iPhone 7 vs Samsung Galaxy S7: head to head

We compare Apple’s iPhone 7 and Samsung’s Galaxy S7 to see which comes out on top

If you're looking to upgrade your phone, chances are that two of the models you're looking at are the iPhone 7 and the Samsung Galaxy S7. Here we look at how they measure up, comparing their features and specifications to help you decide if Apple or Android is right for you.

Display

iPhone 7: 4.7in, 3D Touch, 1334x750 pixel resolutions, wide colour gamut
Samsung Galaxy S7: 5.1in, 2560x1440 pixel resolution, AMOLED

Apple has once again used 3D touch in its display as well as bumping up the brightness by 25%. Rumour has it that a change to OLED is forthcoming in iPhone 8, hence why iPhone 7 has the same IPS LCD Retina screen.
For Galaxy S7, Samsung has a Super AMOLED display, which promises deeper blacks and is supposedly more power efficient. While the S7 has a wider colour gamut than the iPhone 6s, this difference has markedly narrowed when compared to the iPhone 7.

Design

The iPhone 7 pretty much keeps the same styling as its two predecessors. However, the antenna bands have moved to the upper and lower edges, making them more discreet. Space Gray has gone as a colour option, replaced by Black and Jet Black.

The Home key is now no longer a physical button but a capacitive, touch-sensitive one that includes haptic feedback. It still boasts the Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
The iPhone 7 is now somewhat waterproof, although not completely. It is IP67 water and dust proof, for up to 30 minutes submerged in water.

With glass overlaid on top of a coloured backing with a metal trim, the S7 also looks like its predecessor. However, the back is slightly different, with curves either side to make it more comfortable in the hand. It is also IP67 water and dust resistant (unlike the S6).

Camera

The iPhone 7 has a 7MP front-facing camera with wide-angle lens, 12MP rear-facing camera with optical image stabilisation, f1.8 aperture, new 6-element lens, new image signal processor, quad-LED flash with flicker sensor, and 4K video recording. The iPhone 7 Plus goes a stage further with a dual-camera setup, one with a wide-angle lens and one with a telephoto lens.

The Galaxy S7 has a 12MP camera at the rear but an f1.7 aperture compared to the iPhone 7’s f1.8. The front-facing camera is 5MP, so 2MP less powerrful than the iPhone 7's. The phone is also capable of capturing 2160p at 30fps and 1080p at 60fps with dual Video and HDR.

Connectivity

The iPhone 7 has infamously ditched the headphone jack in a way that only Apple can describe as “courageous”, instead using the Lightning port for its EarPods, though it also ships an adaptor so your wired 3.5mm headphones can fit into the port. This means you can't use wired headphones and charge up at the same time. This seems to be a move to encourage the use of Bluetooth headphones, with Apple releasing its own AirPods (below) for exactly that purpose.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 still has the headphone jack, but has stuck with the micro-USB 2 port instead of moving onto a USB Type-C connector.
Both smartphones have Bluetooth 4.2, 802.11ac and NFC. However, on the iPhone 7, NFC is only supported for Apple Pay, whereas the S7’s NFC can be used for other things such as quickly connecting to Bluetooth speakers. Mobile tap payments by Samsung Pay aren’t yet supported in the UK, but Google Pay is now rolling out.

Performance and battery life

The iPhone 7 uses a quad-core Apple’s A10 Fusion chip with 64-bit architecture, and an embedded M10 motion coprocessor. The A10 chip uses about a fifth the amount of battery life compared to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus' A9 processor, if Apple is to be believed, while offering a 40% increase in CPU and GPU performance.
Meanwhile, the S7 uses a Samsung Exynos 8890 chip is an eight-core processor, but only half of the cores ever run at any given time. Four cores running at 2.6GHz take on the most strenuous tasks, while four slower cores running at 1.6GHz take over the less demanding work, and thus save battery life too.
The S7 has a huge battery rated at 3000mAh, while the iPhone 7 battery is rated at 1,960mAh. The S7’s large battery and dual quad-core design helped it last just under 18 hours in our video playback test compared to the iPhone 6s’s score of 11 hours and 18 minutes.

Storage, price and colour options

iPhone 7: 32GB (£599), 128GB (£699), and 256GB (£799) in Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, Black and Jet Black
Galaxy S7: 32GB (£569) in Black, Gold, White, Silver and Pink Gold
While the iPhone 7 is available in different storage options, the Samsung Galaxy S7 has a base 32GB of storage and extra storage can be added using a Micro SD card. This means that a 200GB of storage can be easily added to the phone. The iPhone 7 finally sees the end of the 16GB base model, which left very little room for storing anything.