Samsung Galaxy S7 vs Sony Xperia Z5 – which is best?

Sony’s Xperia Z5 was one of our favourite handsets of last year. After all, if it’s good enough for James Bond, it’s good enough for the rest of us, right? However, now that we’ve had a chance to test its arch-nemesis, Samsung’s brand-new Galaxy S7, the question on everybody’s lips is which one deserves a place in your pocket? To see which smartphone you should be buying this year, we’ve put both phones head to head to see which one is the best value for money.

In this article, we compare each phone’s design, display, speed and performance, battery life and camera. We’ll also be focusing on the regular, flat S7 rather than the fancier Galaxy S7 Edge. To see how the S7 differs from its curvy cousin, see our S7 vs S7 Edge article.

Design

Materials: Like last year’s Galaxy S6, the Galaxy S7 is made of glass and metal, giving it that all-important premium design and top notch build quality you’d expect from a flagship smartphone. The smooth, rounded corners make it rather slippery to hold, though, so you might want to invest in a case to make sure you maintain a firm grip on your expensive investment.

The Sony Xperia Z5 is also made from metal and glass, but the subtle rim round the edge of the phone gives you something more substantial to hold onto, making it feel more secure in your hand. The reinforced corners also add an extra degree of confidence, and the frosted glass back doesn’t pick up nearly as many fingerprints as the glossy exterior of the Galaxy S7.

Both phones have an IP68 certification as well, so each one should be completely dustproof and equally able to survive in up to 1.5m of fresh water for 30 minutes, which is perfect for those unexpected April showers or an accidental tumble down the loo. However, while neither phone requires you to seal off its micro USB port before taking a dive, the Xperia Z5 does require you to make sure its microSD and SIM card slots are fully covered by its removable cover.

Both handsets have a fingerprint sensor. The Galaxy S7’s is in its home button, whereas Sony puts it in the power/unlock button on the side of the phone. Both require you to press its respective button in order to unlock it, but Sony’s solution is by far the most practical, as the power button is already somewhere your thumb naturally rests when you go to turn on the phone. Samsung’s home button, on the other hand, is much more awkward to reach with just your thumb, and it would have been much better located somewhere else.

Dimensions: The S7 measures 142x70x7.9mm and weighs 152g, making it ever so slightly smaller than the Z5, which measure 146x72x7.3mm and weighs 154g. However, these tiny differences won’t make a massive amount of difference in day-to-day use, although the Z5’s narrower, more angular edges do make it much easier to hold in one hand.

Conclusion: As lovely as the S7 is, the Z5 is arguably the more practical and attractive-looking smartphone. Its frosted glass back looks much more elegant than the smeary fingerprints you’ll find on the S7, and I also felt much more confident holding the Z5 in one hand than I do the S7.

Display

The Galaxy S7 has a 5.1in display with a 2,560×1,440 resolution, which gives it a pixel density of 577ppi. Sony’s Xperia Z5, on the other hand, just can’t compare when it comes to sheer pixel count, as its 5.2in display only has a 1,920×1,080 resolution, producing a pixel density of just 424ppi. Not that you’d be able to see much of a difference with the naked eye, though, as both displays look amazingly sharp in the flesh.

Likewise, what the Z5 lacks in pure pixels it more than makes up for with its excellent colour accuracy. Its IPS panel covered an incredible 99.4% of the sRGB colour gamut in our tests, and its super high brightness levels of 684.25cd/m2 means the screen stays visible no matter how bright it is outside. Its black level of 0.54cd/m2 isn’t particularly brilliant, but its contrast ratio of 1,078:1 ensures there’s still plenty of detail to be had onscreen.

^ The S7’s always-on display is really useful for looking at information quickly without having to turn the screen on

The S7, meanwhile, uses a Super AMOLED display, which just inches in front to cover a full 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, producing beautifully rich, vibrant images. Its black levels are also a perfect 0.00cd/m2, and its contrast ratio is super high – so much so that our colour calibrator couldn’t even give us a score. It’s not as bright as the Z5, as its peak brightness only hits a maximum white level of 353.74cd/m2, but this is still bright enough to use outside without too much trouble. Likewise, switch to auto brightness, as the display will shoot up to around 470cd/m2 when it’s placed in direct sunlight, providing a little extra boost when you need it.

The S7 also has an Always On Display (AOD), which can be set to display information permanently on the screen such as the time, date, battery status and even some rudimentary calendar info. This means you don’t have to press the lock button to wake the screen up to simply check what time it is, and since its Super AMOLED screens only draw power for the individual pixels currently in use, it doesn’t drain the battery much either.

Conclusion: In this case, the S7 is the clear winner. The Z5 easily has the best IPS display I’ve ever tested, but it’s still not quite as good as Samsung’s Super AMOLED panels. Throw in its useful always-on display and the S7 wins hands down.

Performance

Processor: In the UK, the Galaxy S7 has one of Samsung’s custom-made octa-core 2.3GHz Exynos 8890 chipsets along with 4GB of RAM. Samsung says this is 30% faster than the S6’s octa-core 2.1GHz Exynos 7420 processor, and the results of our benchmarks certainly showed a huge amount of improvement. For instance, in Geekbench 3, the S7 scored an impressive 2,115 in the single core test and a massive 6,437 in the multicore test.

The Xperia Z5, on the other hand, which has an octa-core 2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB of RAM, only managed 1,236 and 3,943 respectively. This is still great compared to other Snapdragon 810-based phones, but the S7’s Exynos processor is clearly several steps ahead in this department.

The S7 is also a more competent games machine, as it produced a super smooth 2,336 frames (38fps) in GFX Bench GL’s offscreen Manhattan 3.0 test. The Z5 only managed 1,606 frames, which equates to roughly 26fps. Both are still more than capable of playing all the latest games on the Google Play Store, but the S7 will be able to render games at higher detail settings if the game allows for it.

Storage: Having taken it away on the Galaxy S6, the S7 finally has a microSD slot again, allowing you to expand the phone’s default 32GB or 64GB of storage up to 200GB. The Z5 also has a microSD slot that can be used with cards up to 200GB, but only comes in 32GB configurations. Either way, both handsets provide plenty of flexibility, so you shouldn’t be running out of space any time soon.

Battery Life: Both phones have very similar-sized batteries, as the S7 has a 3,000mAh battery while the Z5’s comes in at 2,900mAh. However, in our continuous video playback test, the S7 steamed ahead, lasting an incredible 17h 48m, beating the Z5’s 11h 29m by more than six whole hours.

Conclusion: It’s another win for the S7, as it’s not only much faster and more reliable over the course of the day, but the added flexibility of having 64GB of storage instead of just 32GB out of the box means you can cram even more apps and photos on it over the course of its lifetime.

Camera

It’s been good to see manufacturers abandon the meaningless megapixels arms race. With the Galaxy S7, Samsung has actually reduced the megapixel count from 16 megapixels down to 12 megapixels. The pixel size has increased, however, from 1.12um to 1.4um, meaning each pixel gets more light as a result, which should mean cleaner, sharper images.

The aperture of the lens has also increased from f/1.9 to f/1.7 meaning even more light is able to reach the sensor, which should in theory improve low-light performance with faster shutter speeds. A new dual-pixel sensor gives 100% phase detection making autofocus that much faster, too.

The Sony Xperia Z5, on the other hand, has a 23-megapixel sensor. This doesn’t guarantee it will have better quality images, but you will be able to make very large prints should you wish. The camera combines phase and contrast detection for quick autofocus and in testing we found the autofocus to be super fast.

^ The Galaxy S7’s indoor shots (above) had much richer colours and better contrast levels than the Z5 (below)

When it comes to overall quality, though, the S7 wins by a comfortable country mile. Images were not only crisper across the entire frame, but colours and the amount of contrast on show were also much better on the S7. The same goes for indoor photography as well. While the Z5 coped very well with our indoor still life arrangement, the S7 produced much more accurate-looking photos, particularly in low light.

Conclusion: Sony’s camera might have more megapixels, but in this case, Samsung shows that numbers aren’t important when it comes to making a great smartphone camera.

Price and conclusion

As much as we love both phones here at Expert Reviews, the Galaxy S7 pulls ahead in almost every category, making it the best value Android flagship to buy right now. It doesn’t help that the Xperia Z5 is almost just as expensive now as it was when it first launched at the end of last year, as it still costs around £500 SIM-free or at least £37.50-per-month on a contract. The S7, meanwhile, costs £569 SIM-free and £36-per-month if you’re willing to pay £80 upfront. That makes the Z5 a little cheaper, but it’s simply not enough to tempt us away from the newer, shinier Galaxy S7.