Upgrading from Samsung Galaxy S7

[baconborn]

Hi, so I've been startign to look into upgrading my phone. Like the title says, I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S7 right now, and am interested in an upgrade because the battery life is really not what it used to be, and i can't get a full day of charge anymore, even with the screen off for most of the day and all apps closed. Also, the phone get really hot when watching videos or playing not-so-demanding games. Plus it's become prety wron and dinged up over the past couple of years.

 

I don't keep up with phones much but I'm really not wanting to spend a 1000+ USD on a phone, but im not really wanting to get some POS or something old just to save a penny. I've been eyeing the Oneplus 6T (specifically the mindnight black, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage model) and it looks like it might be what I'm looking for. The larger battery capacity, fairly stock android, USB type-C charger, and in-screen fingerprint reader are all big plusses. I really don't know much about the technical specs of phones like the CPUs, so I'm not really sure how to compare performance between models. A big area of concern I have is that I use Samsung Gear 2 Classic watch, would this work with a OnePlus 6T or any other non-Samsung phone?

 

What kind of compelling advantages does a OnePlus 6T have over a Samsung Galaxy S7 (given the aforementioned issues im having with it), or any other options that might be good fits? Thanks.

[LukeSavenije]

I mean, if you don't need to watch netflix in hd you can get a pocophone f1 for 300 bucks with a 4000 mah battery.

[Krosis]

4 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

I mean, if you don't need to watch netflix in hd you can get a pocophone f1 for 300 bucks with a 4000 mah battery.

I have the Pocophone F1, and it's really amazing. I would definitely recommend it!

[baconborn]

7 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

I mean, if you don't need to watch netflix in hd you can get a pocophone f1 for 300 bucks with a 4000 mah battery.

I'm seeing that support on US networks is limited, and only gets 3G for AT&T. How much of an issue would this be coming from 4G LTE?

[LukeSavenije]

5 minutes ago, baconborn said:

I'm seeing that support on US networks is limited, and only gets 3G for AT&T. How much of an issue would this be coming from 4G LTE?

Not sure which ones are supported and which not. Here in europe my fathers one is doing just fine on 4g

[kokakolia]

Get your battery replaced at a phone repair shop and keep your S7 for another year. 

[Darkseth]

I had a Galaxy S7 Edge, and switched over to a Oneplus 6t.

Here are the things, i noticed, i actually like more, and maybe what drawbacks i have (and if they bother me):

 

- Battery Live is better than on S7 Edge (which is even better than Regular S7). Not just compared to a 2.5 year old S7 Edge battery, but also compared to March 2016, when i first got my S7 Edge.

Best i ever got with my S7 Edge was probably 7:30 hours SoT, right after i got it. Usually, below 7h afterwards, except some exceptions.

Oneplus 6t right now? Just droped to 0%, GSam battery Monitor still have the data from last Charge: 8 Hours, 43 Minutes SoT.

I regularely get over 8 hours SoT with this beast. Only lower, if i'm on the go and no in Wifi, but cellular (depending on cellular quality, it drains battery more).

 

- Performance: I probably can't Compare it correctly, because i always thought my S7 Edge didn't had the performance it had when it launched. Like, performance was "degrading" over time. So this is difficult to confirm.

However: Oneplus 6t has a far better performance than my 2.5 year old S7 Edge. Even when sharing a screenshot over Whatsapp, it lagged a bit on my S7 Edge. 6t? Nothing. Just smooth.

The 6 / 8 gb Ram (i have 8gb, 128gb, midnight black, didn't liked mirror black) is noticebaly better than 4gb including Samsung UI.

Performance difference is not that huge as many years ago, when you switched from your 2010 550 Mhz single-Core Android to a 1.2 Ghz Dual Core one, or even the first 4-cores. But it's there. Not just befause of the Hardware, but also because of the Software optimization. It's slim, clean, fast, efficent. That's optimization!

 

- Updates: Didn't had any updates, except the November patch at the beginning. But Oneplus 6 now has Android 9 update since 2 months. Galaxy S9 lineup will get it January/February 2019. So yea..

Also: 2016 Oneplus 3/3t will get Android 9 update. 2016 Galaxy S7/S7 Edge will NOT.

 

- Display:

Sharpness: If i go VERY Close, i can see a tiny little difference on the edges. Yea. But when i use it normally, i don't notice anything. That's perfectly fine.

Colors: Well, 1080p res, but Samsung Oled panel. It's good calibrated, and there are Calbiration Modes in the settings. Standard (more saturated), sRGB, p3, or a mode where you can tweak the white point by yourself.

i am perfectly fine with the Display.

Brightness: In the Dark, Brightnes to maximum (Still Auto-brightness on): 6t is slightly brighter. But when light shines, doesn't matter if artificial room Lighting, or Sun, the S7 Edge boosts up. 6t doesn't have such a mode (you can enable it with a custom Kernel). However: I had no issues reading it so far, even when Sun was behind me (Well, not a hot summer).

Notch: I like it. It's the by far best approach to maximize the Screen-to-Body ratio. Thin bezels, just the tiniest notch you can imagine (and teardrop-design looks much better, than how essential Phone handled it). Otherwise: remove it in settings, notifitations are still up there, and the "black bar" is still smaller than on S7 Edge.

 

Front Camera also has approximity sensor and brightness sensor included.

 

- size: It's just a cm taller or so than my S7 Edge, wide is almost pretty close~. so it feels similar "big" in the hand, but the Display is MUCH bigger. Jumped from 16:9 ratio to 19,5 : 9. That's nice, so much more Content there. 6.41" soudns huge, but it's just a tad taller than my 5.5" S7 Edge.

 

- Silent-slider: oh my god. Honestly, how could no other manufacturer have this intelligent idea, to copy THIS Killer-Feature from Apple? They copy almost everything from them, why not something that's actually usefull?

This will make it so difficult to go away from Oneplus in the future. No more unlocking --> pulling down notifications -> pressing Silent mode --> turning display off. You simply move the slider, and be done with it.

Like how is this not a thing yet?!

 

- Camera: Now that's a huge point here. Super short version: 6t camera > 7 Edge camera.

Longer version: I focused mainly on Low Light, because.. i am not nearly pro enough, to not just tell apart, but to actually correctly Judge them here in good Lighting conditions (like, which exposure is objectively better, which white balance etc?). I think, this is like Headphones or Speakers: Even of A is objectively better, B can still "sound better". The same here. And on Daylight, pretty much every Flaggship phone of the last 1-2 years will do quite similar Photos, that are more than just decent.

I focused on Low Light, because that's something you can actually see with a huge difference.

S7 edge had a brighter Image in Auto mode, if you consider what's beeing displayed on the screen. And of course, on the Photo in auto mode. However, brighter does not mean better.

6t in auto more, AND even in "6t Night Mode" (Night Scape) was darker - but had a lot more detail and sharpness, especially in some detailed areas, or cars far away. there was less noise, looked like "less post-procesing", it looked simply better. Less noise, more detail, more sharpness. And all that despite the 6t had a HELL LOT more Iso set, compared to the S7 Edge. So much more iso, but still much sharper / less noise? Impressive.

And this isn't even considering the GCam port (latest one is from November 8th, this is a port of a early leak. The final Update was not ported yet, and it should get even better.

GCam's Night Sight mode is mostly much better than 6t's stock night scape mode. Really, idk how google did that, but this is SICK how much Light it can capture. You see almost darkness on the screen, and the Photo in the end.. so bright, and surprisingly so much detail. You can see alot more than with your own Eyes there.

Good-Light photos: Often the GCam can take better photos, i didn't compared that much. There's a thread on XDA about this ^^ With tons of images.

However, one User noticed a bug: If you did a Picture with GCam, and THEN go to Stock camera without killing GCam out of the Memory, there will be a little Bug, where the stock Camera will not apply any post processing --> looks worse than it normally would.

 

Camera probably won't be as good as Pixel 2/3, or P20 Pro / Mate 20 Pro. But it comes surprisingly close (view the many Comparison videos on Youtube, also some "Blind tests".

Depending on scene, you will see not much difference, no difference, or maybe even prefer the 6t? But yea, depends on scenes etc. I don't make so many photos to "need" the very best. This is more than enough for me. And most important: Better than the S7 Edge i had so far, so it's all good.

 

- Fingerprint Sensor: I prefered 6t over 6. I never had a phone with fingerprint sensor on the back, but i know, i prefer it on the Front. My phones is often on the Table, this way i can actually unlock it without picking it up.

In-Display fingerprint sensor is not quite as fast/reliable as those modern regular ones (especially from Oneplus, Huawei etc). But: I have no issues with it, and it's faster AND more reliable than my S7 Edge sensor was. And i registered every Finger just once (if you register 1 Finger twice, it gets more reliable, according to many people).

 

- Face Unlock: You really need to try to actually realize how fast this is. I personally do not care about how secure it is. I also didn't for the fingerprint Sensor. I want to unlock it convenient and fast.

Both can work together. If it ever happens, your fingerprintsensor missreads it, FaceUnlock probably already unlocked it.

 

- Fast Charge: Well, it neds like 90~ Minutes to fully charge. Similar to my S7 Edge. it's not faster overall.

But: It is faster untill the first 70-80%. At the beginning it charges faster, for the last part it charges slower, probably to not stress the battery too much there.

Still, over 60% in 30 minutes is awesome. Like 90%+ in 1 hour.

 

 

Any disadvantages?

 

- No wireless Charging: It was inconvenient for me anyway,so i don't miss it. I have a desklamp with integrated Qi pad. Used it a few times. Ugh. Annoying as hell. Always need to take it away (stops charging) when i answer a Call or anything. I can't just unlock it and check something, when it's on the pad. I don't need it, if there is vooc-based fast charging.

 

- No SD Card support: Completely Irrelevant when you have enough internal storage.SD Card support would be missing, if 128gb or even 256gb won't be enough for you.

Android apps often can't handle SD Cards. Extreme-example, my 16gb HTC One M8. Whatsapp images/videos alone almost completely filled these 16gb (from which i could only use 10-11gb~), and it was full. Had difficulties with updates. SD Card? I had one. Did it help? Useless as Fuck. Whatsapp is compatible to a SD Card like n elephant to a Rat. Maybe it can see it's there, but won't know what to do with it.

SD Card is helpful for any kind of Media. Spotify playlist, Photos/Videos, Music etc. All can be stored internaly, if there is enough space. And there is.

 

- Headphone Jack: I rarely use it now, since i use a Car. But when i use it.. it's a small workaround, but works. Audioquality is at least as good as on my exynos S7 Edge (Snapdragon version should sound a little worse), and it also gets louder now. I rather have this Workaround, than a smaller battery and/or a more inconvenient Rear-sensor.

 

- QHD Resolution: Nice to have, but it works perfectly as it is now. When Oneplus decides to use QHD+ Screens, fine by me. Untill then, this is no dealbreaker. Probably a real HDR10 support could be even more usefull than QHD.

 

- Maybe the one or other Software-Feature from Samsung. Like the Edge Panel. I liked it, i had Clock/alarm + Calculator on shortcut there. Not it's in that Dash Board. i'll get used to it.

 

 

 

 

However: I switched, because i used the chance to gift my S7 Edge to my Girlfriend.

I had the battery replaced for her, and battery live kinda doubled for her, or at least went up by 70-80%~. (Screen-on-time). It apparently made a huge difference. My old Battery had a remaining capacity of 71-74%~ left. Payed 49€ for it at a repair-shop that was a Samsung partner (found it over samsung Homepage).

If you're happy with everything except battery life and you have it for 2 years or more.. Consider a battery replacement, use it for another year, and see what 2019 brings. Snapdragon 855 (aka 8150~) will be great for sure, Galaxy S10 also, and i have high hopes for Huawei. And of course, Oneplus 7.

 

If you really want something new, a Change or anything, i can recommend the Oneplus 6t as a S7 replacement.

[baconborn]

12 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

snip

So much detail, really appreciate that. I really do like the oneplus 6t and I think if my current phone actually broke today, this is what I would most likley buy, but i do think i would rather wait atleast another year for things like in-screen fingerprint sensor to improve and AT&T are planning on having natiowide 5G coverage by fist half of 2019. I may just have my battery replaced for now if it gets much worse and see if i can get some more life out of my current S7

[Darkseth]

Try installing the "Phone INFO" App, that was made specifically for Samsung, it should be able to read out the remaining capacity of your battery.

If it's far below 80%, a new battery might change it.