Gadgetory

today we're putting two of samsung's largest phones head-to-head seeing if their latest device is enough to triumph last year's no.5 hello everybody its Krista Laura and this is a galaxy s7 edge versus the galaxy note 5 both the s7 edge and note 5 are large phones but with the height of the top and bottom bezels of course a 5.7 inch screen on the note 5 makes for an overall bigger phone than a 5.5 inch s7 edge the note 5 is almost three millimeters taller than the s7 and also five millimeters wider so you'll need to stretch a little further on the note 5 when trying to use it one-handed both phones have Gorilla Glass 4 on the back creating a very elegant design although this year the s7 edge seems to have taking a page out of the note 5s book with this glass covering on the sides samsung says he's back curbs helped with grip and even comfort when holding and it really is the case especially on the s7 edge where there's a lot less frame to hold on to both of our phones here are the dark models black sapphire on the note 5 and black onyx on the s7 edge however while the note 5 is a little more blue the s7 edge is a more true black which I think helps that make it look a little more sleek another design change that I love is that the shiny silver accents that can be found on the note 5 have not been carried onto the s7 edge instead we have black borders in a darker less reflective frame and of course thanks to the s7 edges 1 millimeter thicker body the camera pichu's just a little less all of these little changes definitely make the S of an edge have a bit more of an advantage when it comes to a visually pleasing phone but of course we haven't even talked about the main difference here and that is a curved display of the s7 edge the side bezels on the note 5 are pretty slim to begin with but on the s7 edge they are almost non-existent the left and right sides of the display curve a little to meet the frame creating a display that appears to be embossed even with the screen off the extra reflections of curved glass creates makes for a very beautiful futuristic looking phone and when putting the phone side-by-side there is no competition in terms of beauty the s7 edge makes the Note 5 looks like it came out years while we're on the topic of displays let's dive into the specs of both phone screens Samsung is using the same type of display technology here but their Super AMOLED panels as well as the same resolution of quad HD and of course with the note 5 having a larger display this creates 4 less pixels per inch actually making the s7 edges display slightly sharper but these differences pretty much go unnoticed these displays are the best on the market right now although there's a pretty big difference in terms of color reproduction here the s7 edges display appears to be a little warmer than the note fives and whether that's a good or bad thing it's mostly up to preference the note 5 does get a little brighter than the s7 edge as well so when outdoors the note 5 is going to be a lot easier to see another difference comes with most phones once they surpass that 5.5 inch screen mark and that's the PI with the note 5 having a larger screen Samsung gave the phone a dpi of 560 allowing for smaller text and icons which allows for more information on the screen the s7 edges display is just a tad smaller yet the DPI is set at 640 which cuts off a lot of information that you will be able to see on the note 5 the curve size of the s7 edge though really make this display feel like something from the future and when using the note 5 after using the guest of an edge for a while you feel as though there's a quite distance between the glossy touch and the actual screen below it but overall I really do enjoy the cooler tint of the note 5 and the brighter screen and along with the lower dpi the note 5 may still be better technically speaking with all Samsung phones we have capacitive navigation buttons instead of on-screen ones including a physical home button this physical home button does double as a fingerprint scanner and it's a very good one these scanners are not the fastest ones found on phones but they are very fast and very reliable thanks to the s7 edges extra processing power you'll be able to scan and unlock the phone ever so slightly faster than the no.5 both phones have the same speaker placed on the bottom of the phone which is unfortunate because it's very easy to cover up and is pointed away from you the speaker itself isn't too bad it's not great it can be a little tinny but it can get pretty loud however on the s7 edge speaker is a bit quieter and a little more weaker and sound overall but that's because behind the speaker is a protective coating because the s7 edge is ip68 certified water-resistant the s7 edge can survive up to 30 minutes and 1.5 meters of water so surviving rainy days or accidental drops into the sink is no problem whereas if you do this on the note 5 you're going to end up having to buy a new one now perhaps the biggest disappointment with the note 5 was the removal of the SD card slot but with the S of an edge Sampson listened to us and found a way to keep this beautiful glass device and add an SD card slot so now you can add photos songs and movies up to 200 gigs for very cheap instead of purchasing a different model the phone for an expensive price tag the note 5 does have one feature though that the s7 edge does not and that is the S Pen pulling this pin out from the bottom of the phone can open up a whole world of features making getting work done a lot faster and easier you can easily drop down notes crop areas of images circle things and draw diagrams if you need to and sure not everybody needs an S Pen but depending on your line of work the S Pen feature alone may be worth getting the no.5 over the s7 edge the s7 edge sports the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 while the note 5 has the Exynos 7420 Adreno 530 versus Mali t760 GPU with both phones having 4 gigs of RAM since these processors and GPUs come from different manufacturers I ran both phones through some benchmarking apps to see where they rank to one another Geekbench scored the s7 edge slightly high while in - to put the s7 edge way ahead the majority of the time the s7 edge will open apps a second faster than the note 5 while having a bit better RAM management as well apps tend to read load less and although still are perfect it's a lot better but oddly enough the note 5 loath power hunger games a few second faster but once the game starts you'll notice less frame drops on the s7 edge the difference is very miniscule though and you'll have a great time playing games on either phone but with the s7 edge Samsung has introduced a new gaming mode that disables incoming notifications and even locks up the capacitive buttons so nothing will interrupt your game which is awesome if you're a gamer even though the s7 edge is only about one point three percent thicker than the no.5 Sampson was able to cram a 20% larger battery inside which is very impressive the note 5 has great battery life already lasting us all day with about 4 and a half hours of screen on time but yeah the s7 edge does last a little longer and with light to moderate usage I could easily make the phone last into my second day with this being a new year in a new era for Samsung phones the s7 edge is running the newest version of Android Android marshmallow 6.0 while the note 5 is still stuck at Android lollipop 5.1.1 at the moment and this new version of Android brings along a new version of TouchWiz on the s7 edge that looks and performs a lot better the recent apps screen allows for more the apps to be seen and the Notification pulldown has a more toned down in neutral color scheme this shouldn't matter too much though because you can't take advantage of the theme store found on both phones where you can change these colors TouchWiz is just as customizable on the note 5 as it is on the new s7 edge allowing for even the icon grid to be resized each big selling point for these phones come with some nice software features like the S Pen has its own little menu for getting things done and the curved size allow for swipe in menus and widgets the s7 edge allows for pretty much creating your own little home screen sliding in where you can add contacts apps app actions widgets and even news samsung made a big change this year to their already great performing cameras instead of the 16 megapixel sensor found on the note 5 we have a 12 megapixel sensor on the s7 edge yes that's a downgrade in sensor size but the pixel sizes themselves are actually larger this time around allowing for more light to come through creating brighter photos also we have a lower aperture of 1.7 instead of the note 5s 1.9 optical image stabilization can be found in both along with the 5 megapixel wide-angle selfie cam first off the main difference you'll notice is that the note 5 shoots in a 16 to 9 aspect ratio at its full sensor size while the s7 edge is stuck to 4 to 3 in terms of quality though the s7 edge to be a little bit sharper with a tad more contrast creating the ever so slightly better image here oftentimes the note 5 will over expose a little more than the s7 edge which ends up losing a lot of detail in the highlights and makes a photo worse the s7 edge does a much better job at creating a perfectly exposed photo over all colors on the note 5 appeared to be a little warmer than the s7 edges not necessarily making for a better or worse photo but it's all up to preference of course these differences are very minor but when we get into low-light that all changes with the s7 edge outperforming the note 5 by a large margin while the note 5 starts to shift colors to a less saturated look with greenish highlights and purple in the shadows the s7 edge creates a much more sharper image with more vibrant colors for an extreme test I took both phones into areas where I could barely see with the naked eye the no fives representation is pretty close to what I could see in real life pretty much nothing unable to make out any detail however the s7 edge is larger pixel size allow it almost see in the dark suddenly the picture is just better in every area better colors brighter image and much sharper the no 5 creates a very dark purple and smudgy photo in dark areas while the s7 edge brightens up the shot even brighter than the real scene itself while creating a clearer image at the same time the front facing five megapixel wide-angle selfie camera differences are very minor but they're still there with the galaxy s7 edge being a tad sharper and brighter in dark areas in normal lighting conditions though there is not much of a difference the same differences can be found when it comes to video there's a lot more grain with the no 5 shot and when moving into darker areas you start to lose colors sharpness and you get that nasty purple hue in the shadows on the s7 edge your video remains clearer and more vibrant the no 5s camera seems to hunt around a lot more and even when it does focus properly it takes a lot longer than the s7 edge the s7 edge focuses instantly onto objects so you can be confident you'll never miss part of the action overall the s7 edges camera is a huge upgrade over the note 5s if you are someone who takes a lot of indoor and low-light shots both phones were very similar in price when they were both released but with the no.5 being older you can pick it up for a lot cheaper these days but still is that we're spending a bit more on the new s7 edge over the note 5 with the main differences being better battery life water resistance micro SD card slot better processing power and hugely improved camera I would say the s7 edge is definitely worth picking up over the note 5 but of course these features may not be needed by some users but still the s7 edge seems to be an upgrade in every department evenness design and that is the end of the video thank you very much for watching be sure to comment below and let me know which of these two phones do you prefer also make sure to check out our website Android Authority comm for the full in-depth written comparison and make sure you subscribe to two android authority for more cool videos coming your way because we are your source for all things Android