6 month review of my Samsung Galaxy S7

I’ve now had my Samsung Galaxy S7 for about six months, so I want to give you guys an update on my experience with it. You’ll be interested in this if you’re thinking about getting this phone, or if you’re a fan of technology in cellphones like I am. I’ll tell you what I like, what I didn’t like, and how it all relates to rideshare.

Watch my video, then read the transcript below if you’d like to read what I cover in the video.

If you’re a ride share driver, your phone is your number one or maybe number two tool after your car. I might even argue that it’s number one.

Here’s the phone right here. I took the case off. I usually have the case on. Actually you can see the always on display is right there, which is a really cool feature. The screen is actually off. There you can pop it on and see that it’s on. I got the gold version. I originally got black, but ended up switching to gold. It will tell you all about why.

I really just love the look of the phone. I think this is one of the sexiest phones out there. I think it looks so cool, that I kind of slight curves. I’m not a big fan of the edge that it kind of drops off. I think that this phone still looks really good in a case. I do use a case, which I’ll show in a second. I just love the look of the phone. The feel of the phone, the weight is pretty good. It’s maybe about a quarter pound. It’s really not heavy, but it also has some weight so that you feel like you’re holding something when you’re actually using it.

It kind of sucks that you have to put a case on it so let me show you the case I use right here. I think it’s a Spigen. I really like, I only use these two layer cases so you have the soft rubber and then a hard exterior. I have dropped this phone a lot, I’ll be honest. This case has protected it, never had any problems from dropping. Probably dropped it maybe five to ten good drops, and with the case on it no problems. Sturdy phone and sucks that you have to put a case on it because it definitely doesn’t look as good with the case on, but these cases are pretty low profile.

What I love about the S7

Now, some of the things that I love about this phone, we talked about the design, sort of the styling. I love the photos that it takes. I won’t be able to show you a photo right here, but I mean there is a cool feature, which I think maybe just be Android. You can actually double click the home button and the camera pops right up. Right there you can see that the camera popped up. There’s cool stuff like that that you start seeing. Some of these are Android features so you might have them on other phones. I love the photos it takes. My wife has an Iphone 7 and this thing is … I mean it’s definitely noticeably better. It’s not night and day, but when I took a picture with my phone of one scenery and she takes it, I think, I’m a little bias, but I think mine looks better. I’ve gotten her to admit it too. Camera technology is always evolving. I’m sure the next Iphone will probably have a better camera than this one and vice versa.

I have a favorite number of apps installed. I’m not crazy with apps. I usually try to delete any of the apps that I haven’t used in the past few months. Hey, I’ve got all the weather, all the ride share apps, all the passenger apps, all the food delivery apps, all the Wazes and Google Map, and Netflix, and all that, Facebook, social media. I have all the same apps that probably the normal, typical person has. Maybe slightly above average to average. Never had any problems there. To be fair, most new phones are going to have similar processing speeds and power though. I don’t think the Galaxy S7 really stands out to me with the processing, and memory, and power.

Wireless charging is cool in the car

One feature that I do really like though is the fast charging. This phone actually has this feature called fast charging. All you do is get a special cord or … It’s not even a special expensive cord. It’s just like a normal cord that you plug into the wall and it just says fast charging on it. I’m pretty sure it comes with the phone. Basically it can charge this thing in 30, maybe 40 to 60 minutes it will be fully charged from 0, from 10, 20. I never use it like that with the fast charging. Let’s say I come home from something like, “Oh crap, I have to leave in 20 minutes.” I’ll go take a shower and plug this thing in and it will get 40 to 50 percent battery back. That’s all you’ll need for a night or whatever you’re going to do. I really love the fast charging. I love that feature.

It also has wireless charging, which I thought would be really cool. Basically how it works is there’s these little pads that you can buy that you just plop your phone on and it wirelessly charges. I never actually ended up buying one though. I do have a wireless charging phone mount though in my car, which is awesome. I love the wireless charging there because you don’t have to keep unplugging and plugging in. I stop to get gas, I pull my phone out, and then boom. I go into the grocery store and I just push it right back on the mount and it starts charging. It’s always charging when it’s mounted in my car without having to plug or unplug. Which I think for a ride share driver especially is a super cool feature.

When I’m sitting at my computer desk and I need to charge a phone I just plug it into the fast charging cord for 20 minutes and don’t ever really need to touch my phone. I’m not constantly checking my phone so I don’t need to touch it for 20 minutes. That’s not a big deal at all. I don’t think the fast charging is as great of a feature just in general when you’re around the house and stuff. It’s cool, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

“Water proof.” Or is it?

The other thing that I thought would be really cool that ended up screwing me over is the fact that this phone is waterproof. It still has all these ports and everything right here and it’s not completely sealed, but the inside is supposedly waterproof, or so I thought.

I’ll tell you guys a quick story. I was actually at the beach with my wife and we were walking. Seriously, this rogue wave, a series of rogue waves came out of nowhere and took us out. My wife was first to get taken out and then I got taken out. I had my phone in my pocket. She was holding it. I wanted to yell at her to chuck it onto the beach because she had an Iphone and I knew it wouldn’t last. Hers got submerged for 10 or 20 seconds. Mine got submerged for I don’t know. It happened kind of quickly, but I felt like 5 or 10 seconds or more. Hers was completely done, no chance at fixing it. Mine, I was psyched it still worked after being submerged in the ocean. I was like, “Man, this phone is amazing. It just got submerged. Hey, it actually is waterproof.” I was too nervous to actually test it prior to that.

Later on in the day my battery started running out. Plug it into the charger, “Moisture alert.” I was like, “Oh, crap. Okay, that makes sense. Maybe it’s just a little wet.” For two or three days after I could not dry it out. Clearly it was some type of glitch or something. What I found was that after the beach, the beach incident as I like to call it, for a few days after I couldn’t charge it. I couldn’t fast charge for a week and I was getting really scared that I’d ruined this super expensive phone. Eventually it just completely went away. I feel like it sorta has made some weird little … Once in a while that moisture alert will pop up just randomly once every month or two. Obviously, it’s from that beach incident.

I don’t know if it was the salt water or what. It appears the phone isn’t as waterproofed as advertised. Hopefully the next version will be truly waterproof and don’t have to worry about it.

My complaints about the S7

The only real complaint I have is the battery. Now, for the majority of the time I’ve had the phone the battery has actually worked really great. I say that I use my phone moderately. I’m not constantly checking my phone like some people. I’m using it just here and there in a text, to make a call here and there. I do take a lot of, probably more calls than the average person. I use it when I hit the toilet. All the typical stuff. When I’m on the couch just briefly.

Normally, it’s just about dying by the time I go to bed 10:00, 11:00 PM, which is great. That’s exactly what I want in a phone. If I’m going to go out, do something, go out for a night of driving, I can always plug it in and then I don’t have to worry about it. I want my phone to make it through a whole day. I think that’s a basic requirement.

From time to time, the phone just absolutely crushes battery life in a bad way. I’m not sure if it’s because of the apps I’m running, or I’m adding new ones, or updates that are coming into the phone. This is sort of a problem with Android is that it is very open, open framework, but sometimes these things happen. For example, this one time I just noticed that over a two to three week period my phone battery was dying by midday, where normally around midday 2:00, 3 o’clock, where normally it lasts until 10:00 or 11:00. All of a sudden AT&T sent an update and then the phone was completely fine again and the battery was lasting. For weeks it was the battery sucked. That’s just something to keep in mind.

The phone is not perfect, but definitely if you buy this phone you’re not going to be disappointed. I can almost guarantee that. Speaking of updates, the phone did actually break at one point with an update and I couldn’t make calls. I went in tried a different SIM card, everything, went to the AT&T store. Eventually they gave up and just said, “Hey, go get a new one.” Which actually ended up working out really well. This was before the beach incident. Initially I bought the black version so imagine this phone, but in black. Then when I was getting the new one because it was still under that one year warranty I was like, “Hey, you know what, let’s just try a gold one.” I love the gold. I think the gold is super cool. Obviously, I don’t get to normally see the back because I have the case on. Even just this little bit in the front I think the gold looks really good.

My overall impressions

Overall, I’m definitely happy with the phone. There’s some great features. Hardware, software, but it’s not perfect. Honestly, I’m a little worried that once I’m outside of that one year warranty that if something breaks I’m going to be screwed and out of luck because I did have that update issue. They told me if I would have been out of warranty I would have been screwed. The beach incident has made me a little bit worried that maybe I should report if there’s a problem. So I may find another problem and maybe they can give me another one before my warranty breaks.

You may want to consider insurance on an extended warranty with this type of phone or really any of these smart phone. I don’t know, I’m not finding that they really a lot of these phones can last for two to three years. Seems like they do eventually have problems, which sucks for a $600, $700 phone. Especially if you’re a ride share driver and your phone is important to you, sort of one of your top number one or two tools. It’s important to how you make money so sometimes you got to spend a little bit of money to make money.

Hopefully you guys enjoyed this review. If you have the Samsung Galaxy S7 I’d love to hear from you. What’s your experience been like? If you have another life of Samsung, Android, even if you have an Iphone, tell me about your phone. What experiences have you had? I’m going to be buying a new phone maybe not super soon, but at some point in the future. Feel free to suggest one for me too.

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