The Samsung Galaxy Note7 (S820) Review
by Joshua Ho on August 16, 2016 9:00 AM ESTVideo Performance
For this portion of the review we can take a look at video performance, which provides an extra test of encode block performance in addition to ISP, sensor, and optic performance. In the interest of not wasting time on retreading topics that are basically unchanged relative to the Galaxy S7, I would redirect readers interested in an in-depth exploration of this subject and comparisons to other devices to the Galaxy S7 Part 2 review as this part of the review will be almost entirely focused on just comparing the Note7 to the Galaxy S7 to see what’s changed.
Samsung Galaxy Note7 Video Encode Settings | ||||
Video | Audio | |||
1080p30 | 17 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
1080p60 | 28 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
4K30 | 48 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC | ||
720p240 | 76 Mbps H.264 Baseline | 256 Kbps, 48 KHz AAC |
Starting with encode settings, we can see that the Note7 retains the same exact encode settings as the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, which probably isn’t a surprise given that we’re probably seeing the limits of what the Snapdragon 820’s encode blocks can handle in cases like slow motion video, although 1080p30 is likely not encode-limited at this point.
Galaxy Note7
Galaxy S7
In 1080p30 video the Galaxy Note7 and Galaxy S7 look basically identical save for some slight differences in color rendition. The Note7 seems to be slightly more accurate here as the sky is closer to the color of blue that it should be but detail and most other colors look fairly comparable and both still have some jerky OIS reset behavior.
Galaxy Note7
Galaxy S7
In slow motion video the Galaxy Note7 again seems to have slightly improved color rendition but detail and pretty much everything else is identical. I don’t think this is a reason to go out and buy the Note7, but hopefully these improvements to color rendition come to future OTAs for the Galaxy S7.
Overall I don’t think video results appreciably change the Galaxy Note7’s results here. The camera is great from a speed perspective and it’s good for video but in a lot of cases HTC really does have them beat with the camera on the HTC 10. I think the major win for the Note7 continues to be speed and consistency as the one major weakness of the HTC 10’s camera relative to the Note7 is somewhat unreliable contrast AF in low light, although in better conditions PDAF has no issues achieving perfect focus.
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Meteor2 - Saturday, August 20, 2016 - link
The trick with Nexus is not to scroll continuously. Rather than scroll line by line, read a page of text, scroll it down in one motion, read the next section. Saves a lot of power.KoolAidMan1 - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
Just Android thingsTechguy89 - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
It's clear that Samsun really needs to invest in its Exynos chip and drop Snapdragon. They're still not evetop on Apple A9's level after an entire 11 months and all their 2016 flagships. Let's see how much wider the gap gets again with A10.Geranium - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
Apple SoC performes better running Apple optimized benchmark.xype - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
Yes, and Apple uses dark magic to make the UI stutter and calculations slower on select Android devices. True story.Geranium - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
Yep, because Android don't run Objective-C or Swift based benchmark. But most benchmark cross platform benchmark use those two.And a 100$-200$ Android phone may stutter, but you can compare it with 700$ phone.
Geranium - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
And if you think no stuttering means better OS, than my Nokia 206 running S40 is better OS both iOS and Android. Because it never stutters.Bluetooth - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
These are Javascript benchmarks that are not running in ObjC or Swift. It's measuring the browsing usage performance and work on all browser that run Javascript.lilmoe - Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - link
Please spread more ignorance, the world is too smart...Xinn3r - Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - link
You're commenting on a 700$ Android phone though...?