The ebbs and flows of the mobile technology giants have always kept mobile technology enthusiasts like me on the edge of our seats. One such ebb and flow has been that of the fortunes of the two biggest smartphone manufacturers in the world, Apple and Samsung. And in this article I am going to take a quick look at how the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 6S compare to each other however, I will be focusing mainly on each handsets camera.
Changing Fortunes
Remember those ebbs and flows I mentioned a short while ago? Well Apple recently became what some critics are calling the victim of its own success! Some critics have even gone as far as to suggest that Apple has become used to resting on its laurels by failing to innovate where the iPhone is concerned.
This has lead to Apple falling from the top spot in world market share, as it recently fell to 2nd place with 23% of the US market. Now Samsung yet again finds itself sitting at the top of the tree looking down at what may be a failing super power.
How do the S7 and S6 Compare?
Let’s start by being clear, the iPhone 6S was launched some six months earlier than the Galaxy S7, so Samsungs handset may have had the benefit of newer technologies.
Displays Compared
Starting with the iPhone 6S, its display is a capacitive IPS LCD, which incorporates and LED backlight. At 4.7-inches in size it’s not the biggest of displays and where the all important PPI is concerned (pixels per inch) it doesn’t overly impress here either. Apple has seen fit to allow only 326ppi, which when compared to other smartphones from various different manufacturers is hardly high end.
Moving onto the Galaxy S7, Samsung as it always does with its high-end handsets packs some serious grunt behind its displays. Compared to the iPhone 6S the Galaxy S7s 5.1-inch offering is more useful in my opinion. After all there’s nothing more irritating than having to zoom in and out all the time.
But that is not the only display feature that the S7 has that trumps that of the S6, its PPI rating is much higher at 577. This gives its display a much more vibrant look with sharper more in focus graphics whether it is video or standard images.
Onboard Memory and RAM
This is where we move into the realms of subjectivity, as both handsets have their own variations each offing a different starting amount of onboard storage. The iPhone 6S starts at 16GB and the Galaxy S7 32GB, however this is where the iPhone (for internal capacity) out-strips the S7 by a decent margin. Apples baby has a max capacity of 128GB compared to the useful but meagre in comparison 64GB on the S7.
But how do they compare with RAM? (Random access memory), it used to be the school of thought that Android handsets needed more RAM than iPhones to operate smoothly. I myself believed this for many years however, recent improvements to Android base code have streamlined the OS and given it not only user speed improvements, but also increased battery life.
All in all this means that compared to the iPhone 6 with 2GB of RAM, the Galaxy S7 and its huge 4GB offering is worlds apart in performance from the iPhone. This can be seen with its multitasking features and ability to remain stable no matter how much you push it.
Cameras Compared
Starting with the Samsung Galaxy S7, it comes with a rear facing 12-megapixel camera. It what was the latest at launch dual pixel technology. Which is just a fancy way to describe the technology found in many Canon DSLR cameras. To be a little more technical, the camera on the S7 has two photodiodes in each pixel of the cameras sensor, this allows each pixel to become a phase-detection autofocus point and as such capture more light and produce extremely detailed photography.
Moving onto the iPhone 6S, like the other it also has a 12-megapixel rear facing camera, although this one has a technology that Apple calls Focus Pixels. This technology is somewhat different than that found on the S7, in that it does not use phase detection for all of its pixels. Instead it only locks in on a few chosen pixels.
Both cameras are quality pieces of technology, however in my opinion the fact that the Galaxy S7 camera has a larger aperture at f.2.2 compared to the iPhone’s f/1.7. Means that it lets in more light and produces a much more detailed image than that of the iPhone camera.
Galaxy S7 v iPhone 6S: Specs compared
If you take a look at the chart below you’ll see how each handset compares to the other in detail.