Gadgetory

in global sales Samsung is a juggernaut but that doesn't mean an individual phone can't give Sammy's flagship a run for its money I'm Juan Carlos bag now for pocket now and it's time for a showdown between the galaxy s7 and the HTC ten walking around the hardware we have two stunning examples of manufacturing with many technological similarities both phones feature quad HD displays Qualcomm 820 chipsets four gigabytes of RAM 32 gigabytes of storage with support for microSD card expansion 12 megapixel cameras and 3000 milliamp hour batteries looking at design both companies are playing with light and reflections large chamfered edges on the HTC 10 give this phone a unique look while metal and glass on the galaxy looks slick and liquidy the HTC 10 is a little easier to hold on to and is less of a fingerprint magnet but the s7 is smaller in every dimension that size reduction in part due to the galaxy using a slightly smaller 5.1 inch display compared to the 5.2 inch screen on the HTC and though both have the same resolution Samsung's AMOLED screen technology is definitely best-in-class higher brightness and a better contrast ratio makes this easier to read outdoors and a lower minimum brightness setting makes reading at night easier on the eyes fingerprint sensor placement is the same for both phones Hardware home buttons mounted below the display but the HTC uses an always-on sensor which is simply faster at unlocking the phone and is a little quicker at delivering you to your home screens as you don't need to physically press a hardware button whether you prefer having the back button on the right or on the left is of course a personal preference while the aluminum rear on the HTC feels like it might be more durable than the glass on the back of the galaxy we can't overlook the s7 s ip68 water resistance rating opposite the HTC 10's IP 53 rating this means the HTC is splash resistant say you spill a drink on a table but the Galaxy is more likely to survive being completely submerged underwater looking at software this is a back-to-basics year for HTC while this NT UI is still applied it's the leanest skin we've ever seen from this company the notification shade and multitasking view now largely stock the most immediate example of customization visible to the consumer is the vertical sliding app drawer with top shortcuts Samsung's TouchWiz has also become more refined and a little less garish over the years the galaxy s7 nicely balanced is pretty Samsung elements against snappy UI performance still it is frustrating to have an app drawer which won't automatically stay alphabetized after installing new apps HTC has taken efforts to reduce the amount of duplicate services pre-installed on the 10 there's no HTC gallery music or calendar apps for example those are fulfilled by Google services Samsung on the other hand still includes more manufacturer software for services like milk a Samsung calendar app and s voice while some people might consider that value-added software bloat Samsung does provide a few handy features like the new game center launcher which can lock hardware buttons and record gameplay videos and while we await Android n galaxy users can already use split-screen multitasking to have two apps on the screen at the same time both phones include a number of gesture controls to activate the screen and mute calls but Samsung has a terrific one-hand mode via triple click on the home button it's a little less necessary on a 5.1 inch screen but it gets us Hobbit handed folks down to the one thumb usage that you might find on an iPhone se performance between these two phones is unsurprisingly close the benchmarks are pretty close both phones slide through their respective UI's quickly both phones multitask like champs both phones are powerful gaming devices and neither phone seems to run as hot as some of our flagships ran last year consumers using both devices will be happy with the power available here moving to the camera there is one small organ ah Macbeth fit to the HTC s button arrangement when lining up ground shots are mounting the phone on a tripod all controls are on the top of the phone the galaxy makes it more difficult to reach some buttons when mounted or makes it more likely to accidentally hit those buttons in use especially when lining up ground shots as for the cameras themselves HTC is much improved over previous one series phones but Samsung features an overall better refined photo and video experience sensor and lens performance is quite close but image processing on JPEGs is more pleasing on the galaxy in most scenarios HTC now includes laser focus assistance which improves focus accuracy but Samsung's dual pixel technology is significantly faster and just as accurate image is taken directly out of each phone tend to favor the galaxy in most lighting scenarios and fun features like panorama shots tend to be better stitched together on the Samsung a video follows this same pattern Samsung's image stabilization produces a smoother overall float to samples we also have more options to play with here like 60 frames per second HD video and the slow motion is finer than what HTC can produce in the pro mode the galaxy s7 also delivers options to control white balance and manual focus where the HTC only provides simple exposure compensation where the script flips is on selfie camera performance stills are pretty close between both phones but the image stabilized front shooter on the HTC 10 delivers a nicer video to look at even though the Samsung can shoot a higher resolution video on the s7 for folks interested in doing a little vlogging or capturing their memories from that front shooter the HTC 10 produces the nicer output moving to audio performance this is HTC's domain playback on these new split boomsound speakers is more nuanced than what Samsung can deliver while we're listening directly to speaker output the HTC score is a significant win by pointing the main audio source directly at your face as opposed to out the bottom edge of the phone headphone playback is also a noticeable win for the ten louder clearer punchier better dynamic range and lower noise if headphone playback is a killer app for you the HTC ten definitely needs to be on your list of devices to check out and looking at the various ports on both phones viewers might have noticed that the HTC 10 comes with USB type-c in casual testing USB C doesn't seem to provide any significant benefit to operation over the microUSB port on the Galaxy a transferring a 1 gigabyte file onto each phone and then moving that 1 gig file back to the PC took roughly the same amount of time on both phones we're yet to see what USB C can actually bring to the Android experience but for now users will simply get to enjoy a reversible cable design while this is a well refined galaxy Samsung is still king for packing in additional features and hardware from an always-on display for notifications to the venerable heartrate monitor there just always seems to be more stuff included on every galaxy device though a small passionate group of consumers will miss the IR blasters absent from each phone moving over to battery life in real-world usage these two are also unsurprisingly close both phones lasted past dinner time with moderate usage and several automobile multitasking situations in our media test streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 50% brightness the HTC drained 6 percent of its battery while the galaxy s7 drained 5 percent with so many other Hardware similarities we might hypothesize that Samsung's current AMOLED displays more power efficient than HTC's backlit LCD however HTC charges significantly faster than Samsung thanks to the quick charge 3.0 standard 30 minutes on the chargers included with each phone the Galaxy s7 topped off 30% of its battery while the HTC managed 44% for folks on the run the 10 will deliver more juice from short stints on a charger of course the Galaxy does include wireless charging standard so Samsung's phone is a bit more flexible in how it can be topped off whether you value speed or flexibility is an important question to ask as neither have remove batteries so let's wrap this up where does that leave us between the HTC 10 and the Galaxy S Evan well this has been a damn fun fight to produce last year's HTC's were fairly underwhelming but the 10 gets us back on track know one single phone can upset Samsung's market dominance but what we hope to see our handsets that can spur on more innovation in competition the HTC 10 is much better equipped this year to give Samsung a proper fight as a lot of this core hardware is similar the rest comes down to specific usage needs and subjective preferences metal versus glass AMOLED vs. LCD sense vs. TouchWiz do you want a good camera with very good audio playback or would you prefer good audio with a very good camera this is a great problem for consumers to face choosing between two very good smartphones as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more comparisons like these and to keep up with our full coverage of the HTC 10 and galaxy s7 and be sure to hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now i'm juan carlos Pagnell you can chat me up on Twitter and Instagram and some gadget guy I will catch you all on the next video