Gadgetory

in reviewing the 1+3 we decided on reviewing this fund from the perspective of price how it might compare against other $400 devices still a number of our viewers have left comments wondering whether this phone can deliver enough of the proper flagship experience they're hoping to score a great deal or are there too many compromises when looking for a top performer so it's time for a showdown and we have selected the top-selling Android flagship from the first half of 2016 the galaxy s7 starting with build quality and design beauty is in the eye of the beholder but many would probably point to Samsung and taking the more significant style step the metal and glass combo is subtly refined from last year's galaxy and is a huge departure from the galaxy s5 the oneplus 3 marks a large step from previous opiez but the result here is an all-metal body which looks like the lovechild of an honor 5x and an HTC One m9 it's attractive but somewhat derivative the glass body on the s7 and antenna arrangement internally seems to deliver better network reception and also means we get the benefit of wireless charging is a fun additional lifestyle feature and Samsung saw fit to return ip68 water resistance for a little extra survivability the 1+3 is a well-built and thin device but I honestly use both phones with cases I don't like slippery glass in sweaty hands and I miss the sandstone back from the oneplus 2 overall we'll still give the design and build nod to the galaxy for folks looking to future-proof they'll be happy to see USB type-c on the oneplus 3 it's the cable standard of the future and you'll wonder in the ability to plug the cable in which ever way you want though from a performance standpoint we don't see much difference for file transfers connecting the galaxy to a USB 3 port and the oneplus 3 to a Thunderbolt 3 port and transferring a 1 gigabyte file on and off each phone the times for each file transfer were nearly identical though we'll still give the oneplus the not here is these are the cables we will be investing in for our future gadgets we also prefer the always-on fingerprint sensor on the oneplus over the hardware home button scanner on the galaxy s7 it's a nice feel when all of the passage of hardware responds to a touch without having to apply pressure we are kind of lazy like that so the op3 scores another win performance is solid for both phones they benchmark similarly no surprise given they both use the same Qualcomm 820 chipset even with a 1.6 million pixel advantage on the screen the galaxy largely feels just a snappy the one area we see a small difference is in gaming and only with the most demanding graphics intense games implosion plays about the same but Marvel future fight is ever so slightly less choppy on the oneplus 3 outside of the one or two games which might demonstrate some differences we're inclined to call this a tie speaking of that resolution though there's simply no contest for best display Samsung has been evolving its AMOLED expertise since the original galaxy s the display is not only brighter but features a more sophisticated contrast shifting mode for better outdoor readability a both phones use a pentile matrix but again having way more pixels produces sharper and clearer text and fine photo detail this is an easy win for Samsung will also give the galaxy the win for camera performance as sure if you pull both phones out in bright light shooting full auto you'll probably end up with similar looking photos but Samsung gives users more control over photo processing and significantly more options to alter for video the experiment and backing off resolution with a 12 megapixel sensor does produce significantly better photos in low-light situations without having to resort to different processing modes and the optical image stabilization achieves noticeably smoother video when holding still focus accuracy between both phones is similar but the Samsung is much faster at locking on a subject macro performance is better on the Galaxy thanks to a closer minimum focusing distance and audio captures radically better thanks to how disappointing the noise reduction is on the oneplus to be sure the oneplus camera is good maybe very good but it's competing against an excellent phone camera on the galaxy the tables turn however when comparing headphone audio surprisingly oneplus has opted for a higher quality DAC and a punchier amp the oneplus three does a better job of driving nice headphones and that extra volume will serve up a higher quality audio signal with less noise wider dynamic range and less distortion very well done indeed as companies can often overlook those of us who enjoy higher quality headphone playback a battery life is something tricky to directly compare but while we've seen numerous synthetic benchmarks which would point to a Samsung win in our daily use these two phones deliver similar runtime in hour movie tests streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 50% brightness both phones drained about 5% of their batteries what is a more interesting fight is recharge time the galaxy s7 only uses Qualcomm second generation fast charging standard and when plugged in for 30 minutes only tops off about a third of the battery oneplus uses a proprietary standard called - which charged almost twice as fast while remaining fairly cool to the touch the issue though is the proprietary hardware needed to use - charging the charger and cables need to be oneplus approved otherwise the charging speed is much slower yet even when charging slower the oneplus manages to charge almost as quickly as the galaxy can at its fastest we're inclined to give the overall power management nod to the oneplus this comparison is long enough so let's wrap this up never settle is a feel-good marketing term but there are plenty of reasons why someone might opt to spend more for a phone this comparison really reinforced why we wanted to focus on the price of the oneplus 3 for our reviews still it's not a runaway victory for the galaxy where the oneplus screen is somewhat disappointing and the camera is mid-pack the galaxy loses out on headphone audio and battery charging performance for some folks there will be diminishing returns and spending more on a smart phone but there are still returns to be found it's now just up to the individual user as to whether the premium is for them as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full 1+3 coverage and future comparisons and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next comparison