Samsung Galaxy S7
Two words: iterative perfection
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The Samsung Galaxy S7 finds itself in a slightly tricky situation. Samsung needed a big win from the Galaxy S6 in 2015, which it got after reinventing the design of its flagship smartphone, but you're not going to get the same degree of evolution again just a year later.
This means the Galaxy S7 falls firmly into the iterative camp, building on the solid foundations laid by its predecessor without fiddling with the winning formula too much.
Some will argue this phone should be called the Galaxy S6S, but are they right? I've put the Samsung Galaxy S7 through its paces to see if it's a worthy seventh-generation flagship, or a just cheeky six-point-five instalment.
There's initial good news in the fact that the S7 isn't competing as closely with the Galaxy S7 Edge as the S6 was with the S6 Edge last year, with the curved display variant getting a bump in screen size this time round, taking it more into phablet territory.
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.
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.
First up is the standard power-saving mode, which limits performance, vibrations and background data without cutting off any functionality. This can give you a few precious extra hours as your stumble home from a heavy night.
If you're really up against it, then Samsung's ultra-power-saving mode takes battery conservation to the extreme. 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.
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.
The ultra mode, however, claimed it could keep my phone going for 1 hour 45 minutes, which could be a real life-saver. Obviously, the more you have left in the tank when you enable these modes, the longer they'll be able to keep you going.
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S7 has taken a positive step forward when it comes to battery life. It's not the best performer out there, and you'll want to plug in every night to be sure of a full day's use when you wake - but you won't find yourself dashing for the charger come mid-afternoon.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 is a flagship device, so it comes as no surprise to find that it takes movies, TV shows, music and gaming in its stride.
While the S7 doesn't offer the 64GB or 128GB internal storage options that were available with the S6, you do get a microSD slot to compliment the 32GB of built-in storage.
That slot supports cards up to 200GB in size, which is handy seeing as 7.51GB of the internal space in the S7 is taken up by the system memory and pre-installed applications.
Gaming
With a vibrant 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display and a whole heap of power under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is an excellent gaming-on-the-go device.