Design:
It has the same signifying active-prone design. Needless to say this design choice was both imminent and necessary to provide for a rugged experience. However, due to its less liked design, Samsung has come up with newer colors (a titanium gray and a sandy gold) for its device to make it more appealing. Though some may consider it to be a bit bulky,this device sure is a marvel of engineering. The back has been craft smooth with a matte finish. You won’t see any apparent screws that protruded out of the last year’s S6 active’s back. The front glass panel is a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 that has been topped off with another protective layer. There are no capacitive buttons and all buttons are physical. The hardware home key that now comes with fingerprint scanner incorporated in this device does not follow the same rugged pattern as its neighboring back and recents key. The side panel is rubberized to help protect against drops. There is also a programmable hardware key that you can set to launch apps of your liking upon a specific pattern of button strokes (like long press, single press and double press).
All of this adds up to give a handsome look if you take us for our word.
Protection:
The front panel is a Corning Gorilla Glass 4. This phone is IP68 certified which means it can survive under 5 feet of water for over 30 minutes. This phone has MIL-STD-810G shock resistance thanks to its rugged casing but this doesn’t stop here. It has protection against salt, dust, humidity, rain, vibration, solar radiation and heat as well.
Display:
There’s not much improvement over S7 in this aspect. It has the same Super-AMOLED screen of S7. The pixel density is the same 577 PPI. The screen spans an acceptable 5.1 inch and supports multi-touch. The display comes with the same always on technology as that of S7.
The S7’s screen is the best there is that is currently available in the smartphone market. The S7 active rocks the same screen but with an additional added layer. This layer though adds protection but does not reduce the vividness of the display which is praiseworthy.
Memory:
The RAM on this device is a magnanimous 4GB. This should prove more than sufficient for moderate as well as heavy users. The s7 active comes as 2 variants: a 32GB and a 64GB variant and both have option for additional expandable storage up to 256GBs.
Sensor:
Naturally one shouldn’t expect much in this area from a rugged device but the S7 active remains at competition with smartphone flagships in this regard by rocking a whopping number of sensors. It comes with a fingerprint sensor like we mentioned earlier, which is a new addition to active devices. Other sensors include an accelerometer, a gyro, a proximity, a compass, a barometer, a heart rate and an SpO2 sensor.
Software:
This phone comes with android 6.0 marshmallow topped with newest Touchwiz skin. The newer Touchwiz skin comes with the ability to disable app launcher at will and has other commendable features like ultra-battery saving mode where you can access only a handful of necessary cell phone features.
Moreover the programmable hardware key lets you launch any app of your liking quickly. By default it is set for an app that brings forth compass, weather, humidity and other valuable information that may come in handy when you’re outside. This is an extra utility app that comes in package with the S7 active that you don’t get to see in the S7.
This phone also supports Samsung Pay unlike the previous S6 active because of the added fingerprint scanner.
Thanks to these software add-ons die hard Google fans are switching to the newer Touchwiz UI. It is high time you do too!
Network:
It comes with Wifi Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot and a Bluetooth version 4.2. This phone does not support dual sim, nor does it boast a dual sim variant.
Camera:
The S7 was most hailed all over the world for its extraordinary camera. Thankfully, Samsung has decided to keep it in its active sibling. The back cam is a 12 MP f1.7 aperture 26mm lens shooter that is brilliant in autofocus. It has all the other necessary features of S7 as well like face detection, autofocus, OIS etc.
Hardware:
The chipset is an 820 from Qualcomm. Accompanying this there are 4 Kryo cores, 2 of them clocked at 2.15GHz and another at 1.6GHz. Also accompanying this package is an Adreno 530 Graphics Processing Unit. Needless to say they all add up to give a lag free experience.
Battery:
The S7 active rocks a whopping 4000mah battery that is ridiculously large for any smartphone. With normal usage you may get 2 days straight out of it. Even with heavy usage, you may get well over a day and a half before feeling the need to recharge again. Fast charging is also supported by this device and you can charge it fast and wirelessly thanks to the NFC chip.
Final Verdict:
With a price-tag of 900USD, we feel that all the extra money goes to the added protection. That means you are easing a 100 additional bucks for this device when you could get yourself a regular S7 and strap an expensive protective case over it. Also keeping in mind the fact that the S7 itself is waterproof and comes with the same Corning Gorilla Glass 4 as this device, we fail to see where the extra money goes. So although this device stands out from the rest due to its durability and performance, it really is just a regular S7 with added padding to help protect against drops.
This is why we’d advice our viewer’s to steer clear ofthis device and check out the S7 instead.