Close to perfection. That’s the best way to describe the display on Samsung’s Galaxy S7.
Not much has really changed from the outgoing S6, but this still holds up as the best screen on a smartphone.
It’s still a 5.1-inch QHD panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, and just like every Galaxy flagship so far, it uses Samsung’s Super AMOLED tech, rather than the more common LCD.
AMOLED displays are a lot better at showing off blacks than LCDs. Instead of looking slightly grey and washed out, the blacks here are inky deep. Some say AMOLED screens produce colours that are too oversaturated, so reds will look way brighter than they should, but that isn’t much of an issue here. And if you really prefer things toned down, there’s a picture setting for that.
Having so many pixels jammed into a relatively small space means you can’t really spot one pixel from another, and that sharpness makes everything from gaming to watching YouTube an absolute pleasure. Play a round of Alto’s Adventure or Monument Valley on this display and you’ll instantly be drawn in by the crisp details and vivid colour reproduction.
I wouldn’t normally watch a film on a screen this size, but the panel here is so gorgeous that I can’t help getting lost in it.
The one thing that has changed this time around is the addition of a new ‘Always-on’ display.
Due to the way AMOLED screens work, they don’t need to light up the whole display all of the time. They can select individual pixels and just show them, keeping everything else off. So, when the Galaxy S7 is locked it can still show the time, date and a couple of bits of other information on the screen without eating through too much battery.
It’s a nice touch, and great for quickly checking the time when the phone is resting on your desk or a bedside table. But it’s a good software update or two short of being really useful.
First off, it’ll only show notifications from a few apps – it’s currently limited to Samsung’s own Messages, Email and Phone. If you, like me, regularly use WhatsApp, Gmail and Facebook Messenger, none of these will appear. That’s a shame, and makes the notification side of things a lot less useful.
I’d also like a lot more control over the mode. There’s no setting to alter the brightness, which causes some problems when you’re in a darker room, and aside from choosing whether or not you want a calendar showing, there’s no customisation allowed.
