This sounds like a great phone. Good specs, large battery, and it doesn't need a case. I hope Titanium Gray looks better than the gold or the cammo green options though.
Amazing device hardware, to be crippled by bloatware and exclusive to Verizon... they're really not interested in selling these, kind of like how Motorola wasn't interested in selling their devices and is now part of Lenovo.
Camo Gold... what can possibly be wrong with Camo Gold ? Oh, you mean you wanted Camo Rose Gold ? For your Vogue cover ? ;-p Make a tombstone black one, please ?
I think this is where many people would be confused regarding Anandtech's work allocation. Why shoulder a full time student who is busy with his studies the responsibility for the bulk of Anandtech's android phone reviews? Surely after your struggles with the S7 review, a sensible option would have been to give the HTC 10 review to someone else to do? Instead now you are forced to bear the brunt of criticism, unfair or otherwise.
Alternatively, if you suddenly find yourself unable to do it, is there a system in place to pass the task to another reviewer?Until recently I thought all the reviewers were full-time professionals. It seems odd that a review site would allow itself to be "held hostage" by the schedule of a part-timer.
Anandtech's editors may feel they do not owe us answers regarding what is reviewed, who reviews it and when it is reviewed, but I think readers are not wrong to have certain expectations regarding punctuality from that a site as old and as respected as Anandtech is. Like it or not, the Galaxy S and Notes are always going to be one of big stories of any given year. The Iphone's even more so. And new GPUs as well. So there is a need to prioritize those products, put the manpower you need on them, and get them out within a reasonable timeframe. (i.m.o within 2 weeks for smartphones). The delays have long since passed the point of reasonable.
Anandtech already has a group of full-timers,no? So why not give important projects to the full-timers and less anticipated and time-sensitive products to the part-timers? Surely a phone review is not so specialized a field that only one particular part-timer can do them?
None of this is meant to be a personal attack on Josh or Anandtech staff. I am simply pointing out what seem to be reasonable problems which no one appears in a hurry to address. If Anandtech's stand is: "We choose to allocate certain products to certain people, and to hell with timeliness and deadlines." I would like them to come out and say so. Long-time readers like myself have always understood (and accepted) the quality vs punctuality trade-off which Anandtech has made, but this year it has taken a turn towards the ludicrous.
With the increase of ad blockers, websites suffer from declining revenues. I'm not sure how many full time staff members Anandtech has now if any. Anyways, I whitelist sites I enjoy reading (anandtech) and hope others will do the same.
Thank you for the reply Josh. Only 3 full timers/editors is certainly less than what I imagined. With this new information I will accordingly temper my expectations going forward. I appreciate your attempts to address the issue, including replying civilly to the complaints that have arisen. Thank you for your excellent reviews on the various phones over the last 3 years.
I don't think there are time-sensitive products: very few people reading this with a Galaxy S7 in their hand would be able to review it as thoroughly as Andrei might. There's no need to buy products on launch; waiting nine months for a review isn't a problem.
Mobile Phones are often time-sensitive products, here are some common scenarios where they may be an urgent need to buy a product at launch or close to launch.
1)A person's phone may have died and they can't afford to wait more than a few days before deciding on what to get next. 2) There is a special offer for buying a particular model, perhaps a free gift or $100 off at a trade fair, but only for one weekend or till stocks last. 3) A person going on holiday in a week's time wants to replace their ancient phone with one that has the best camera and battery, but cant quite decide between all the new models.
In all the above scenarios an early review is better than a late one. Holidays, phones getting spoilt and trade fairs happen all the time. Some in March, some in April, some in May etc. Waiting 3 or 6 or 9 months is certainly a legitimate issue for these people, and they will go to other sites to figure it out.
The longer an Anandtech article is in the public domain the more people it can inform and help.
Anandtech articles often serve two functions: 1) Inform our purchasing decisions. 2) satisfy intellectual curiosity. The longer a review takes, the more it serves function (2), rather than (1). I for example, have just purchased a HTC 10. I still look forward to a review from this site, but only to increase my understanding of this device.
So Samsung has already announced the S7 active, 3 months after the S7 launch. Still no S7 review. Still no HTC 10 review. No full GTX 1080 review, and not even a preview for the GTX 1070.
But any of the iCrap manages to get full review on launch... awesome, just awesome!
i believe AT is losing their edge as there is really very little material it can review nowadays of worth. Especially since there are a lot of specialized sites that review the products which a lot more specific to the users need to know than a more general review sites like AT. I am not knocking on AT's reviews but really the trend of where a lot of users nowadays look for actual reviews on the products being launched of interest to the masses - phones, ssds - gsmarena/androidauthority/... and storagereviews are two sites come to mind. masses are no longer too enthusiastic about cpus, gpus, mobos, rams, monitors, servers, ... users looking for these reviews are a niche and to make matters worse, these items are not really being launched or innovated at the same pace as they used to be in the past.
Although I don't buy much pc parts I still like to read reviews posted here either for nostalgic reasons or for just interest in advances technologies make for things that work behind the scene for the masses nowadays.
You do realize that in the age of Google you can't just get away with stating random BS, don't you? Every iPhone review is massively delayed. Eg, most recently, iPhone SE is released on March 31, Anandtech review is May 16 ...
You didn't properly read between the lines, name99. It isn't that AT reviews Apple products first, it's that they review them at all. Or mention them. Or in any capacity suggest that there be alternatives to whatever the nerd object du jour is. Choice is an anathema to a nerd—they talk about choice, but what they want is their choice
And just to be clear: I actually really like Samsung's phones, and Android in general. But then again, I like a lot of phones: Android, iOS... I even had a Lumia for a while, as a fun curiosity (hardware was meh, but it's a shame WindowsPhone crashed and burned. There was a lot really cool about it). All these different choices and options make it a great time to be an electronics consumer. But let's not kid ourselves. If AT pushed out that Galaxy 7 review right away, then some doughy neckbeard would be around post-haste to whine why some random LG phone wasn't reviewed first because *of course* AT is suckling at the teat of phat Samsung payola. People that don't have the self-awareness to realize how objectively *stupid* complaining about when they get reviews are don't deserve the dignity of having any of their ideas engaged. They're too busy defending their tribe to learn anything.
And so is the world round, and sun rises in the east. Amen.
Damn.... this is really the phone I wanted... I wish I could swap my S7 for this. I don't care about a phone being ultra thin, a bigger battery and more shock resistance is far more important to me.
This is definitely the best phone on the market right now by a large margin, for my needs.
I hope Samsung makes this phone available in India. I really need a good rugged phone for outdoor use and it seems like Samsung only keep Active and Xcover devices restricted to US/Europe.
Why are these always at&t only? Drives me crazy. I hate having a phone then adding a case so figure this would be perfect...unfortunately at&t sucks where I live. So no thanks.
Dissapointed in the water proof rating. This is the same waterproof rating as the S7.. You would expect the Active to have better water proofing wouldn't you?
I hope the polycarbonate layer is replaceable, because it will scratch a lot more readily compared to Gorilla glass. Doubly so due to intended usage in harsh conditions.
I find it interesting that they advertise the battery capacity in mAh. I wonder if the battery uses a more rugged 3.7V chemistry to allow it to age better.
That'd still be an impressive 14.8 WHr battery, but the whole thing is just curious.
Seriously? Another phone I'd buy but there's no way in hell I would switch to ATT for it. Samsung, you are idiots to the extreme. Make every damn device you make available to every carrier. you might actually sell more devices that way instead of giving your buddy ATT a BJ.
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47 Comments
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3DoubleD - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
This sounds like a great phone. Good specs, large battery, and it doesn't need a case. I hope Titanium Gray looks better than the gold or the cammo green options though.ImSpartacus - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I'm loving the bigger battery.niva - Friday, June 10, 2016 - link
Amazing device hardware, to be crippled by bloatware and exclusive to Verizon... they're really not interested in selling these, kind of like how Motorola wasn't interested in selling their devices and is now part of Lenovo.StormyParis - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Camo Gold... what can possibly be wrong with Camo Gold ? Oh, you mean you wanted Camo Rose Gold ? For your Vogue cover ? ;-pMake a tombstone black one, please ?
Lord 666 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
What thinking tacticool tangerine for the urban camo fans.Meteor2 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Would be great to read a review of the S7 itself. Perhaps you could put all other work on hold until it's publish. Prioritise it, as it were.ImSpartacus - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I feel your pain. Quality takes time. At least they got a preview out.Eden-K121D - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Not too much time i hope.Devo2007 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
They had no problem with the G5 which came out afterwardsJoshHo - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
It is my primary priority, but I am a full time student. I cannot drop out of school to finish reviews.ahtoh - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
This message is for Anandtech in general, not for you personally.I hope they hear us.
Lau_Tech - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
I think this is where many people would be confused regarding Anandtech's work allocation. Why shoulder a full time student who is busy with his studies the responsibility for the bulk of Anandtech's android phone reviews? Surely after your struggles with the S7 review, a sensible option would have been to give the HTC 10 review to someone else to do? Instead now you are forced to bear the brunt of criticism, unfair or otherwise.Alternatively, if you suddenly find yourself unable to do it, is there a system in place to pass the task to another reviewer?Until recently I thought all the reviewers were full-time professionals. It seems odd that a review site would allow itself to be "held hostage" by the schedule of a part-timer.
Anandtech's editors may feel they do not owe us answers regarding what is reviewed, who reviews it and when it is reviewed, but I think readers are not wrong to have certain expectations regarding punctuality from that a site as old and as respected as Anandtech is. Like it or not, the Galaxy S and Notes are always going to be one of big stories of any given year. The Iphone's even more so. And new GPUs as well. So there is a need to prioritize those products, put the manpower you need on them, and get them out within a reasonable timeframe. (i.m.o within 2 weeks for smartphones). The delays have long since passed the point of reasonable.
Murloc - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
full-time professionals cost money, native advertising soon follows.Lau_Tech - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
Anandtech already has a group of full-timers,no? So why not give important projects to the full-timers and less anticipated and time-sensitive products to the part-timers? Surely a phone review is not so specialized a field that only one particular part-timer can do them?None of this is meant to be a personal attack on Josh or Anandtech staff. I am simply pointing out what seem to be reasonable problems which no one appears in a hurry to address. If Anandtech's stand is: "We choose to allocate certain products to certain people, and to hell with timeliness and deadlines." I would like them to come out and say so. Long-time readers like myself have always understood (and accepted) the quality vs punctuality trade-off which Anandtech has made, but this year it has taken a turn towards the ludicrous.
Yongsta - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
With the increase of ad blockers, websites suffer from declining revenues. I'm not sure how many full time staff members Anandtech has now if any. Anyways, I whitelist sites I enjoy reading (anandtech) and hope others will do the same.JoshHo - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Off-hand I believe the editorial staff currently has 3 full time editors. Everyone else is part-time.I agree that there are problems with the speed with which reviews are finished. I'm working on resolving this on the mobile side.
Lau_Tech - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Thank you for the reply Josh. Only 3 full timers/editors is certainly less than what I imagined. With this new information I will accordingly temper my expectations going forward. I appreciate your attempts to address the issue, including replying civilly to the complaints that have arisen. Thank you for your excellent reviews on the various phones over the last 3 years.Tom Womack - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
I don't think there are time-sensitive products: very few people reading this with a Galaxy S7 in their hand would be able to review it as thoroughly as Andrei might. There's no need to buy products on launch; waiting nine months for a review isn't a problem.Lau_Tech - Wednesday, June 8, 2016 - link
Mobile Phones are often time-sensitive products, here are some common scenarios where they may be an urgent need to buy a product at launch or close to launch.1)A person's phone may have died and they can't afford to wait more than a few days before deciding on what to get next.
2) There is a special offer for buying a particular model, perhaps a free gift or $100 off at a trade fair, but only for one weekend or till stocks last.
3) A person going on holiday in a week's time wants to replace their ancient phone with one that has the best camera and battery, but cant quite decide between all the new models.
In all the above scenarios an early review is better than a late one. Holidays, phones getting spoilt and trade fairs happen all the time. Some in March, some in April, some in May etc. Waiting 3 or 6 or 9 months is certainly a legitimate issue for these people, and they will go to other sites to figure it out.
The longer an Anandtech article is in the public domain the more people it can inform and help.
Anandtech articles often serve two functions: 1) Inform our purchasing decisions. 2) satisfy intellectual curiosity. The longer a review takes, the more it serves function (2), rather than (1). I for example, have just purchased a HTC 10. I still look forward to a review from this site, but only to increase my understanding of this device.
Meteor2 - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
You're joking, right?Meteor2 - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
Argh, my 'you're joking?' message was in reply to Tom, not Lau!Meteor2 - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
I'm glad you said that, Lau, as that's exactly how I feel too.RaichuPls - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
So Samsung has already announced the S7 active, 3 months after the S7 launch. Still no S7 review. Still no HTC 10 review. No full GTX 1080 review, and not even a preview for the GTX 1070.Cmon what's going on?
XZerg - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
But any of the iCrap manages to get full review on launch... awesome, just awesome!i believe AT is losing their edge as there is really very little material it can review nowadays of worth. Especially since there are a lot of specialized sites that review the products which a lot more specific to the users need to know than a more general review sites like AT. I am not knocking on AT's reviews but really the trend of where a lot of users nowadays look for actual reviews on the products being launched of interest to the masses - phones, ssds - gsmarena/androidauthority/... and storagereviews are two sites come to mind. masses are no longer too enthusiastic about cpus, gpus, mobos, rams, monitors, servers, ... users looking for these reviews are a niche and to make matters worse, these items are not really being launched or innovated at the same pace as they used to be in the past.
Although I don't buy much pc parts I still like to read reviews posted here either for nostalgic reasons or for just interest in advances technologies make for things that work behind the scene for the masses nowadays.
name99 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
You do realize that in the age of Google you can't just get away with stating random BS, don't you?Every iPhone review is massively delayed. Eg, most recently,
iPhone SE is released on March 31,
Anandtech review is May 16
...
The Garden Variety - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
You didn't properly read between the lines, name99. It isn't that AT reviews Apple products first, it's that they review them at all. Or mention them. Or in any capacity suggest that there be alternatives to whatever the nerd object du jour is. Choice is an anathema to a nerd—they talk about choice, but what they want is their choiceAnd just to be clear: I actually really like Samsung's phones, and Android in general. But then again, I like a lot of phones: Android, iOS... I even had a Lumia for a while, as a fun curiosity (hardware was meh, but it's a shame WindowsPhone crashed and burned. There was a lot really cool about it). All these different choices and options make it a great time to be an electronics consumer. But let's not kid ourselves. If AT pushed out that Galaxy 7 review right away, then some doughy neckbeard would be around post-haste to whine why some random LG phone wasn't reviewed first because *of course* AT is suckling at the teat of phat Samsung payola. People that don't have the self-awareness to realize how objectively *stupid* complaining about when they get reviews are don't deserve the dignity of having any of their ideas engaged. They're too busy defending their tribe to learn anything.
And so is the world round, and sun rises in the east. Amen.
Meteor2 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I think the last Anandtech GPU review was last November. Maybe they've given up.zeeBomb - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
A phone for the clumsy consumer, or the navy seal...I love it. Sadly only on AT&Tvortmax2 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Yeah, exclusively on AT&T is the worst part...shadarlo - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Damn.... this is really the phone I wanted... I wish I could swap my S7 for this. I don't care about a phone being ultra thin, a bigger battery and more shock resistance is far more important to me.This is definitely the best phone on the market right now by a large margin, for my needs.
Chaitanya - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I hope Samsung makes this phone available in India. I really need a good rugged phone for outdoor use and it seems like Samsung only keep Active and Xcover devices restricted to US/Europe.JTWrenn - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Why are these always at&t only? Drives me crazy. I hate having a phone then adding a case so figure this would be perfect...unfortunately at&t sucks where I live. So no thanks.Redstorm - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Screw Samsung, no international version. and screw AT&T for their part in it. #want.Morawka - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Dissapointed in the water proof rating. This is the same waterproof rating as the S7.. You would expect the Active to have better water proofing wouldn't you?RaichuPls - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
IPx8 is the highest I believe for water protection nowadays, can't really go higher.Morawka - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
i was referring to the 5 Ft max rating, the IP scale doesn't go far enough. Would've loved to see 10-15ft at least. GoPro's go up to 200ft almost.boeush - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
DDR4-3600 ?!?Holy crap, that's much faster than most of the high-performance PC kits...
ImSpartacus - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Holy shit, good catch. That's insane.Ryan Smith - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
And it doesn't stop there. Samsung is currently scheduled to release LPDDR4-4266 in the near future.http://www.anandtech.com/show/9610/samsung-announc...
ImSpartacus - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Thanks - musta missed that last year.That's really out of this world. But I suppose the graphics need it.
zeeBomb - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Holy hell. Is faster RAM more beneficial though? What are the good things about it? But 3600mhz...Sweet lord baby Jesus.
stepz - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I hope the polycarbonate layer is replaceable, because it will scratch a lot more readily compared to Gorilla glass. Doubly so due to intended usage in harsh conditions.Murloc - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
I don't think rugged phones are for people worried about a single scratch.ImSpartacus - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I find it interesting that they advertise the battery capacity in mAh. I wonder if the battery uses a more rugged 3.7V chemistry to allow it to age better.That'd still be an impressive 14.8 WHr battery, but the whole thing is just curious.
CoreLogicCom - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
Seriously? Another phone I'd buy but there's no way in hell I would switch to ATT for it. Samsung, you are idiots to the extreme. Make every damn device you make available to every carrier. you might actually sell more devices that way instead of giving your buddy ATT a BJ.Belard - Thursday, June 9, 2016 - link
If there was a Samsung phone that should have had a replaceable battery, it should have been this one. :(At least it doesn't have a glass back!
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