Galaxy S7 vs iPhone SE vs HTC 10

I have a Galaxy S7 and my wife has an iPhone SE.

I have owned iPhone before and after a while of being happy with the phone initially, things like having to use iTunes to copy my music really get to me and I miss the simplicity of Android phones being able to simply plug in the phone to my USB port and copy/paste whatever music I want or update the new ones if I had some new songs.

Today I held her iPhone SE and man is that size so perfect. It reminded me again what a phone size was like in the old days, a telephone, not a freakin' mini tablet. I love the size so much.

So then I quickly launched her camera and took some photos and then took the same photos with my S7, the S7 photos were much richer / saturated in color I am in a dilemma if I should keep my s7 or get an iPhone SE

I am not a fan boy of any OS or brand. part of me really wants to have a small phone but what's scaring me from pulling the bullet is the camera and Apple iOS (I hate iTunes)

Also, I think that the iPhone SE's battery is better and doesn't have as much of a drain when sitting idle as compared to Samsung Phones

Please help me decide @Prema @Ethrem

 

I guarantee you that once the honeymoon with the SE is over, you will regret it. 4" is far too small.

 

So I went to the mall to get the iPhone SE 64GB but they didn't have the Space Grey color in any shop as it was out of stock so I canceled the whole idea as I wouldn't use any other color. I'll stick to my Galaxy S7. Maybe that was a sign for me to not do this.

 

This is like comparing apples to a melon.

 

I have a 5S now and will be moving to the SE more than likely. The only thing that comes close to is the Z5 Compact. 4" is plenty for a phone. I need something I can access all areas of the screen with one hand, and one finger. I can't do it with anything bigger than a 4" screen. SE has the powerful hardware packed in the perfect size, and no android has that.

 

Seriously if you're looking at possibly upgrading this year, wait for the 7. There is no reason to go from the S7 to the SE at all unless you're making payments on the phone since the SE is cheaper. I considered going that route myself but it's just too small. I still owe T-Mobile 565 for my Note 5 and the SE is a total of 399 so I was mulling it over but seeing what my fan boy roommate went through activating his new 6S because of iCloud I said nevermind. Even if the phone wasn't rooted, I can still use Helium Backup to restore most of my apps and data (unfortunately not my authenticators but now that Marshmallow has the option to send a text to the phone for auto activation, that's not as big of a deal anymore to reset them) and I never have to be tethered to a PC or use clunky iTunes. Either way, I'd wait and see what Apple has in store. Considering the 20% drop, Apple is definitely going to be doing things differently. The SE was a good start. It's selling like crazy.

 

What's the best camera money can buy right now on a ~4" phone? It doesn't have to be a Galaxy.

 

yeah it's out of stock in the entire UAE/Dubai. Only available color left is Gold or Rose Gold which I'd never buy. It's either the Space Grey for me or I won't buy it

I guess it's the iPhone SE

 

My roommate got told two weeks for his to arrive from T-Mobile so he ordered a 6 and canceled the SE just to have it show up the next day lol. I would get one myself if it wasn't for the tiny screen. I don't know how I ever used small screens with my big hands before but I can't go back now.

 

I hope the SE model is not a one time thing.... I would love to see iphone 7 hardware packed into a 4 inch version too.

 

It's almost guaranteed that Apple will keep the 4in flagship as it's selling like crazy and with sales down across the board, they need to be aggressive with their product placement. Not everyone wants to spend 600 bucks on a phone. Apple is finally starting to realize they need to have an affordable option in the market, especially with the affordable Android phones that people go to. As the market gets saturated, Apple is losing the ability to attract new customers because everyone has a phone already. A lot of us that upgrade even yearly are in the minority.

 

I'm glad they realized nobody will fork over money for a "cheaper" phone though, you know? The 5C was an abomination and didn't sell well because it felt cheap, and was packed with inferior hardware. I think Apple learned its lesson this time around, or at least I hope they did.

EDIT: I just went ahead and bought myself a brand new space gray iPhone SE on ebay. Between having no tax and getting 8x ebay bucks, it was just too good a deal to pass. Now to find a buyer for this 5S of mine....

 

US Cellular can't keep the iPhone SE in stock. My wife wants one and I've been checking their website regularly. This is selling like gangbusters. I'm not personally into either iOS or small screens, but some people are, and to have a good option on the market for people who do want those things is obviously a good thing.

 

on the localized Apple site for the UAE, it says if you order it now, you will get it in 3 weeks. Bloody hell. Seems like it sold much faster than Apple anticipated.

 

Maybe its because you know...people want an actual phone and not a phablet or a tablet. People seriously underestimate the need for a PHONE. It's great it can do all that other stuff if I need it to, but I need to be a phone first and foremost.

I would go one step further and wish they made a 3.5" phone again, same as the 4S

 

3.5" is too small. You must have very small hands. If I put my thumbs right next to each other, they span about an inch and a half. The typos I make on small screens are ridiculous.

 

Finally found an iPhone SE Space Grey in Dubai!

 

I do have small hands, which is a blessing and a curse all in one.

Nice! I just got mine in the mail today and I'm loving it!

 

@Ethrem @Papusan @Mr. Fox @Mitlov

Here is a pic I took this morning of one of my cats with my iPhone SE. His name is Tommy. Persian Cat. He thinks he is the boss of the Cat Mafia:

 

As Filter would say, hey man nice shot.

 

That is a devilish looking cat lol

 

Lol all Persians look that way!

 

I've got an old iPhone 5, which is starting to come apart. So I've been forced to look around for a suitable replacement. As far as I understand, this years Iphone 7 doesn't seem to be very exciting from the rumors. Therefore I've started looking towards either the SE, HTC 10 or S7.

Anyone who've tried the HTC who can tell me anything about it?

 

Go SE man, I haven't regretted it one bit, and it is a spectacular phone, better than the 6 or 6S, and probably the 7 too. There is a reason why it is selling so well. Compact power, in the size of an actual phone and not a phablet.

 

HTC is out of their minds with the pricing of the 10 but out of all the new flagships, its unlock friendly, supports adoptable storage out of the box (so you can add your SD card to system storage seamlessly), has the least bloated third party skin, and since it's HTC updates are timely. Also besides the Sprint version, ROMs and radios are compatible across all builds, something no other manufacturer offers (in fact in the US, every other Snapdragon 820 device is locked down tightly - Samsung used an encrypted bootloader along with dm-verity to prevent root and LG uses dm-verity) and the sound quality is incredible. Camera quality is not bad. It's no Note 5 (which I still personally think the S6 Edge and Note 5 take the best pictures of any smartphone) but it's not an M8 either (and I liked the picture quality of the M8 in general) but it's definitely not the flop the M9 was. If you're okay paying 700 bucks for a phone that should have been 600, especially if you root or use custom ROMs, the 10 is the way to go.

Since you already had an iPhone, the SE is a no brainer if you don't mind the tiny screen. I could never personally use that thing or I'd have one myself.

With Samsung locking the 7s down so much (unless you have the international version which has the Exynos and is fully modable), I don't recommend them at all. TouchWiz just keeps getting more and more bloated and without root, you can't fix it.

 

I bought an app on my iPhone SE called ProCamera which has an HDR+ mode and a lowlight+ mode, the quality is superb man it's like this is a different camera......check these out:

 

They're great pics, I'm not faulting the SE camera, I just think the IMX240 edges it out. It's not a mind blowing difference and really any of the flagships will have great cameras this time around.

 

yeah it may not be the best, but with this ProCamera, it does all I need, I'm no pro photographer, just need a phone that takes decent pics, has a good battery life, and I can easily put in my pocket.

If I put the phone on low power mode which is still fine and snappy for me, it can last me 3 days easily, the battery discharge is so slow

 

Yeah that's the trade off with larger screens. My Note 5 won't make it through 24 hours while my LG Leon has been in standby for over 8 days now. I have to charge my Note 5 every day when it's not on power saver mode but I also use it nonstop.

 

that's fair enough for a power horse of a phone with a great camera AND don't forget fast charging, means you can be back to full in no time.

It's called a S****-Shave-Shower phone, meaning, if it's on 1% battery almost dead, put it on the charger, and by the time you do those 3 things, you'r good to go out and about with your phone

 

Yeah but the standby time really could be better. Sometimes I wonder if I turned off WiFi and just left it on mobile data if the consumption would drop a lot because I'm always connected using 802.11ac and there doesn't seem to be a WiFi power saving mode unlike Qualcomm chips. At the same time though, my downloads regularly run around 21MB/sec which is the upper end of the connection I pay for.

 

one thing I noticed about Samsung phones, is if you have WiFi on, even if you are not touching the phone and WiFi goes to sleep, it still sucks a lot of battery on stand by. Like charge your phone to a 100%, then leave it for like 30 mins without touching it and watch how much it loses charge. I usually disable Wifi as I have an unlimited data package, it makes the battery life night and day and you can probably reach into the half of the 2nd day on a single charge. The iPhones have amazing standby time if you turn off data refresh for most the apps that are not critical, I don't know how they do this but they have come a long way. I remember in 2009 when I was a BlackBerry phone, we would mock iPhone users telling them "don't forget to buy 4 extra chargers along with your iToy, one for the office, home, car, and one extra to carry along with you" due to how bad their battery life was.

what's really shocking about the SE's battery life is it only has a small 1600mAH battery but can do 3 days easily with moderate usage on low power mode or 2 days on normal mode.

 

Oh man the Blackberry... My curve was like 3 days and that included all the instant messengers, lots of push email, and lots of browsing. Then again though, Blackberry never really had any games I would sit and play for hours whereas I've gotten sucked into more than a few between my android phone and my iPad Air.

My standby has gone down a lot since I upgraded to Marshmallow which was unexpected. If I wasn't home all the time, I'd invest in a ZeroLemon 8500mah battery case for it. I'll take it off the charger at 100% and it will be at 75% when I wake up 10-12 hours later. I think realistically it's probably a failing battery but since I've tripped Knox, I'd rather not deal with T-Mobile possibly rejecting a warranty exchange (another reason I wish HTC would release a phablet - with S-OFF you can fully restore the phone to complete out of the box stock including the flags that show its been unlocked) so I just need this phone to survive until August or September when the Note 6 is out.

 

Something is off with your ROM. My 2 year old HTC One M8 still lasts me through the day with moderate usage and loses about 1-2% battery over night.
Im running the HTC 10 ROM port and this baby works as smooth as my friends bottom . (ill link him to this page so that he understands that the zoke is still on xD)

I S-OFF's my first M8 using sunshine and then realized that it was was the wrong reason, so HTC replaced it with the international one which is what i originally wanted. Thye didnt really say anything about the S-OFF. Even this one is S-OFF and they didn't say any thing when i was talking to one of their support devs the other day, after i accidentally did not flash the full firmware. She was actually rather happy to talk to someone who knew what she was talking about and could do advanced trouble shooting. This is one of the reasons why i love HTC. Gonna get the HTC 10 next once this one dies (sinister smile) since i dont really use the camera, but want the audio.

 

I thought once you root and the Knox warranty void = 1 signal is on, you cannot revert that back to 0. Or is that only on Samsung phones?

 

I heard HTC phones have some of the best speakers

 

Its not the ROM unfortunately. It's TouchWiz and Samsung's garbage kernel coding. I mean the stock kernel breaks DLNA to their own products, much less third party products.

I want to go back to HTC but the price is too high and going down to 5.2" from 5.7" would be a huge pain (I had the 6" Nexus 6 and I thought that was perfect). I had the M7 and the M8 myself and I loved them both but the Nexus 6 won me over when it came out and the M9 was a flop so I got a Note 5 instead even after swearing I'd never buy another Samsung phone after they pushed KNOX to my Galaxy S3. If HTC pushes out a nice phablet, I'll switch without hesitation.

That's Samsung phones. If you turn security off with an HTC, you can do literally anything with it, including flashing it into a different model like a lot of us did with our M8s - we turned them into Google Editions.

The M8 had the best speakers any phone has ever had, hands down.

 

There were ways to circumvent that when i was using the S3, not sure how it works now. And there was a way to reset the trigger as well.

Hell yeah!

Yeah, the HTC 10 was super expensive when it came out, but now you can get it for $600 shipped with next day delivery (using a discount code). M9 was a total disgrace to be honest.
But i remember resetting the trigger on my Sprint S3, will have to double check if i still have the phone here.

I had almost pressed buy on the HTC10, but decided to give the ROM port a shot, and damn this is the best ROM i have used so far. Phones smooth and fast now. The only problem with the M8 is the ****ty camera. For most people that is a deal breaker.

 

my dad was talking to me the other day from his M8 and I didn't know it was an M8, I asked him, "dad, are you using a 5 year old phone with a VGA camera?????" the front camera was so pixelated it's not funny

 

Dude, the front camera is actually better than the real cam. xD
The rear cam is just decent for Mid to close range shots, because of bigger pixels. Which i feel is a marketing gimmick and they just removed the AA filter from the normal sensor.

At least the HTC10's camera comes close to the S7's.

 

oh ok, must be something in his settings then or connection was very weak

Yeah I've seen a comparison between the HTC 10 and S7's camera's, while the S7 wins in most categories, it was a very close call so they are on par at the same level.

 

They ended the HTC1008 promo, I tried it the other day. I went on and took a shot at PayPal financing but got denied (which was expected, my credit is pretty bad) but I am glad in retrospect because I'm sick of expensive phones. My T-Mobile is only 65 a month but after phone payments and the Jump+insurance bundle and taxes it's 116. 30 for the phone, 12 for jump. Why pay so much for a phone?!

 

Dang . Yeah.
Alright check swappa.com
Some resellers list brand new sealed pieces there. It might be $20-30 more though, but I have sold and bought from there quite a few times. Way better and faster than eBay.

Also there was one more $100 coupon, ill check if i can find it.

 

In Dubai, the unlocked / retail HTC 10 is $650 USD

 

T-Mobile is selling it for 672 USD but I missed the offer for a free ice view case and rapid charger, ended yesterday. I'm tempted to wait and see if the price drops down in a few months.

Since I just uninstalled the Chrome update, my Note 5 took off in speed and I stopped getting WebGL crashing on NBR so maybe my battery will level out now too if it was Chrome causing the phone to never doze.

 

if you want my brotherly advice, don't waste any money on it bro. You have a great phone which many would love to own. Be happy with it for another 6 months and then get something that makes you really go like WOW, some big upgrade, not a slightly better one. Just my 2 cents.

IMO, an upgrade should really make you feel you did something, not waste calories only to receive something that may or may not be better (camera for instance)

 

Well mine has always been defective. On the new AnTuTu even the Nexus 6 beats it.



The HTC 10 scores around 130k... It would be a major upgrade.

 

ah ok then that's a good enough reason to upgrade. Get the HTC 10 please and sell your phone.

 

You can see why I'm not happy with it... It overheats like nobody's business. And it's a common problem with the device. Why do you think I'm not so sold on Polaris which uses the same process Samsung used for the Exynos 7420? The SoC shoots up to 89C. The thermal limits are the same as my Haswell fireball...

 

see these are the things we don't see at first and the penalty of owning the latest and greatest. I was always a buyer on release date but from now on especially with phones, I will wait a while to read the forums and see if there are any common issues.

I waited for like 2 weeks before getting the SE and till today there are no common issues on the iMore forums. Not that I waited out of choice, I was forced since it was out of stock everywhere.

PS: I hate YouTube reviews because they all show you how the device is after 1 day or 1 week of usage, not a real world review. just marketing BS / paid reviews with the exception of Flossy Carter

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