#Samsung s7 battery life review full

The ultra mode, however, claimed it could keep my phone going for 1 hour 45 minutes, which could be a real life-saver. Just how much extra time these modes give you will depend on individual usage, but with just 5% left in the tank the S7 was telling me that the standard power saver would only give me an additional two minutes over the 45 minutes it predicted the phone to last. This strips out all the fancy features of the Galaxy S7 and gives you a stripped down, black and white interface with access to only a handful of functions including calls, texts and a web browser. If you're really up against it, then Samsung's ultra-power-saving mode takes battery conservation to the extreme. This can give you a few precious extra hours as your stumble home from a heavy night. If you know you're going to be away from a charger for an extended period, the Galaxy S7 has two options to help you make the battery last longer.įirst up is the standard power-saving mode, which limits performance, vibrations and background data without cutting off any functionality. If you're going to be doing a lot of web browsing from your phone, the Galaxy S7 isn't a bad choice - it's just the HTC 10 may be a slightly better fit. The Huawei P9 was closest to the Samsung with 43%, while the Sony Xperia Z5 had 40%, the LG G5 39% and the iPhone 6S 22%. That was second place, just behind the HTC 10 that had 56% of its charge. The Galaxy S7 came out of the test with 48% of its battery leftover. We ran a web script on the phone, as well as five of our other favorite phones, to see which one had the most battery at the end of the test. We also put the Galaxy S7 through a two-hour web browsing test. That's partly thanks to Google's Doze mode, but I suspect Samsung's also made some efficiencies of its own. Overnight it lost no more than 10%, and that was with the always-on display enabled. The Galaxy S7 is much better at holding onto charge when it's idle. The Galaxy S6 produced a similarly impressive result, losing 16% in the same test, but its downfall, battery performance-wise, was in standby rather than during intense activity.

#Samsung s7 battery life review full

However, the S7 couldn't come close to the stellar performance by the LG G5 which dropped just 9% - although it struggled to see out a full day on a single charge.

It's also a marginally better showing than the newer Samsung Galaxy S9 (17%) and Samsung Galaxy S8 (19%). Meanwhile our US variant, running the Snapdragon 820 chip, lost 16% in the same test.īoth comfortably beat the iPhone 6S (which lost 30%), Sony Xperia Z5 (25%) and HTC 10 (22%). That left it with 87% in the tank, which is a very impressive result. Starting at 100%, the Exynos 8890-powered S7 dropped just 13% during the video. I ran the techradar 90-minute full HD video test on the Galaxy S7, with screen brightness on full and the handset connected to Wi-Fi, with accounts syncing in the background. My Real Racing 3 addiction is one example of such pushing, with around 10% of the battery falling away during a 45-minute blast – I did absolutely nail the new Nascar circuits though. If you really push the S7 the battery will start to slide, mainly thanks to the luscious Super AMOLED display. That makes the S7's effort all the more impressive, as it still performed better than its predecessor. Plus, the always-on screen was, well, always on.

More moderate usage, with a bit less gaming but still a fair amount of music streaming, emails and social networking, saw me getting into bed with around 30% still in reserve. With heavy usage, and running some rather intensive benchmarking tests as well as a slug of gaming, music streaming and other activities, the S7 managed to make it from 7am to midnight with around 15% still left in the tank. It won't go two days – it's unlikely to do more than a day and a half at a push – but it's an improvement over the Galaxy S6, and you can be safe in the knowledge it'll make it to bedtime. The big question, though, is: does the Galaxy S7 last a full day on a single charge? I can happily say: absolutely. Meanwhile the North American, Snapdragon 820-powered handset also managed to regain 25% in 15 minutes 50% took around 35 minutes, and it was full in under an hour and a half. That's a decent performance – and 25% in 15 minutes is perfect for a quick blast before you head out for the night. Things slowed down slightly after that, but I had a fully charged Galaxy S7 an hour and a quarter after it completely ran out of juice.