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Samsung had a hit on its hands terminal year when it launched the redesigned Galaxy S6, and information technology's worked toward improving that formula this year with the Milky way S7. Meanwhile, information technology's LG'south plough to brand big changes to its flagship phone in hopes of boosting its market place position with the G5. These two phones are going to battling it out in the coming weeks, so how do they stack up? Let's notice out.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy S7 is similar to the Galaxy S6 in overall aesthetics. It continues Samsung'due south new-found focus on superb build quality. It has a metal frame with a Gorilla Glass back panel. The telephone is well-nigh 1 millimeter thicker to conform a larger bombardment and to make the photographic camera affluent with the back of the phone. The rear panel is slightly curved to make information technology a bit more comfortable in your hand. It'due south also water resistant.

Samsung is keeping with its signature array of physical buttons on the front of the phone. In that location's a physical Home button in the middle, and capacitive Back and multitasking buttons next to information technology. The habitation push has a fingerprint sensor embedded in information technology. LG has added a fingerprint sensor to this year's G5, only information technology's on the dorsum just like the new Nexus phones. I personally really like this location for a sensor. This sensor is also the power button, but it'southward the only push on the dorsum of LG'due south phone. The volume toggle has moved to the side, something LG hasn't washed for a few years.

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The LG G5 breaks with the by, ditching the plastic frame of the G4 and sporting an all-aluminum frame. The phone is a little more than rounded than past devices, and in that location is no removable back console. Instead, LG has kept the battery removable with a slot that you can access past popping off the bottom of the telephone. LG has a 2800mAh battery in this phone, slightly smaller than the G4. Samsung, on the other paw, has beefed up the Galaxy S7's battery to 3000mAh. Information technology's non-removable, though.

LG actually knows where its staff of life is buttered because it's taking the idea of a modular phone to the extreme. That lesser cap that yous remove to access the battery is actually replaceable with a number of accessories. LG calls these "friends" forth with external accessories similar a 360-degree photographic camera. So far there are only 2 modular friends, but LG plans to release more. At launch there will be a camera grip with physical controls and an extended battery as well as a HiFi sound processor module. LG still has a microSD card slot, of course. However, Samsung has added one of those to the GS7 too.

lg-g5

Samsung has included wireless charging and a quick charge-capable microUSB port on the Galaxy S7 this twelvemonth. LG still isn't supporting wireless charging, but it does have quick charging. The G5 too moves to USB Type-C. This is also a USB iii.0 port for super-fast data transfer. This port is the future, merely correct now it means replacing all those microUSB cables yous take around.

Display

The Galaxy S7 comes in 2 flavors — one with a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED and another with a 5.5-inch curved Super AMOLED (the GS7 Edge). Both have the same 2560×1440 resolution, so the but visual difference is the curved left and correct edges on the larger device. According to DisplayMate, Samsung's latest panels are the best displays available on any phone.

Samsung'due south AMOLEDs have vibrant, but accurate colors. The brightness is also high in Motorcar mode. These displays tin can achieve over 800 nits of brightness when outdoors, making it feasible to utilise the phone in bright sunlight. Samsung has also opted to add together an e'er-on display fashion to the GS7. This will permit you to check bones information without waking upward the telephone. Information technology will testify you the time, date, notification icons, and and so on.

GS7-display

LG also has an e'er-on display style, but this is rather unusual. LG is using a 5.iii-inch 1440p IPS LCD. AMOLEDs tin display only a few pixels on a blackness background without killing the bombardment because black pixels apply no power. An LCD should brand an always-on display impractical, but LG says information technology has accounted for this. There aren't any specific details still. The screen itself should be a squeamish one as far as LCDs get. The colors and brightness won't be equally good as the GS7, just LG's displays are top-of-the-line for LCDs.

Internals and cameras

The G5 and GS7 have a lot in common on the within. Both are powered by the new Snapdragon 820 SoC. This is a quad-core ARM chip running on Qualcomm's latest custom Kryo CPU core with an updated Adreno GPU. All the early benchmarks show information technology blowing other mobile processors out of the water. The G5 and GS7 also take 4GB of RAM.

Samsung will exist offer 32GB of storage, with 64GB and 128GB launching in some markets. You've still got a microSD menu slot to add more storage, though. Samsung is using an even faster version of UFS 2.0 storage in the GS7, which tin read and write much quicker than the slower eMMC 5.0 storage in the LG G5.

cameras

On the camera front, Samsung stepped down from a 16MP sensor to a 12MP one. While the resolution is lower, Samsung says the wider aperture and larger pixels make it better for depression-light photos. LG went the other style. There's yet a 16MP camera on the back, but a second 8MP sensor has been added for ultra-wide angle shots. It has a field of view in the neighborhood of 135-degrees. That's something you lot don't go on any other phone right now.

Software and everything else

Samsung is launching the GS7 with Android half-dozen.0 and TouchWiz — no surprise there. The visitor is again slimming downwardly its software layer with a less annoying color scheme and a refined feature set. There's not much new with the Milky way S7's software, but it even so supports things like ultra ability saver, multi-window, and Samsung pay for mobile payments at nigh credit card readers. The border brandish includes a gesture to pull up quick links to news, contacts, and more than.

One notable change is that Samsung contradistinct its memory management model in the Milky way S7, then all that RAM is actually good for something. On the Milky way S6, the telephone would but keep a few apps running in the background. Now, it will multitask much more efficiently. LG has always used this more traditional retentivity model, and the G5 is no exception. It'll keep plenty of apps running in its 4GB of RAM.

G5

LG has made some interesting changes to its UI on Android half dozen.0. The pattern looks by and large the aforementioned (which is to say, kind of irksome), merely in that location'due south something missing: LG has decided to remove the app drawer from the default home screen. That means all your apps are piled up on screen after screen in no particular order. I personally can't stand this. Yous can use a different launcher, though. A few less of import features similar multi-window accept been removed as well.

All carriers are already taking pre-orders for the Galaxy S7, and they're already arriving on some doorsteps. The official launch date is March 11th. You'll pay $700-800 for the base model GS7 and GS7 Edge, or about $30-35 per month on a payment plan. The LG G5 doesn't take an official launch date or toll yet. It will probably be a piffling less than the Galaxy S7, but don't be surprised if it's $600 at to the lowest degree.