) that it brings, Samsung has opted to stick to the older but tried-and-tested USB type. There’s a couple of reasons behind this, not least the Gear VR, which the company has included free for most people who pre-ordered its new smartphones. As the Gear VR hit the shelves last year and comes with a microUSB connection, it makes sense that Samsung wouldn’t want to change connection standard so quickly. The company could have taken the connector approach, but by sticking with microUSB, it has ensured that the Gear VR continues to work with its new smartphones without further confusing its consumers.

Furthermore, USB Type-C hasn’t quite hit the mainstream as yet and the majority of accessories still rock the older connection standard. As someone who has a few devices with the new USB standard but a large collection of older microUSB cables, I can safely say that Samsung’s decision to stick with microUSB is certainly not a problem for me, and many people will likely agree with that.

easily one of the best designed smartphones in the mobile world

Overall, the Galaxy S7 may look very similar to the Galaxy S6, but the company has made a few tweaks to further refine its Galaxy S experience. From improving the dyeing of the glass – so that the Black version is now actually Black and not blue – to perfecting the in-hand experience, Samsung has created what is easily one of the best designed smartphones in the mobile world.

Display

One of the principal reasons behind Samsung’s meteoric rise to the top of the smartphone food chain is the company’s vertical integration with other companies that form the Samsung Group. In Samsung Display, the Korean OEM has access to the world’s largest display company and – as we’ve seen with previous smartphones – Samsung definitely knows how to use this to its advantage.

When it comes to displays, Samsung has shown over the years that its Super AMOLED displays deliver some of the finest viewing experiences possible on a smartphone. Year on year, there’s very little – if any – difference between the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S7 as both screens measure 5.1-inches with QHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution.

The Galaxy S6 display was certainly impressive and the Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy S7 continues this trend, by offering vibrant and heavily saturated colours, dark inky blacks and brightness that makes the screen legible in even the brightest conditions. As someone who’s become accustomed to Samsung’s displays on smartphones, I can say that the Galaxy S7 is a joy to use, even if it does appear to be very similar to the Galaxy S6. As the adage goes: if it isn’t broken, why try to fix it?

One change found in the Galaxy S7 is the new “Always On Display”, which seems to be a buzz word we’ll hear a lot more of in 2016. Arguably a software feature as opposed to hardware related, the feature is still related to the AMOLED technology, which allows Samsung to light up the individual pixels required for this feature. This is in contrast to LCD displays, which would require an OEM to turn on the entire screen, and this means the Always On Display has very little impact on the battery life.

The Always On Display may appear to be quite useful but once you dig into it, there isn’t a lot of substance to the feature. At the moment, it’s limited to displaying information from Samsung’s own apps at a glance, but once Samsung opens the feature up to more developers, you should hopefully be able to see information from apps such as Hangouts or WhatsApp (and hopefully, any application that chooses to support the feature).

At the moment, the Always On display is mostly useful for seeing the time at a glance or seeing your calendar – there is an option to display an image but this is mostly pointless in my opinion – but whether the feature grows in usefulness with use, does depend on Samsung. The good news is, if you have no need for the always on display, Samsung makes it simple to disable it in the settings menu.

One area of the display that has been quite drastically changed from previous years is how the Galaxy S7 manages brightness. Josh and I both agree that – unlike previous devices – the brightness slider is very sensitive and indicative of the brightness. To this effect, moving the slider to the far left turns the brightness down too low to make the display legible (even in dark conditions) so you have to micro manage the brightness a lot more than you did in previous years.

I’ve personally also noticed that the auto brightness can occasionally take a little longer than expected to adjust to changes in ambient lighting. While other smartphones do seem to provide a minimum nits brightness the display can be turned down to, Samsung allow you to right down to almost nothing and on average, you have to leave your brightness at around 35-40% indoors in order for the screen to be legible.

Overall, the Galaxy S7 display is certainly on par with previous Samsung devices, and while the tweaks in the responsiveness of the brightness and the addition of an Always On display do change the experience slightly, it’s still one of the finest smartphone screens on the market.

Performance & Hardware

One of the rather more contentious parts of the Galaxy S7 is Samsung’s choice to offer two different versions with rather different processors. Last year, the company chose to only power all versions of the Galaxy S6 with its own Exynos 7420 chipset – like due to the negative stigma associated with the Snapdragon 810 – but this year, the company has returned to its previous convention of offering different chipsets.

A tale of two chipsets

Most users who buy the Galaxy S7 will be purchasing one powered by an Exynos 8 Octa (8890) – consisting of a quad-core 2.6GHz Mongoose and a quad-core 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 – paired with a Mali-T880 GPU and 4GB RAM. However, if you’re in the US or China, you’ll be getting a Snapdragon 820 – which consists of a dual-core 2.15GHz Kryo and dual-core 1.6GHz Kryo – along with an Adreno 530 GPU and 4GB RAM.

Snapdragon 820 vs Exynos 8890: the 2016 mobile SoC battle begins29

On paper, the two processors are very different, with one being an octa-core and the other, a quad-core, but what about in actual usage? Does a particular chipset offer a significant advantage over the other, and what about the differences in the GPU? To illustrate any differences adn establish which version has the upper hand, we’ve run a series of benchmark tests on both versions of the Galaxy S7, including AnTuTu, 3DMark and GeekBench 3.

Kicking our tests off with GeekBench 3, you can see that the Exynos version achieved a single-core score of 2063 and a multi-core score of 6267, while the Snapdragon version scored 2269 and 5156 respectively. It’s unsurprising that the Exynos version has the upper hand for the multi-core score, considering that it’s an octa-core chipset versus a quad-core setup in the Snapdragon version. As for single-core, the Snapdragon version does have the upper hand – even if it isn’t by an awful lot – but the overall results do show that performance should mostly be comparable between the two versions of the Galaxy S7.

That’s just one benchmark so, moving on to AnTuTu, let’s check if the CPU performance is really that close between the two versions. As you can see, the Exynos version scored 128429 while the Snapdragon version scored slightly higher at 129375. It’s worth noting that the other main processor from this year’s Battle of the chipsets – the Kirin 950 that powers the Mate 8 – scored 92746.

Between AnTuTu and GeekBench, we get a pretty good understanding that both, the Exynos and the Snapdragon, versions of the Galaxy S7 certainly have similar CPU performance. What about the GPU, we hear you ask?

3DMark shows that while the CPU performance is certainly very similar, there is a much larger discrepancy in the performance of the Graphical Processing Unit. The Mali-T880 GPU inside the Exynos version scored a respectable 2168, but the Adreno 530 GPU in the Snapdragon performed noticeably better with a score of 2528. While it may be disheartening to see the Mali-T880 GPU struggle against the Snapdragon, it’s worth remembering that these scores are still vastly superior to the flagships of last year. As points of reference, the Nexus 6P scores 1577, the Note 5 achieves 1220 and the Galaxy S6 scores 1215, so the performance this year is still vastly superior to the most recent flagships offered to the market.

Overall, the Snapdragon version of the handset is technically superior to the Exynos version but in actual day-to-day usage, you’re highly unlikely to spot any noticeable differences.

Overall, the Snapdragon version of the handset is technically superior to the Exynos version but in actual day-to-day usage, you’re highly unlikely to spot any noticeable differences. Both versions are exceptionally snappy at all day-to-day tasks and the Exynos version of the Galaxy S7 is able to power a Gear VR with no graphics issues whatsoever. Both models are fast, fluid and offer everything you’d want from a flagship phone, with the only slight lag coming in the TouchWiz launcher (although we’ll touch on this later).

If you’re wondering about whether these handsets overheat – which was somewhat of a small issue last year – we can say that neither version of the handset has a problem here. Samsung says it has included a liquid cooling pipe that draws heat away from the crucial internals in order to keep it cool. While we’re unable to test this thoroughly, we can safely say that, while the phone may get warm under heavy gaming, it doesn’t reach a point where you need to worry.

From processor differences to the other changes, and the Galaxy S7 sees the return of two features that were ominously left out of Samsung’s flagships last year.

The return of microSD

Without doubt, one of the biggest disappointments in the Galaxy S6 lineup was Samsung’s decision not to offer expandable storage. Long seen as a company that would continue to offer microSD expansion and removable batteries in its smartphones at a time its rivals were moving away from doing so, the Galaxy S6 thus disappointed many users.

In the Galaxy S7 however, Samsung has sought to correct one of the biggest user concerns from last year and microSD card expansion now makes a return. Last year, Samsung offered its smartphones in three storage flavours, but this year most markets will only offer the 32GB version. Samsung isn’t making a 128GB version of the Galaxy S7 – probably as the 128GB Galaxy S6 barely sold thanks to its extremely high price tag – and even the 64GB version is a rarity, so allowing you to expand the base 32GB storage almost became a necessity.

The Galaxy S7 runs on Android Marshmallow, which brings with the new Adoptable Storage option, but before you get too excited, it’s worth noting that Samsung has left this feature out of the Galaxy S7. As Andrew Grush puts it in our Galaxy S7 Edge review:

For the uninitiated, adoptable storage basically takes your microSD card and your internal storage and combines them into one pool, automatically installing apps and other files wherever the OS sees fit. With this adoptable storage, your memory card is basically ‘locked’ to that device and this is one of the reasons Samsung officially states for leaving out the feature.

There is good news however, as Paul O’Brien of MoDaCo, revealed that it is actually possible to enable this feature on the Galaxy S7. Rather than disable it entirely, Samsung hid the option in the settings and with a little tinkering of ADB, you can re-enable the option.

Of course, not everyone wants to power up ADB so we can also confirm that you’re also able to transfer many of the apps on the Galaxy S7 over to the microSD card. It’s certainly not the same as being able to bond the two together to have even more storage, but it is a welcome alternative who don’t feel comfortable about tinkering with their smartphone.

Like other Samsung smartphones, you can still hot-swap the microSD cards by simply pulling out the tray (after ejecting the memory card of course) and then reinserting the new one. What about the SIM card we hear you ask? Well, the Galaxy S7 is also the first Samsung smartphone that allows you to hot-swap the SIM card, meaning you can change SIMs and pick up coverage again without needing to restart your phone. This won’t affect most users, but for someone who changes SIM cards quite often, this is definitely a welcome feature to have.

Protection against accidental spills

Probably every smartphone owner’s worst nightmare is accidentally dropping the phone in a toilet, in a puddle, in the swimming pool or somewhere else that liquid gets inside and causes havoc. After all, liquids and electronics don’t mix, right?

Alongside microSD, Samsung opted to remove water resistance from its Galaxy S6 line up, well sort of. Although the main Galaxy S6 family didn’t have this feature, the company did make a Galaxy S6 Active that offered the substance of the Galaxy S6 in a redesigned body. This year however, the company has managed to include water resistance in both the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge.

The Galaxy S7 is IP68 rated, meaning it should able to handle being submerged in water up to 1 metre for up to 30 minutes. Before you jump off the deep end however, we wouldn’t recommend you take this swimming or attempt to throw it in the sea, but rather the feature will provide protection if the worst should happen. For example, you should be covered if you spill a drink on your phone, it ends up in sink or you drop it in the toilet.

It’s worth noting however that, while the water resistance is all internal, the Galaxy S7 does use a gasket on the inside of the phone and the gasket’s seal is broken when you remove the microSD/SIM card tray. As such, if the SIM tray isn’t firmly inserted into your phone, you may find that you end up with a water damaged phone, and it’s highly unlikely that the manufacturer’s warranty will cover you should this happen.

Fingerprint scanner

One of the major improvements in last year’s handsets saw Samsung move away from the swipe-based fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S5 to a more traditional touch-type sensor that’s much more accurate and faster.

The Galaxy Note 5 bought even more improvements to the speed and reliability of the sensor and while the sensor does seem to be the same one as found in last year’s handsets, it does seem a lot more refined to me. I’ve found the fingerprint sensor to be faster to recognise a fingerprint and unlock the handset and, unlike both, the Note 5 and the Galaxy S6, I’ve not had an issue with it not reading my fingerprint on the first attempt.

Speakers, connectivity, and the rest

These changes and improvements aside, there’s very little else that’s different under the hood of the Galaxy S7 as, just like the display, Samsung has opted to merely tweak the performance.

A particular complaint with past Samsung devices is the company’s approach to RAM management, which many have said is rather aggressive, but with the Galaxy S7, there have been no particular issues to note. Of the 4GB RAM included in the handset, 515MB is reserved by the system (and doesn’t show up in any RAM tests), while average available RAM is between 750MB and 1.5GB depending on the apps that are running.

Like last year, the Galaxy S7 also has a bottom mounted speaker and although many found it to be mediocre in the Galaxy S6, Samsung hasn’t really been able to make any improvements in this department this year. The poor speaker performance may be a by-product of the waterproofing, but equally, the speaker is a typical Samsung speaker that doesn’t compare to most smartphones on the market. As with previous years, the speaker is something you’ll have to compromise on, for sake of all the other features that the Galaxy S7 has to offer.

One particular feature that we do like is Samsung is raising awareness that the Galaxy S7 supports USB On-The-Go, right out of the box. Included in the retail packaging is an adapter that lets you connect the Galaxy S7 to another microUSB Android smartphone in order to transfer your media over easily, but this same adapter allows you to connect a hard drive to your smartphone. Together with microSD, there really is a multitude of ways that you can expand the on-board storage.

Also under the hood is LTE Cat 9 support, meaning you can download on the go at speeds of up to 450Mbps. Given that the majority of mobile networks currently only support speeds of up to 300Mbps, this means the Galaxy S7 is future proofed against the next generation of mobile network rollout. In some testing, I managed to reach peak speeds of 150Mbps, which is the theoretical maximum of the network SIM card I’m using in my Galaxy S7. One for the geeks sure, but if this is important to you, it’s certainly good to know.

See also: What is LTE Advanced?21

Overall, Samsung has certainly made some interesting changes to the hardware under the hood of the Galaxy S7 this year. The decision to switch back to the more familiar two-processor strategy is certainly not without its critics, but the addition of microSD expansion, USB On-the-go support and IP68 resistance makes the Galaxy S7 one of the most feature-packed smartphones on the market.

Battery Life

Arguably one of the biggest disappointments with last year’s Galaxy S6 line up was the battery, as Samsung ditched the removable battery and gave users a stringent battery capacity as well. At 2550mAh, the Galaxy S6 battery struggled to make it anywhere near a full day’s usage, and although the Galaxy S6 Edge and Galaxy S6 Edge Plus had larger batteries – 2600mAh and 3000mAh respectively – the situation was far from ideal.

This year however, Samsung has increased the battery capacity but does it get it right, and does the Galaxy S7 have enough juice in the tank to power you through a whole day or more? Simply put, it definitely does. At 3000mAh, the battery in the Galaxy S7 is 17.64% larger than the Galaxy S6 and, coupled with optimisations in the power efficiency of the new processor, this means it can deliver anywhere from 3.5 to 5 hours Screen on Time (SoT) from a single charge depending upon your usage.

Digging further into the battery life, Josh and I did notice some discrepancies although this is likely due to differences in our usage. Josh regularly achieved 4 to 5 hours SoT while my usage – which involved a fair amount of phone calls – saw me usually fall between 3.5 hour and 4.5 hours SoT. In order to get a slightly more technical understanding of the battery life – and also measure if there was any difference between the Snapdragon and Exynos versions – we powered up the PCMark “work battery” test. This test recommends that users calibrate brightness to 200 cd/m², in order to provide a fair comparison against other results, but we decided to turn off auto brightness and crank up the brightness to full. Our reasoning was that this would hopefully give you a “worst case” scenario of what to expect from the Galaxy S7 battery.

Our results for the Exynos version suggest a “work battery life” of 6 hours and 22 minutes, while the Snapdragon version scores an even higher, 7 hours and 2 minutes. By way of comparison, the Galaxy S7 Edge scores 6 hours and 49 minutes for the Exynos variant and 6 hours and 40 minutes for the Snapdragon version. Although the Snapdragon Galaxy S7 does seem to have the edge, the results suggest that battery life is still more than satisfactory on either model. Interestingly, our “worst case” battery life testing is on par with the optimal average testing for the Galaxy S6, showing just how far the battery life has come; although the battery is larger, the gains are much bigger than the 18% extra capacity would suggest.

For those wondering how the Galaxy S7 would fare at an optimal brightness level, PCMark’s average scores reveal better average battery life for the Exynos version, which comes in at 8 hours and 8 minutes, while the Snapdragon version comes in at an equally respectable 7 hours and 22 minutes. This suggests that the efficiencies of the octa-core processor do make a difference over a day’s average usage, but whichever version you opt for, you can be assured that bad battery life is most definitely not a concern.

The Exynos model average 8 hours and 8 minutes, while the Snapdragon averages 7 hours and 22 minutes.

If you do need to reach for a charger as you’ve used the phone heavily, you can rest assured that Samsung has included Quick Charge 2.0 on both variants of the Galaxy S7. Yes, it is 2.0 and 3.0 but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as there is very little difference in the charging speeds between the two.

Samsung claims the Exynos model can charge to 50% in under 30 minutes and in my testing, I would say this is accurate, with an average charge of 40 to 48% in the allotted time. Testing this further, the battery can take up to 2 hours to charge to full but generally, it will charge in approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. There’s very little difference in the charging speed between using Samsung’s proprietary Adaptive Fast Charger (that’s included in the box) or a generic Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 charger, although the former does appear to be ever so slightly faster.

Like the Galaxy S6 family, both variants of the Galaxy S7 also support fast wireless charging, but this is where I’ve felt somewhat disappointed. From the Galaxy S6 to the Galaxy Note 5, Samsung certainly improved the wireless charging times, but with the Galaxy S7, the company doesn’t seem to have made any gains. Overall, fully charging the battery from empty using a Samsung wireless charging pad (that was designed for the Galaxy S6 Edge Plus mind you) takes between 3 and 4 half hours, although the wireless charging pad designed for the Galaxy S7 may improve this speed.

Camera

Prior to the Galaxy Note 4’s launch at the end of 2014, Samsung’s smartphone cameras were average at best, but then came a new era of smartphone cameras for the Korean OEM. Arguably one of the best smartphones that Samsung has ever released, the Note 4 bought with it the first Android camera that was universally recognised as being best-in-class in the smartphone market.

Last year saw Samsung build on this, with exceptional cameras built into both, the Galaxy S6 line up and the Galaxy Note 5, and in the latter, we had a smartphone camera that – albeit with some faults – could be relied on to always capture a scene. Yet, while other manufacturers – such as HTC and even Apple – had focused on providing larger pixels with lower megapixel counts, Samsung stuck to its guns and delivered quality through a larger amount of pixels, until now that is.

Following the lead of the Nexus 6P – which trades a higher megapixel count for larger pixel size and hence, much better lowlight performance – the Galaxy S7 drops the megapixel count from 16MP (in the Galaxy S6) to 12MP, but brings with other improvements. These include an f/1.7 aperture lens (versus f/1.9 last year), Optical Image Stabilisation, Phase Detection autofocus, LED flash and dual pixel technology. On paper, the drop in pixels may lead you to believe the camera is actually worse, but as we all know, there’s more to cameras than just the pixel count.

Is the new camera better than last year though? Simply put – yes and no; it very much depends on what you expect from your smartphone’s camera. I’ve personally found the camera is more than satisfactory on the Galaxy S7 in good lighting, but at the same time, it’s not quite as sharp as last year’s smartphones. The drop in number of pixels has also seen Samsung increase the amount of noise reduction, which further results in slightly less sharp images than you might be used to from Samsung cameras.

HDR on Samsung smartphones has previously been quite forceful, but the company has made it subtler in the Galaxy S7, resulting in a less profound effect on overall images. That being said, it does still work well to bring back detail from the shadows and soften blown out areas of the image so it’s still a very effective mode to have in your arsenal.

While the daylight images have potentially taken a slight drop, the Galaxy S7 truly shines in low light mode. Thanks to the larger pixel size – the Galaxy S7 now sports pixels with 1.4µm size versus 1.12µm in its predecessor – the lightening fast autofocus and the dual pixel technology, Samsung has been able to deliver excellent low light quality in the Galaxy S7 camera. In most low light conditions, you’ll definitely be happy with the Galaxy S7’s camera but in extreme low light, there does seem to be a yellow hue cast across the images, along with overexposed highlights and a lot of noise reduction. Optical Image Stabilisation does a good job of helping to improve overall low light images and, in all but the most extreme conditions, you’ll find the Galaxy S7 camera to be pretty reliable.

On the video side, there rear camera comes equipped with 4K Ultra HD video recording and OIS helps to keep videos relatively stable. The audio captured is mostly crisp and clear and overall, there’s nothing worthy to note about the video capture performance.

The front camera is the same 5MP camera found in last year’s Galaxy S6 but, just like the rear camera, it has been treated to a wider aperture – again, it’s now f/1.7 from f/1.9 last year. Selfie images are relatively good quality and Samsung’s skin tone feature – which is similar to the Beauty mode found in other handsets – does well to soften skin texture and make you look younger.

There’s also a wide selfie mode, which is nothing more than a glorified panorama for the front facing camera, and this lets you capture more of the scene or fit more people into your image. Before you try and take a selfie on stage at the Oscars however, it’s worth noting that there’s some very obvious stitching in the selfie panorama so images aren’t quite as sharp as they maybe could have been. One particular nice feature in the front camera – as Josh points out – is that you can shoot QHD video using the front facing camera, rather than Full HD on past devices (even if they were technically capable of shooting QHD).

Overall, the Galaxy S7 camera is probably one of the biggest changes compared to last year’s handsets and it brings with it both, positives and negatives. Daylight pictures have arguably taken a slight drop, but the low light performance has been treated to considerable gains. All things considered, I’d have to say that the Galaxy S7 has a very reliable camera that’s definitely on par with, if not better, than the camera on past Galaxy smartphones.

Software

While the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge were recognised for bringing about a stark change in Samsung’s design philosophy, last year’s flagships were less recognised for their software. Yet, in the few months since the Galaxy Note 4 was released, Samsung had sought to revolutionise not just its hardware but also its software, and the Galaxy S6 family was a sign of Samsung’s new approach to software.

For many years, TouchWiz has had a particularly bad stigma attached to it, and rightly so, as the interface was clunky, slow and lacking in anything that remotely resembled optimisation. Yet, the Galaxy S6 family was the entire opposite of this and ushered in a new era where TouchWiz was, well, nothing like TouchWiz before it. In 2015, Samsung trimmed large amounts of the preloaded apps and features (i.e. the bloatware) that made its smartphones slow, toned down the amount of annoying tutorials and delivered an out of box experience that was surprisingly pleasant to use.

the overall experience feels like someone other than Samsung actually created it.

As someone who has used Galaxy smartphones for several years, the transformation last year was certainly impressive, and in the Galaxy S7, Samsung has continued to optimise its software. Unsurprisingly, the Galaxy S7 runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box, and brings an experience that’s rather akin to the Marshmallow update for the Galaxy S6 family. Design-wise, TouchWiz on the Galaxy S7 sees Samsung drop the bright colours and blue and green tones of TouchWiz of old, and replaces them with blue and gray tones that are more pleasing to the eye, and infinitely less likely to alienate users who disliked the company’s colour scheme. Samsung has also improved the animations in the UI to make them snappy and more responsive and the overall experience feels like someone other than Samsung actually created it.

With both, the Galaxy S6 family and the Galaxy Note 5, there were reports that Samsung was aggressively managing RAM by shutting down applications, but with the Galaxy S7, this seems to be a thing of the past. Yes, there are certainly areas of the launcher that suffer from slight stutters that have become synonymous with TouchWiz, and there is a slight delay when swiping into Upday (international) or Flipboard (USA), but overall, TouchWiz is fast, responsive and a pleasure to use.

Rather than focus on every individual feature that TouchWiz has to offer (and make this review thousands of words longer than it already is), we plan to explore the software in more detail – and its evolution over the past few years – in an in-depth feature focus that will be coming to you in the weeks to come.

That being said, there are a few features that we wanted to focus on, and most of these are returning from last year’s handsets, albeit with a few (welcome) tweaks and improvements.

Theming just got much much better

With the launch of the Galaxy S6 family, Samsung introduced a new Theme engine that allowed you to customise the look and feel of your smartphone without too much fuss or bother. However, as we covered back then, the number of themes available was certainly very sparse and the theme engine was more of promise for the future than a feature you would use heavily in the present.

Fast forward a year and the theme store is a very different place now with hundreds of different themes to choose from. If you’re a stock Android fan, there’s themes that will turn your handset into an experience more akin to something out of Silicon Valley than Korea. Lifestyle lover, obsessed with travel, interested in landmarks or just want some funny animals on your screen? There’s tons of them and more – although it’s certainly not perfect, the theme engine has grown leaps and bounds since last year, and there’s no reason to believe this won’t continue for the foreseeable future.

Smart Dialer

The dialer included in TouchWiz is, by far, my favourite dialer across any Android OEM skin. The dialler lets you set speed dials, displays suggested contacts as you type numbers (or the letters they represent) and can automatically scan unknown numbers to inform you whether they are known marketing or spam calls. If you don’t want to answer a call, it’s easy enough to reject them and send a predefined message, or even shoot them a custom message. All in all, if you like to make phone calls (like I do), then the dialer is certainly an experience you’re going to enjoy.

Multi-tasking

Mutli-tasking has recently become an area that every OEM has attempted to improve – including Google most recently with the Android N developer preview – but Samsung’s implementation is by far the most polished on Android. Through a couple of buttons in the recent apps menu, you can split two windows side by side, but my favourite feature is the ability to quickly turn almost all apps into a floating window that overlays whatever else you’re doing in the OS.

Unlike other OEMs, Samsung’s multi-window feature is supported by a ton of third party apps and, while there are some that don’t support the floating window or split screen (in particular games), the majority of apps you use on your phone should have support for this feature. In the Galaxy S7, the floating window seems to be more responsive and dragging content between windows in split-screen mode has certainly had some welcome improvements under the hood as well. Overall, Samsung definitely does multi-tasking well and in the Galaxy S7, the experience has been refined further yet.

Samsung Pay

Mobile payments is certainly not a new feature but the past twelve months has seen this growing market gain even further attention from OEMs. Apple introduced Apple Pay and bought mobile payments to mainstream consumers, and then both Samsung, and Google, have followed up with Samsung Pay and Android Pay respectively. As Lanh explains in the video below however, Samsung Pay has a key advantage over the competition, but it’s not perfect, yet.

Smart Manager

Prior to the overhaul of TouchWiz last year, Samsung’s UI had several smart features that allowed you to control elements such as RAM and battery, but these were spread out throughout the OS. In the Galaxy S6 (and onwards, including the Galaxy S7), these features have been combined into the new Smart Manager app, which makes it easier to see pertinent information about several features on your smartphone.

From killing different apps in the RAM manager to removing unnecessary data to free up space in the storage manager, there’s a lot you can do with the Smart Manager app. Furthermore, an entire section dedicated to battery lets you customise your power usage, turn on power saving or ultra power saving modes, and access battery usage information. You probably won’t use Smart Manager that often, but it’s a powerful tool to have on your phone and for the power user, it’s likely to be used quite frequently.

Gaming Tools

While the above features have been bought over from previous Galaxy smartphones, the Galaxy S7 does introduce a few new features; TouchWiz on the Galaxy S7 brings with it a new “Game Launcher” and the “gaming tools” that accompanies it.

The first of these puts all of your games into a special folder and allows you to launch games quickly, turn off notifications and turn on power saving mode while gaming. The Gaming Tools is likely to be much more useful however, as it enables a tiny icon that overlays your game in the corner of your screen (in a rather unobtrusive way it must be said), and expanding it lets you turn off alerts, lock the recent apps and back keys, minimise the game, take a screenshot, or even screen record your gameplay.

The actual usefulness of these features depends on how much of a gamer you are (and whether you’ve been afflicted by any of the “issues” it aims to solve), but for me, I’ve found them quite useful. Specifically, I always tend to hit the recent apps or back keys during a game so being able to lock them is certainly welcome, as is not being disturbed by notifications. If you’re someone who likes to show off your gaming skills, the screen record feature makes it incredibly simple to share your greatest in-game achievements.

Galaxy Labs – customisation runs deep

You know the old adage about how companies should learn from their customers? Well, with its Galaxy Labs, Samsung is aiming to do just this, by allowing Galaxy users to experiment with features and ideas it has, and vote on whether they like or dislike them. By far the most interesting of these (and probably the most controversial) is the ability to turn off the app drawer on your Galaxy S7. When enabled, this removes the app drawer and reverts the TouchWiz launcher to one more akin to the iPhone, or even LG’s new LG G5.

There’s been a lot of chatter recently about whether Google’s upcoming Android N update will see the app drawer being removed from Android, and while this is as yet unconfirmed (given the app drawer is present in the new Developer Preview), there’s no denying that Samsung is testing the waters here.

Most users probably won’t use this feature but it’s there if you want to try it out. Worth mentioning however, is that the Galaxy Labs option has been removed from Verizon and T-Mobile branded handsets, and has likely been removed from all carrier branded models in the US, although international users should find the feature in-tact.

TouchWiz – the verdict

As a long time Galaxy user, the transformation of TouchWiz over the past few years has certainly been stark, and with the Galaxy S7, Samsung has merely sought to refine the experience further. Although there is ever so slight lag in the launcher when loading up the home screen news service, the rest of the experience is fast, snappy and very responsive.

Personally, I have to say that this iteration of TouchWiz is probably the best that Samsung has ever offered, and while it’s certainly not perfect – which UI is after all – there’s a lot to like about TouchWiz. For many users, the thought of TouchWiz brings with it many bad memories of previous generations, but I can say with a large degree of certainty, that Samsung has reworked its software entirely since the Galaxy S5 and many of the concerns that users had, should no longer be present.

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Conclusion

While the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge were very much about revolutionising Samsung’s smartphone portfolio, the company has instead set about refining the experience this year. Did it achieve this? Most definitely.

On the face of it, the Galaxy S7 may not seem like a major upgrade to the Galaxy S6, but the few tweaks that Samsung has made have all been in the right place and the contrast between the two handsets couldn’t be starker. Although I really enjoyed the Galaxy S6 last year, I did feel the handset’s shortcomings were enough to be a deal breaker, but thes Galaxy S7 is almost perfect in so many ways.

The Galaxy S7 very much epitomises the perfect smartphone

Considering the overall package, there’s very little that you could complain about. In fact, the only thing users might not be too happy about is the lack of a removable battery but the improvements in power efficiency, coupled with the extra capacity in the battery, really render this a moot point. In fact, I would go as far to say that there is nothing I would change as – display size aside, which is most definitely a personal thing – the Galaxy S7 very much epitomises the perfect smartphone.

Josh and I both agree, that Samsung’s small modest changes have shown us what could be the perfect smartphone. Josh takes it further saying:

In the era of micro USB, Samsung might just have shown us what the perfect smartphone could look like and in doing so, they’ve been able to show us, what might just be the final evolution of this era of smartphones.

However, as good as the Galaxy S7 is, the question remains as to where Samsung goes from here. While the Galaxy S7 appears to be the perfect handset for the market as it stands, we’re seeing a new era of smartphones ushered in, with USB Type-C and modular designs firmly on the radar of most companies. Until then however, Josh puts it best when he says:

You just might have one of the best smartphones available right here in the Galaxy S7.

And that’s the bottom line; following up a good smartphone is certainly no easy feat but Samsung has certainly shown us that it is more than capable of doing so. For me personally, the Galaxy S7 does offer what is, by far, the best smartphone experience on the market to date, but with a lot of the year – and plenty more flagships – still to come, we’ll see whether it still tops the smartphone pile come the end of the year.

Samsung Galaxy S7 vs LG G5 hands on comparison167

What do you think of the Galaxy S7 and do you plan to buy one? Is the Galaxy S7 Edge more your cup of tea, or maybe even the LG G5? Check out our hands on with LG’s latest flagship, and our full review of the Galaxy S7 Edge and let us know your views in the comments below!

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Samsung Galaxy S7 edge review

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After years of criticism for its stubborn refusal to move past its plastic-clad design language, last year we finally saw a new Samsung emerge with the introduction of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. Trading in the tired plastic rear backing, the new Galaxy S6 family brought us a metallic frame sandwiched between a glass front and back. Though the Galaxy S6 was a stunning device, the star of the show was arguably the S6 Edge, which featured a unique dual curved design that helped it stand apart from other devices on the market.

The Galaxy S6 Edge was the culmination of years of experimentation into flexible and curved displays, with the Galaxy Note Edge and the Galaxy Round coming before it. While neither of these previous attempts managed to garner much attention, the Galaxy S6 Edge burst into the market with a trail of praise following right behind it, not only from the media but from general consumers. In many ways, the Galaxy S6 Edge’s design was nearly perfect, though it wasn’t without flaws and sacrifices, including the lack of a removable battery and microSD slot. Regardless of its minor imperfections, the Galaxy S6 Edge is a hard act to follow.

• Best Android phones
• LG G5 and Galaxy S7 vs the competition

Does the Galaxy S7 Edge make enough changes to the Edge formula to awe us the way its predecessor did? Or did Samsung get so much right with the Galaxy S6 family that there’s nothing left to perfect? That’s exactly what we aim to find out in this full review of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

In an effort to bring our readers, and viewers, the most comprehensive review experience possible, the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review was actually reviewed by two different members of Android Authority. While I put together the written ‘in-depth’ review you’ll find here, the video linked about was put together by our second reviewer, Lanh Nguyen.

Design

The most immediate difference you’ll notice between the Galaxy S7 Edge and its predecessor is the phone’s size. Bridging the size gap between last year’s Galaxy S6 Edge and the S6 Edge Plus, the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge offers a 5.5-inch display, making it noticeably larger than the “standard” Galaxy S7. Talking with Lanh, we both agreed that the jump up in real estate was a positive move, giving you more screen real estate for all your gaming and media consumption needs. Sure, the phone takes a small hit when it comes to one-handed usability, but thanks to the way that the Edge curves down, it’s really not as big of a difference as you might think.

Aside from the larger display, the Galaxy S7 Edge looks very similar to its predecessor, though Samsung has managed to sneak in a few adjustments to the design. First, the camera is bump has been noticeably reduced when compared to the S6 Edge. The camera still protrudes a little, but at less than a half millimeter, it’s going to be a lot less bothersome than the camera bump on its predecessor.

Next, the S7 Edge is marginally thicker than both the S6 Edge and S6 Edge Plus at 7.7mm, vs the Edge Plus at 6.9mm and the Edge at 7mm. That might sound like a bad thing, but the added thickness actually helps with grip. As an added bonus, this thicker profile also means Samsung was able to cram in a larger battery, which will talk more about a bit later in the review. Probably the most helpful design change found on the Galaxy S7 Edge, however, is the curved glass backing that helps alleviate some of the ‘sharpness’ issues some users reported with the original Galaxy S6 Edge.

Between the curved back, slightly thicker design, and the larger screen size, Samsung has managed to create a phone that is extremely comfortable in the hand.  As Lanh put it:

Even though it’s bigger, it’s a lot more comfortable. For being a 5.5-inch phone, it’s a lot smaller than many other phone’s with similar screen size.

Lanh went on to mention that he feels this is one of the most comfortable phones he’s ever held, and I have to agree. That said, it is a bit slippery but not to the point that you have to worry about it falling out of your hands. It’s also a fingerprint magnet, though a new coating makes it a little less prone than the S6 family before it. Of course, most of you will end up placing the phone in a case, which will render both the slippery nature of the phone and its fingerprint prone aspects completely moot.

Moving around the rest of the elements of the phone, there’s really nothing out of the ordinary to report. On the front, you’ll find Samsung’s typical home button flanked to the left by a recent apps key, and to the right by the back button. All the typical sensors and front facing camera are found here as well. On the left side of the phone are the volume keys and to the right is the power button. Up top, there’s nothing but the SIM/SD Card slot, which we’ll talk about a little later.

On the bottom, you’ll find the headphone jack to the left, the microUSB slot in the middle, and the single speaker to the right. The microUSB slot is probably the most interesting story here, not because it’s anything special or new, but because Samsung is sticking to its guns with the Galaxy S7 Edge has chosen not to adopt the new USB-C standard.

So why is Samsung sticking to microUSB while many of its rivals, including the LG G5 and the Nexus family, make the move? Probably the biggest reason is the Gear VR just hit commercially late last year, rocking a microUSB connection, and so it stands to reason that Samsung wouldn’t want to abandon this model so soon. It’s also very possible Samsung simply wanted to wait until the standard found its way into more accessories. For those with hundreds of microUSB cable laying around, the company’s refusal to jump to USB-Type C probably isn’t seen as much of a problem.

Bottom-line, the Galaxy S7 Edge might not look dramatically different from its predecessor, but little touches like a great feel in the hand, help create what is easily one of the most attractive looking handsets in the mobile world.

Display

When it comes to display quality, it’s hard to beat Samsung, and thankfully the S7 Edge continues this legacy. While the S7 Edge’s Super AMOLED display remains very similar to the screen found on the S6 Edge, Samsung did bump up the size this time around, going from 5.1-inches to 5.5-inches. While this results in a lower pixel density of 534 ppi vs 577ppi on the Galaxy S6 Edge, the real world difference is negligible and if anything, the larger size means a better experience for watching movies, playing games, and pretty much anything else you might want to do.

For those that prefer a smaller display? You’ll want to check out our Galaxy S7 review.

Everything we love about AMOLED tech is present here in the S7 Edge, including vibrant, saturated colors, great viewing angles, inky dark blacks, and brightness that’s more than good enough even when using the phone outdoors. Comparing it to the AMOLED display on my Nexus 6P, I have to admit that the Edge display looked way better, especially outdoors. That said, the brightness controls (auto adjusting, etc) were a bit more aggressive than the 6P, and required me to manually move the slider a bit more than I normally do, but this was not really anything that bothered me too much.

One change found on the Galaxy S7 Edge over the S6 Edge is the new “always on display”. While this is really more of a software feature than anything new with the hardware, we still felt it was worth talking about here. In a nutshell, the always on display gives you glanceable information such as the time, if you have any messages or missed calls, and there’s even options to display a calendar or even a picture/pattern. This is somewhat similar to what you’ll find on Motorola devices and modern Nexus family members, but the difference is that the illumination is constant with the S7 Edge and not just intermittent like with the former devices.

Until Samsung adds more features to it or gives you the ability to peek at notifications, it isn’t really all that useful and honestly feels a little half baked.

In the case of the Nexus, you actually get more information like glanceable notifications in this ambient display mode, whereas Samsung’s always on display is a bit lacking when it comes to detail. In fact, you only get alerts on the display for Samsung specific applications and not 3rd party apps like Facebook and Hangouts. This might change in the future as Samsung opens things up to others, but for now the actual usefulness of the always on display is somewhat up for debate outside of quickly checking the time. Still, I think it’s a great step in the right direction, and an AMOLED display certainly makes a more logical match for this feature than an LCD would (looking at you LG G5).

For those wondering about how the feature affects battery life, I found that on the day I had it disabled, I may have had a few extra percentage points of battery left when I went to bed over what I normally would have had. That’s not the most technical test I realize, but it’s pretty obvious to me that it doesn’t make a big difference and that’s down to just how energy efficient AMOLED displays are, especially when only needing to light a very small portion of the display.

Bottom-line, the display here is a good one and the always on display tech is a nice addition, though it may not be that useful for everyone. The good news is if you don’t think the always on display is something you’ll use, Samsung makes it easy to disable.

Performance & Hardware

In 2015, Samsung kept things pretty simple when it came to the processing package in its flagships, with the Exynos 7420 powering the Galaxy S6 family, as well as the Note 5. This was a break from past convention, which had typically seen Exynos chips in some markets and Qualcomm chips in others, and was likely a reaction to the bad press (and bad performance) associated with the Snapdragon 810. In 2016, Samsung has reverted to its old ways.

In most markets, the S7 Edge is powered by Exynos 8 Octa (8890) – consisting of quad-core 2.6 GHz Mongoose + quad-core 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 – and backed by a Mali-T880 MP12  GPU and 4GB RAM. In the United States and China, however, the Galaxy S7 ships with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 – consisting of a dual-core 2.15 GHz Kryo & dual-core 1.6 GHz Kryo – with an Adreno 530 GPU and also 4GB RAM.

While I had the opportunity to test out an Exynos-powered model, Lanh utilized a Snapdragon 820 variant for the video review. Two different chipsets means you can expect a little bit of discrepancy between the two in terms of performance, at least on paper – and on benchmarks. In order to illustrate that difference, we ran a number of benchmark tests including GeekBench 3, AnTuTu, and 3Dmark.

Starting with GeekBench 3, you can see that the Exynos model scored a 2107 single-core score and a 6397 multi-core score, vs a single-core score of 2210 and multi-core score of 5230 with the Snapdragon 820 model. We can’t say that the multi-core score advantage for the Exynos 8 is too surprising, considering Samsung’s chip has an octa-core configuration while the Snapdragon is a quad-core setup. As for the single-core performance, the Snapdragon 820 has the edge here, even if the difference isn’t by much. Overall, the scores here indicate that the CPU performance between the two should be fairly comparable.

We didn’t want to stop at one test, however, and so we ran AnTuTu next. As you can see, the performance here was pretty spot on as well, with the Exynos model scoring a 127,507 and the Snapdragon 820 variant scoring 127,938.

Between AnTuTu you get a pretty good picture of how the two different CPUs differ, at least ‘by the numbers’. What about graphics performance, though? Great question.

3Dmark reveals that, while CPU performance might not be much different, there’s a much bigger gap in terms of the GPU. The Mali- T880 MP12 GPU scored a respectable 2157, but the Adreno 530 GPU outperformed it by a noticeable margin with a score of 2528. While it’s a bit discouraging to see the Mali struggling a bit compared to the Adreno GPU, it’s important to remember that both of these scores are actually quite exceptional when compared to the late-2015 flagships of the Android world, with the Nexus 6P scoring 1577, the Note 5 scoring 1220 – as points of reference.

The Snapdragon 820 technically shines a bit brighter than the Exynos 8890 in terms of their accompanying GPUs, but in day-to-day use, you’re not going to notice the difference.

If you want to get all caught up in the numbers, yes, the Snapdragon 820 technically shines a bit brighter than the Exynos 8890 in terms of their accompanying GPUs. That said, in day-to-day use, you’re not going to notice a difference. Both phones were extremely snappy, handling everything from general navigation and web browsing to multi-tasking and gaming, without skipping a beat, well aside from some very minor lag in the launcher, though this comes down more to software optimization, which we’ll talk about a bit further down in the review. Final Fantasy IX, Fahrenheit, and numerous other games ran beautifully on my Exynos-powered Galaxy S7 Edge and talking with Lanh, he had an equally wonderful experience.

If you’re wondering about overheating, neither the Snapdragon or Exynos model seems to have any trouble here. Part of this could come down to Samsung’s inclusion of a heat pipe that draws away residual heat. We obviously can’t say for sure that this is what is making all the difference, but will tell you that the phone would get a little warm under intensive use but not to the point of discomfort. In ‘regular’ use, like browsing the web or lighter apps, there was really no noticeable heat for me at all.

Moving past the processing package found in Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung also has a few other key pieces of hardware worth showcasing:

MicroSD card has made a comeback

Probably one of the most controversial changes made for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge were the removal of microSD and user-replaceable batteries. While the later of these is still absent in the Galaxy S7 Edge, the former has returned! In addition to 32GB of internal storage, which in most markets (including the US and Europe) is the only option, the microSD slot (which is combined with a hot-swappable SIM tray) allows you to expand memory up to 200GB, though the theoretical limit is much higher, that’s just what’s readily available commercially at this stage.

While we would have liked to see a 64GB and even a 128GB variant of the Galaxy S7 Edge, the presence of microSD significantly alleviates this issue. That said, it is important to note that Marshmallow’s adoptable storage isn’t officially available here. For the uninitiated, adoptable storage basically takes your microSD card and your internal storage and combines them into one pool, automatically installing apps and other files wherever the OS sees fit. With this adoptable storage, your memory card is basically ‘locked’ to that device and this is one of the reasons Samsung officially states for leaving out the feature.

While we would have liked to see a 64GB and even a 128GB variant of the Galaxy S7 Edge, the presence of microSD significantly alleviates this issue.

There’s good news though. First, even though adoptable storage isn’t an option, I can confirm that you are able to manually transfer many of the Galaxy S7 Edge’s apps from internal storage over to microSD. That might not be as helpful as having it done automatically, but it’s still nice to know you aren’t just limited to storing music, movies, and other general files on your microSD card. Greater news for those that don’t mind tinkering: Samsung didn’t remove adoptable storage, it merely hid it. Thanks to Modder Paul O’Brien, we now know that it’s possible to re-enable the option of adoptable storage, as long as you’re willing to get a bit down and dirty with ADB. Even better, this option doesn’t require root.

The Galaxy S7 Edge gains water resistance

Waterproofing is also making a comeback! The Galaxy S7 Edge offers an IP68 rating, meaning it should be able to handle full submersion in water up to three feet deep for up to 30 minutes. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should take this thing swimming with you or use it as a parlor trick to show off to your friends, but it does mean that if the worst happens, your phone should be able to handle it without any issue.

One word of caution though, the Galaxy S7 Edge’s waterproofing utilizes a gasket on the inside of the phone and part of this gasket essentially ‘comes out’ with the microSD/SIM card holder. So if your SIM tray isn’t firmly inserted, you could be in for a nasty surprise if this thing meets the water.

Fingerprint scanner

For the most part the scanner here remains the same as we saw from Samsung in 2016. That said, as Lanh mentions in his video review, “the fingerprint sensor feels a lot faster and more accurate over the S6 or even the Note 5 and very rarely did I ever run into the sensor not reading my fingerprint on the first attempt.”

Overall my experience with the scanner was similar, though in the first few days I did have some trouble with it here and there, but haven’t had a problem since. That said, I think it was really more of an end-user issue at the beginning, and the fact I was adjusting to the idea of a front scanner, coming from the Nexus 6P. In reality, front or back positioning doesn’t really make much of a difference and mostly comes down to preference.

Speakers, connectivity, and the rest

While many folks tend to use headphones or earbuds most of the time when consuming media or listening to music, if you’re the type that uses the built-in speaker, we must warn you it’s far from the best we’ve ever heard.

Part of this might be because we’ve become spoiled by great front-facing speakers from companies like HTC, Motorola, and even the Nexus family. That said, talking with co-workers that have used both the S7 and S7 Edge, at least a few of us felt the speaker experience might actually be a bit worse than we saw from previous generations, even if only marginally so. Bottom-line, the speaker experience is passable, but certainly won’t blow you away. As Lanh put it in his video review:

It’s super tinny at high volumes, and you can most likely thank the waterproofing for that one.

It is worth noting that the Galaxy S7 Edge now features Category 9 LTE, which supports speeds of up to 450Mbps. While Category 9 speeds were also offered in the Note 5 and Edge Plus, the original Galaxy S6 Edge featured Category 6. Of course, few networks support Cat 9 just yet, but it’s nice to see that the Galaxy S7 Edge is at least somewhat future proof in this area.

Another small hardware change has nothing to do with the S7 Edge itself. Instead, there’s a small hardware ‘accessory’ included with the phone that lets you connect the S7 to another Android smartphone via microUSB. The idea here is to make transferring over media and files easier than ever when switching from an existing phone, though you can also use this adapter to connect a hard drive to your phone if you’re so inclined.

As for the rest? Samsung has all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a Samsung device such as NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a heart rate monitor. There’s really no major omissions or additions other than the ones we already covered.

Battery life

Even though the Galaxy S6 Edge was largely well received, there were still a number of users that were less than impressed that the phone ditched its removable battery. Adding insult to injury, the Edge’s 2600 mAh battery performed pretty mildly, making it hard to even make it through a whole day’s use for many users. The situation improved a little with the larger S6 Edge but was far from perfect.

With the Galaxy S7 Edge, does Samsung finally manage to get battery size and life right? In short, absolutely. They crushed it! More specifically, the 3600 mAh battery found in the Galaxy S7 Edge makes it easy enough to get through a full day’s use, and honestly with a bit lighter use you’ll have no trouble making it through a day and a half or more.

Breaking things down a bit more, Lanh found that it was more than possible to get around 5 to 6 screen on time without even trying, and I had similar results with around 6 to 7 SoT averages without trying, with trying I was easily able to make up to around 8 or 9 hours of SoT though. That’s with normal settings, auto-brightness, etc. In order to get a slightly more technical take on things, we also decided to run PCmark “work battery” test. While the test recommends that users calibrate brightness to 200 cd/m2 in order to provide a consistent result when compared against others, we decided to turn off auto-brightness and crank up things to full. Our reasoning was that this would hopefully give users a “worst case” scenario of what to expect from your battery.

Our results for the Snapdragon model reported a “work battery life” of 6 hours and 49 minutes for the Exynos model and 6 hours and 40 minutes for the Snapdragon 820 model – once again suggesting that battery life between the two models is pretty consistent. Interestingly, this worst case battery life was on par with the ‘optimal’ average battery life for the GS6 Edge, illustrating how far the S7 Edge has come. Keep in mind that the PCMark test doesn’t drain the battery “to empty”, but simply to 20%, which is the point where most of us start reaching for our chargers anyhow.

For those wondering how the S7 Edge would fare at a more moderate brightness level, according to PCMarks’ average scores (based on user reports), the Exynos model typically averages 8 hours and 40 minutes, with the Qualcomm model getting around 8 hours and 17 minutes. This is relatively consistent with our “real world” battery results when using the Edge day-to-day. Bottom-line, the battery life in the Galaxy S7 Edge is exceptional, regardless of whether you have an Exynos or Snapdragon 820 variant in your hands. And if you do find yourself needing a bit extra juice, Samsung’s quick charging returns here in all its glory.

Typically, the Exynos model averages 8 hours and 40 minutes, with the Qualcomm model getting around 8 hours and 17 minutes.

For the Snapdragon 820 you’ll find Quick Charge 2.0 on board. Yes, 2.0 and not 3.0. While it would be nice to have the newest standard supported here, the charging speed in 3.0 isn’t said to be much better, just more power efficient. The Exynos, the model I personally used, you get Samsung’s proprietary Adaptive Fast Charging standard, which appears to be the same as it was last year.

For the Exynos model, I can tell you that Samsung’s charger promises about 50% of battery life in just 30 minutes. Based on my own tests, I can say that’s pretty close, with about 35 to 45% juice coming across for me in the promised time. Based on talking with co-workers, you can expect similar charging speeds from the Qualcomm variant as well.

The Galaxy S7 Edge (in both incarnations) also supports Samsung’s fast wireless charging, though this wasn’t something I personally tested out.

Camera

While Samsung has always done a pretty good job when it comes to camera quality in its smartphones, in 2015 we really saw Samsung up its game bringing us one of the best camera experiences ever to grace a mobile device. Instead of keeping the same package or just updating it slightly, Samsung has decided to take a different route with the Galaxy S7 Edge, opting for a 12MP camera instead of the 16MP shooter found in its predecessor.

Of course there’s more to a great camera experience than just megapixels. While the count may be lower, this has allowed for much larger pixels for increased low-light performance, in a move similar to what we saw from Huawei and Google with the Nexus 6P. The camera on the Galaxy S7 also has an f/1.7 aperture lens, a change from the f/1.9 aperture found in its predecessor. Some of the camera’s other features include optical image stabilization, phase detection autofocus, LED flash, and dual pixel technology. The end result is a camera with noticeably faster autofocus over competing flagship smartphones, especially in low light.

The new sensor utilizes dual pixel technology which isn’t new in the camera world but is the first of it’s kind in a smartphone camera. This creates for much faster autofocus and coming from something like the Nexus 6P there’s a very noticeable difference in focusing speeds especially in low light.

As for the actual picture quality? I found the experience really good here overall, though whether it’s a step back or forward from the Note 5 and Galaxy S6 family depends on what you’re looking for in a camera. Shots are very detailed and look great in well-lit indoor shots and in the daylight , but at the same time images seem to not be quite as sharp as they were with Samsung’s flagship phones from last year. There’s also a bit of obvious noise reduction going on here, too.

HDR mode is quite subtle with the Galaxy S7 Edge’s camera, and isn’t as aggressive as many other smartphone cameras out there, and that’s probably a good thing really. That said, it works well enough in bringing back more detail from the shadows and brightly lit areas of the photos.

Where the Galaxy S7 Edge’s camera really shines is in lowlight. Thanks to the larger pixels, there’s plenty of detail and the camera does a pretty solid job of keeping highlights in check. Of course there comes a point where even the S7 Edge’s camera can’t handle things, and so in extreme low light conditions you’ll start to find overexposed highlights, a lot of noise reduction, and a yellow hue is casted onto the images.

As for video recording, there’s plenty of modes here, including the ability to take 4K videos and OIS to help footage from getting too shaky. Keep in mind that there is also optional software video stabilization, but it cause a lot of warping in the footage and so you’re better off not using it.

On the front, you’ll find a 5MP camera that performs about how you’d expect. As is typical from front-facing cameras, low-light images tend to look less than great, but in good lighting, you can certainly get some pretty good selfies in. One special thing about the camera though is that you’re actually able to record at QHD resolution up front, which means you can get some pretty good video quality out of the front facer.

Summing it up, the camera experience on the Galaxy S7 Edge is better than the Galaxy S6 series in some ways, and perhaps a small step back in others. At the end of the day though, it’s still one of the best smartphone cameras available.

Camera software

Looking at the camera interface, you’ll find that not much has changed here from what we saw with the Note 5. Once again you get typical modes like auto, pro, and panorama, as well as some of Samsung’s special modes like slow motion, YouTube live broadcast, and selective focus.

One thing that is new is the addition of a feature records a short clip before a photo is taken. Samsung dubs the feature “motion photo”, and if it sounds familiar, that’s because it’s basically Samsung’s take on Apple’s live photos for the iPhone. Honestly, this isn’t a feature I’d personally use but I’m sure there are some of you who might find it worth messing around with.

Software

For a long time, TouchWiz has been criticized for being overly heavy and bloated, but this changed starting with the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. While the overall look and feel remained about the same, in 2015 Samsung trimmed down the number of pre-installed apps and ditched a lot of its more gimmicky features. It also toned down its nagging tutorials for the features it did leave in, and made many of its extras disabled by default. This meant that the out of the box experience was pretty clean and easy to dive into, but those who wanted to explore would find many unique options just waiting to be toggled on under the surface.

With the Galaxy S7 Edge, this same philosophy continues, and despite being built on Android Marshmallow, the software here looks very similar to what we saw in 2015. That’s not to say there aren’t any changes. Aesthetically speaking, the bright colors in the notification shade have been traded in for subtler tones of blue and gray. Some of the animation effects throughout the UI have also been switched up a bit, with some of the changed animations seemingly taking inspiration from Google’s Material Design guidelines this time around.

The whole experience is actually very fluid and quite impressive.

The UI also feels pretty snappy, and the aggressive RAM management issues from the Galaxy S6 Edge seem to no longer be a problem. While there are a few dropped frames here and there while swiping around the UI, especially when dealing with Upday (international) or  Flipboard (USA), the whole experience is actually very fluid and quite impressive. Honestly, the same could be said for the Note 5 and Galaxy S6 series for the most part, though things seemed to be even more refined with this latest Marshmallow build of TouchWiz.

In late 2015 Samsung was rumored to be working to optimize TouchWiz to provide a faster experience, and so it’s hard to say if this refinement is the result of this optimization or simply the faster processor and extra gig of RAM are helping to keep things lag-free and responsive. Perhaps a combination of both factors? Regardless, I have no real complaints about UI performance and found TouchWiz to be a pleasant experience overall. As far as looks go, that’s a mostly subjective thing, but if you’ve enjoyed TouchWiz in the past, you’ll like what you see here. And even if you don’t, options like a Theming engine give you the flexibility to change up the look and feel a bit.

Listing every single feature that TouchWiz adds or tweaks over stock would make this review thousands of words longer than it already is (and it’s already practically a novel), and so we plan to explore TouchWiz’s software in an in-depth feature focus that will be making its way out to you in the weeks to come.

That said, we did want to focus on a few key features, almost all of which are returning from the Galaxy S6 family and/or the Note 5:

Smart dialer

Samsung’s dialer is clean, easy to use, and has some really cool additions including the ability to automatically scan unknown numbers and inform you if they are common scammer/spammer numbers. There’s also the ability to  reject calls with a predefined message, or quickly shoot the caller a custom message.

Multi-tasking

Samsung isn’t the only Android OEM to offer improved multi-tasking modes, such as floating window and multi-window functions, but its implementation is without a doubt the most polished. From splitting your screen to moving things around as a floating window, everything was fast and fluid here and while not everyone will use these features, I found them pretty useful personally.

I also have to say that while there are certainly apps that don’t work with Samsung’s multi-tasking additions, there’s a surprisingly large number of apps that do. This is in stark contrast to implementations like we saw with Huawei’s Mate 8, which only offers a few first party apps. Then again, considering the prolific nature of Samsung’s brand, we can’t say we are too surprised to see that so many 3rd party app developers have integrated the functionality.

Smart Manager

Samsung’s smart manager aims to make it easier to see information about your battery life, your remaining RAM and storage space, as well as details on security with the ability to scan for malware and turn on options like Knox. The RAM manager allows you to manually kill different apps. The storage manager lets you look at what’s less and helps you remove “unnecessary data”.

As for battery, you can quickly turn on power saving mode, ultra power saving mode, check out app power saving details, and access your battery usage information. This is without a doubt the most useful part of the Smart Manager and the only one of the options I actually found myself using more than once.

Easy Mode

Increasingly common in OEM skins is the presence of an “easy mode”, which aims to make the UI… easier. For TouchWiz, the UI gets simplified into a homepage with a few largescreen icons for dialer, messages, web, camera, gallery, and contacts. To the left of the homescreen is an easy to use page for assigning contacts, and to the right of the main homescreen is a page for your app icons as well as a way to open up the app drawer.

The app drawer also features enlarged icons, and even the settings UI has been simplified a bit, removing the ability to quickly search for things – which seems to make things harder in my opinion, but is probably aimed at keeping users from being inundated in options.

Honestly, I have no use for easy mode, but it could be great for those who are coming to a smartphone from a more traditional old-school device.

Samsung Pay

Competing for attention against both Apple Pay and Google’s own Android Pay, Samsung Pay’s biggest trump card is the fact that it utilizes special tech that lets it be used even in readers without NFC. I’m not going to get into too many details here, but recommend checking out Lanh’s video that shows off what Samsung Pay is, and how it works, below:

Gaming tools

One of the few new features found in the Galaxy S7 Edge’s implementation of TouchWiz is the new “Game Launcher” and its accompanying “gaming tools”. The first of these features gathers up all your games into a special folder and allows you to turn off notifications, turn on power saving modes while gaming, and of course makes it easy to launch your games quickly. As for the gaming tools feature, a small icon peaks out of the corner of your display, and expanding it gives you options to turn off alerts, lock recent and back keys, minimize the game, take a screenshot, or even record what’s going on.

Whether or not you use these features will be up to you, but I found them fairly useful and could see how they could become even more important as Samsung continues to push forward with VR, gaming, and the like.

Edge features

Samsung’s Edge features return once again, but in this third iteration they receive a few new tweaks. In fact, the Galaxy S7 Edge features bring back some of the functionality of the Note Edge’s features, which were removed in the S6 Edge likely in favor of simplicity.

You still get edge lighting, apps edge, and people edge, but the interface is now wider and allows for twice as many app shortcuts. Samsung has also added the tasks edge that lets you create shortcuts for common task like taking selfies, creating calendar events, adding alarms, composing emails, and more.

There’s also plenty of new optional edge panels, and this is where we see an experience a bit more akin to the Note Edge, with options including a compass, ruler, weather, sports scores, stocks, Yahoo News, and more. Most of these I didn’t find necessary for long-term use beyond initially messing with them, but it’s nice to see Samsung injecting a bit more functionality into the Edge UX this time around.

Galaxy Labs: turning off the app drawer

I like the app drawer and hope the rumors that the final Android N builds will ditch the app drawer prove to be incorrect, even if LG has made the move with the LG G5. That said, options aren’t a bad thing and so Samsung gave folks a special “Galaxy Labs” feature that lets you toggle off the app drawer, giving you an iPhone-esque homescreen experience.

I suspect most Android users won’t use this feature, but it’s there if you want it. Worth mentioning though is that the option isn’t there on the Verizon or T-Mobile models, and likely has been removed from all US versions of the phone, at least carrier models. Those internationally should find the feature in-tact, however.

Software – my impressions

On Friday I released a feature where I talked about my reactions to the TouchWiz experience as a primarily stock Android user. Overall, I was impressed. The truth is TouchWiz in this latest iteration is very functional, fast, and has tons of great options for you to explore – or ignore, totally up to you.

Is it perfect? No, but it’s pretty close and there’s enough cool extras to make any of its existing faults and flaws worth putting up with and the more you use the phone, the less these little quirks bother you.

Just remember that, as Lanh mentions in the video above, the US carrier versions have a good deal of added bloat. Thankfully this isn’t the case with the international Exynos model I’m carrying, though I agree with Lanh that there are still redundancies such as the existence of many Samsung apps that do the same thing as Google’s apps (S Voice, etc), but it’s not the end of the world by any means.

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

While the Galaxy S6 Edge was about reinventing and reinvigorating Samsung’s design language, the Galaxy S7 Edge’s story is far more modest, as Samsung has instead opted to merely refine and evolve what it believes is a winning formula. Mission thoroughly accomplished.

It’s amazing how just a few tweaks and changes can totally take a concept from being good to great. When the Galaxy S6 Edge debuted last year, I remember thinking that Samsung was on to something and that the phone was absolutely gorgeous, but I still felt Samsung had managed to miss the mark in a few ways. With the S7 Edge, Samsung has fixed just about every single remaining pain point that users had with the Galaxy S6 Edge before it.

The Galaxy S6 Edge too sharp for you? No worries, the S7 Edge’s curved back solves the problem. Feel TouchWiz is a tad too slow? Optimization and an improved processing package to the rescue. Missed that microSD and waterproofing from the Galaxy S5? Those return too. For those that felt that the S6 Edge was bit too small for their tastes but that the Edge Plus was too big for easy one-handed use, the S7 Edge is a perfect compromise here as well, fitting great in the hand and, though it’s a bit of stretch, the phone isn’t too terribly hard to use with just one hand either.

About the only complaint point users might have at this stage are the lack of a removable battery. Honestly though, this matters a lot less this year thanks to a combination great battery life and fast charging. Yes, I realize that swappable batteries are still very import to some of you, but for many of us, it’s just not that crucial of a matter.

Okay, some of you might also consider TouchWiz a ‘pain point’, but honestly I believe that much of the hate that comes its way is built on preconceived notions built either simply by what we’ve read or by our experiences with earlier versions of TouchWiz. The reality is that TouchWiz might have its quirks, but – at least in 2016 –it’s fast, fluid, and one of the best performing Android skins on the market.

Here’s what Lanh had to say about his experience, using the Snapdragon 820 (T-Mobile carrier branded) model:

Even though Samsung’s UI has made some improvements, it’s still far from perfect. It’s a lot less intrusive and if you don’t like many of the features you can simply turn them off but Samsung still packs a lot of crapware and redundant applications into their phones. For basically every google application, there’s a Samsung equivalent of that same app so on the S7 Edge you have two email apps, two web browsers, and two voice assistants with google now and s voice, and depending on which carrier you’re on you may be dealing with even more redundant apps or bloatware.

Bottom-line, the Galaxy S7 Edge might not be the ‘perfect’ phone, but it’s damn close. If you don’t mind giving TouchWiz a shot and want a well-performing phone with great looks and just about every feature you could possibly want, the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is worthy of your consideration. Just keep in mind that it isn’t the cheapest phone on the market, with a price tag right around the $800 mark and available in your choice of black, gold, white, or silver – depending on the market and your carrier.

Yes, that’s a hard price to swallow in a world where it’s possible to get a pretty high-end Android experience for hundreds less with devices such as the Nexus 6P, Motorola Moto X Pure Edition, and several others. Of course these phones also come with their own set of compromises, sacrifices, and quirks. Ultimately, it comes down to whether you feel that the S7 Edge’s features, performance, and good looks merit such a high price tag. Some of you will say yes, others will say no. As always, that’s the beauty of choice in the world of Android. Nonetheless, the big takeaway here is that the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge continues what the S6 Edge started and has significantly perfected the Edge formula in 2016.

Buy it on Ebay

New Philips Hue bulbs will utilize all shades of white to help you sleep better

Philips has revealed a new Hue bulb called the white ambiance. This latest addition to the company’s smart lighting family of products enables owners to tap into every shade of white, which is even touted to help you sleep better at night. Just how effective these solutions are at bringing absolute bliss to your sleep pattern is still up for debate.

According to the company, this new bulb can achieve white light from color temperatures of 6,500 to 2,200k. What this means for the average Joe is not only can it produce warm, soothing light, but also bright and clear luminance. By connecting said bulb to the official app, it will be possible to use the “routines” feature to alter the color of the bulb depending on the time of day.

The new Philips Hue white ambiance bulbs will be available in the U.S. in Spring 2016. While individual bulbs will be made available, the company will also offer a starter kit containing two bulbs, dimmer switch and a bridge.

‘TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan’ kicks some shell on May 24th

If you’re a fan of Raphael, Donatello, Leonardo and Michelangelo — the heroic green Turtles that is, not the artists — we’ve got some good news for you. The upcoming Mutants in Manhattan game from Bayonetta developer Platinum has a release date now and a fresh trailer showing off some of the gang’s high-octane battles. The action brawler will be available digitally and physically on May 24th — just before TMNT 2 hits theaters — and promises a stylised blend of cel-shaded graphics and lightning fast combat.

The new trailer is fairly similar to the first, building on a few of the key moments we saw between the Turtles and their iconic enemies, including Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady. A few story cinematics give you a flavour of the voice work, before giving way to some gorgeous glimpses of the game’s boss battles. There are plenty of moves that have the Turtles teaming up and combining their ninja skills, which appear to be both crucial to success and plain old fun to perform during online co-op.

Source: IGN

AirJamz is a wristband that turns air guitar into wear guitar

The tagline reads: “AirJamz is the wearable Air Guitar that you have to see to believe.” To be fair, you probably can believe it, especially if you’re familiar with Zivix. The company is best known for Jamstik, a small wireless guitar that helps you learn to shred, or play more than just axe-sounds, with your iPhone and iPad. AirJamz is for those that want to forego the whole playing part altogether, and just pretend they’re slaying. Imagine Guitar Hero boiled down into a $50 wristband with an accelerometer and an app that “plays” guitar if you strum along in time and you’ve basically got it. We got to see it in action at SXSW, demoed by some of the world’s finest fictional fretboard aficionados.

The technology is about as simple as it is to use. The cuff looks a lot like a watch or fitness tracker, with a single button on it. Pair AirJamz with your iOS or Android device, and load up the companion app, and you’re basically good to go. Choose a song from the list on offer (no details on how many, or what songs, just yet), and strum along in time to keep the guitar part playing. You can also sound use AirJamz to trigger sound effects, and multiple users can (air) jam along together, so you can create your very own (air) band.

As for the demo, well it made the point of it pretty clear. Four air guitar “experts” took turns to rock out in front of the well-oiled SXSW audience, giving it everything they had. Wrists shaking up and down at an intense rate, complete with exaggerated rock-star posturing. It’s basically karaoke for metal-loving beer fans. It’s a little goofy, sure, but clearly just a bit of fun. The $50 price tag is low enough to make this the ideal novelty gift for that failed guitarist in your life, but you can pick it up on Kickstarter on March 29th and save yourself a little (not Johnny) cash.

Source: Air-Jamz

Whatsapp encrypted voice chat is reportedly coming soon

While much of the tech community has already come out in support of Apple over its ongoing encryption battle with the FBI, you can also expect the conversation to lead to even more secure products. Whatsapp, which has been offering end-to-end encryption for text chats since 2014, plans to encrypt voice chats in the “coming weeks,” The Guardian reports. The company might also start marketing its secure capabilities more, something that it’s downplayed in the past.

The news comes on the heels of Brazil’s detention of a Facebook VP, who was held after failing to give up Whatsapp messaging data. Since the app, which is owned by Facebook, encrypts text messages completely between the sender and recipient, it has no records to give to authorities. Brazil also shut down access to Whatsapp back in December, reportedly over similar security concerns. The addition of encrypted voice chat, while a boon for users, could make Whatsapp an even more problematic app in Brazil and other countries where authorities demand access to consumer data.

The Guardian also notes that Google, Facebook and Snapchat have other encryption-related products in the works, but details are light at the moment. Google’s VP of security says it’s focusing more on encryption — we might see something similar to the End to End Chrome add-on soon. And while this is just speculation, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook takes a few notes from Whatsapp and works towards bundling encryption into chats.

Source: The Guardian

Microsoft Updates iOS Outlook App With Security-Enhanced Touch ID Support

Microsoft recently updated the iOS version of its email client Outlook [Direct Link] with the ability for users to enable Touch ID when accessing the app. Outlook is the first of the major email apps on iOS — including Gmail and Apple’s own stock Mail app — to support the fingerprint security features of Touch ID.

To set up Touch ID in Outlook, navigate to the “Settings” tab within the app, and then toggle on “Require Touch ID.” In addition to basic email features, Outlook provides a calendar feature and the ability to send and view documents via sharing apps like OneDrive and Dropbox, without having to actually leave the app. All of these features can now be guarded by Touch ID as well.

You can now protect your inbox with Touch ID and get the privacy you deserve. Keep your messages away from prying eyes by requiring your fingerprint or device passcode in order to access your Outlook account. To enable Touch ID, take a look at the app Settings under Preferences. (iOS 9 users) Your inbox – and dare we say it, the world – is now at your fingertips.

For anyone looking to switch to Outlook to try out the Touch ID enhancement, the Microsoft app does support other email services including Yahoo! Mail, iCloud, and Gmail. Other basic updates in version 2.2.2 of the app introduce profile photos of event attendees in agenda view and a shortcut in the day and 3-day view that lets users create a new event by simply tapping and holding.

Microsoft Outlook is available for free from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Microsoft Outlook
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Autonomous cars to hit UK roads in 2017, says government

Driverless cars are set to make a huge impact on the UK roads as soon as next year. According to chancellor George Osborne the UK will push ahead with the technology soon.

Speaking to The Guardian, Osborne revealed some of what he will be announcing at his budget delivery this Wednesday. One way in which he plans to push the UK, to help boost the economy, is self-driving cars.

He said: “Driverless cars could represent the most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Naturally, we need to ensure safety, and that’s what the trials we are introducing will test.”

Some road lanes may be closed in order to allow trials to take place.

Work is already underway in preparation for trials on roads in Bristol, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Greenwich. There are also plans for a “connected corridor” between London and Dover. This should allow the freight route to offer a communications network that can be tapped into.

Nissan has said it will make its first mass-market autonomous cars at its UK plant in Sunderland. Jaguar Land Rover has said it will begin self-driving car testing on the West Midland roads as soon as later this year.

READ: Google is testing wireless charging for self-driving cars

Philips’ latest Hue lights help you sleep

Philips has smart Hue light bulbs that produce flashy colors, but what about bulbs that change just enough to give you a good night’s rest? You’re set after today. The lighting firm is trotting out Hue white ambiance lights that offer color temperatures which mimic natural light, helping you sleep naturally. Combined with new “routines” in an upcoming version of the Hue app, they can shift gradually to reflect day and night cycles — a sleep mode can use dimming light to replicate the sunset, for example, while “wake up” brightens the area. There’s even a nightlight mode to help kids get back to sleep after wandering the hallway. Logically, the new Hue offering should also be useful for creating different moods. You could have cool, crisp lighting in a workspace, or warmer temperatures in the living room.

The Dutch firm hasn’t mentioned prices yet, but it’ll offer individual bulbs, integrated lighting (such as lamps) and a starter kit that includes two bulbs, a HomeKit-friendly controller and a dimmer switch. The white ambiance bulbs will arrive sometime this spring, and the integrated lights should be ready in the fall. Philips is relatively late to smart lighting like this, but the launch is still good news if you’ve had a hard time finding pseudo-natural lighting in stores.

Source: Philips