Gadgetory

this year's new iPhones come in two different flavors or rather sizes and the smaller of the two is going up against the smaller of the galaxy flagship line in charge of agar from Android Authority what's going on everybody and this is a comparison between the iPhone 7 and the Samsung Galaxy s7 if you want to see the larger of these two devices go head-to-head we did do a quick look of that over at Tab x and a more comprehensive overview of the two will be done here at Android authorities sometime soon the story in design is actually pretty simple if you're familiar with the previous editions of these phones you know exactly what to expect this year the galaxy s7 continues the dual glass and metal frame design from the galaxy s6 with all of the different elements exactly where you would expect them to be there is now a curve on the back that makes it more accessible and probably want to be easier to use devices in the Android camp and even though it uses microUSB which dates it it still provides fast charging and pretty much everything you would need from a micro USB powered phone on the other hand lightning port is really all the rage on the iPhone 7 because it's where a lot of the magic will happen overall the design is the same as before it looks exactly like the iPhone 6s except its home button is no longer a physical home button it's now a capacitive home button that provides vibration feedback when you press hard enough it's not that bad and even though it's a little bit weird to get used to at first the main problem that we have with it is that it's hard to feel that vibration when the phone is lying on a table but back to the Lightning port this is where even the audio is going to come because there's no longer a headphone jack this will be a controversial topic for many and we already had to contend with it ourselves during a phone call I wanted to use headphones during it and I needed to fiddle around and find my lightning adapter just to use my headphones during the voice call if you're not keeping that thing connected to your main pair of headphones all the time it's kind of easy to lose that small piece of kit there's so much more to consider when choosing between these two phones but at the very least if you used a previous version of these phones you know exactly what to expect this year a bigger display in the galaxy s7 is not all that it has over the display of the iPhone now Android tends to trump Apple when it comes to their display technologies and right now you have a quad HD Super AMOLED display on the Galaxy S seven that is leaps and bounds over that of the 1334 by 750 resolution IPS display on the iPhone now the difference in quality is actually not all that different considering that the pixel density gets better with the smaller 4.7 inch display of the iPhone now you're going to get work and play done pretty well on both of these but there are some extra features underneath the surface the slightly warmer Super AMOLED display also takes advantage of that technology by having an always-on display on the other hand the iPhone has forced touch essentially pressure sensitivity that when pressed hard enough provides even more shortcuts for applications or turns on the live video from various photos in gallery will give one more nod to the iPhone for its ease of use mostly because of its display size but the spec hungry will definitely go for the galaxy s7 because of its bigger and higher resolution display now performance is actually tough to gauge in a battle between Android and iOS because they require very different specifications the Apple 810 with 2 gigabytes of RAM goes up against the Snapdragon 820 and 4 gigabytes of RAM in the galaxy s7 now in the galaxy s7 this is exactly what you would want out of a flagship device and it performs as such very smooth interface is very easy to use applications and high powered applications like mobius final fantasy work really well on there but it also works really well on the iPhone where we were able to play mobius final fantasy for quite a while the ecosystems themselves will dictate which one is better for you but you can rest assured that these are the flagship specs you would want out of these 2 phones now Hardware almost always favors the Android camp simply because companies like Samsung tend to over saturate the feature sets but the iPhone has been able to close the gap in recent generations now when you're looking at the iPhone force touch comes to mind and we already mentioned that in the display side of things but it actually gets a bit of a leg up in audio now before you even say anything we will mention that the headphone jack is a big omission that makes the iPhone go a couple of steps forward and then a few steps back but at least it has dual speakers one on the bottom and one in the earpiece that provide better overall sound when compared to the Samsung bottom mounted speaker that just doesn't do the same job Apple even went for IP certification for these phones and with the iPhone 7 and 7 plus we even had them go into the ocean at one point and they still worked after we brought it back out battery life unsurprisingly is fairly standard for both of these devices the galaxy s7 being the smaller of the two will have basically a day to a day and a half in its battery life and we found that to be the case even months later however it does have wireless charging built in and has fast charging in that microUSB port so power is never really that far off the same can some would be said for the iPhone which doesn't necessarily have fast charging but it's smaller nineteen sixty milliamp hour battery does charge up fairly quickly John Velasco over at tab times mentioned that the iPhone can get a full day's worth of work and plate done with just a little bit more after that which doesn't surprise us and it also wouldn't surprise us if any iPhone 7 users were looking for chargers before bedtime but speaking of where the iPhone has been trying to close the gap cameras come to mind the iPhone 7 now has a 12 megapixel camera as does the galaxy s7 both optically stabilized and have similar apertures very low but the galaxy s7 has the lower of the two out of f1 point seven the front facing cameras are actually more different with the galaxy s7 having only five megapixels compared to the seven megapixel shooter of the iPhone 7 however the galaxy s7 does have 2k video recording available on the front camera so if you're a bit of a vlogger or you want to take self videos then the galaxy s7 might be a little bit better in that regard but the differences are really shown in controls the iPhone has always been known for its ease of use and when you open up the camera app it's what you see is what you get you can swipe to the different modes which includes slo-mo panorama and time-lapse all of which are available in the galaxy s7 s camera app as well and then you just hit the shutter button and you'll be able to go on the galaxy s7 however you also have pro mode now Android has been embracing more granular controls and the pro mode is a great example of that in our camera comparison the main difference that you see right off the bat is the wider focal length of the galaxy s7 in both cameras an abundant light we see how details and really even the color is very similar between these two with the galaxy s7 sometimes going for slightly warmer and slightly over saturated colors to the somewhat more accurate iPhone 7 it's really in low-light that we found a real difference as a galaxy s7 with its dual-pixel focus pixels we're better at capturing details and providing a little bit more sharpness in its photo when compared to the softer iPhone 7 taken exactly as they are too with HDR off the iPhone 7 is a little bit better at its dynamic range however the galaxy s7 was able to really compensate for that once HDR was turned on and finally when it comes to video stabilization oh is does a pretty good job when recording at 4k for both of these cameras obviously if you have them down to 1080p resolution the software stabilization kicks in which could make a jello or warping effect in the videos but at 4k they still did a pretty good job it's kind of tough to actually pick a camera between these two because they are kind of the best of their bunch but your allegiance to iOS or Android will pretty much dictate which phone you'll have in your pocket so you can just rest assured that no matter which one you end up picking in this comparison the cameras are both really good which leads us to the final portion of this comparison iOS vs. Android essentially it comes down to which software you want to look at every single day iOS 10 has added a couple of extra features including a new home screen that is to the left of the main home screens which don't have an app drawer by the way that has widgets notifications and news tickers for easy access to information this can also be accessed in the lock screen and also in the notification shade iOS is owned quick settings area is the control center that is swiped up from the bottom compared to the quick settings that are available in the notification shade of Android which brings us to Android which on the other hand changes drastically and depending on what company or phone you're using but on TouchWiz there are a lot of features on top of what Android users are used to an app drawer a potential second home screen to the left in this case the briefing that's powered by Flipboard and of course a number of features that Samsung has made clear will always be in their phones things like multi window pop-up window and even built in theming support meaning that customization in Android is still front and center as one of its main selling points so of course it comes down to personal preference if you want customization to make Android look exactly how you want it to then of course Android is the one you'll pick but the iPhone 7 and iOS have been one of the easiest to use interfaces throughout the smartphone era and it continues with iOS 10 it might look exactly the same as before but for a lot of users that's a comfort that is hard to pass up and so there you have it a pretty in-depth look at the differences between the smaller smartphones in these two respective flagship lines the iPhone 7 does take a few steps forward while taking maybe one or two steps back depending on where you stand on the headphone jack situation the galaxy s7 on the other hand is definitely the phone that has a lot of features to boast about and it also feels very familiar to previous iterations of the galaxy line consider for a second that both phones have similarly SPECT cameras and the same water resistance and these phones become closer and quality and capabilities so that users can find a good experience either way so whichever one you choose will probably predicate on whether or not you're an Android or iOS fan to begin with but even if you are going to make the switch from one to the other you can find the experience to be actually very high quality and exactly what you would pay for in these higher priced devices as it always comes down to in these battles to each their own keep it tuned to Android authority for all of the best including comparisons to the iPhone 7 and 7 plus and if you want more iPhone 7 coverage you can head on over to tab times our sibling sites where you can find all the best in all tech all the time from there you can bring it on back to Android 30 comments subscribe to our YouTube channel because of course Android authority is your source for all things Android