Samsung’s Galaxy phones lost some major points in the Consumer Reports’ book last year, but things have changed.
On Tuesday, the organization released its take on the new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, and unlike their predecessor, scored top marks. The reason: Samsung (SSNLF) brought back water resistance and expandable memory to its phones after skipping them in the Galaxy S6 models, not to mention the mediocre battery life and camera performance.
“These new models aren’t just Samsung’s best smartphones, but, perhaps, the best smartphones. And they now sit atop our Ratings,” writes Consumer Reports’ Mike Gikas.
On the camera front, Gikas notes that despite downsizing in resolution from the S6’s 15.9 megapixels to 12.2 megapixels, the S7’s camera is “terrific.” The camera produced “Excellent” image quality and “Very Good” 1080p video quality, to use the organization’s rating system, and did great in low light. Its image stabilizer was a plus as well, along with its ability to shoot videos in 4K. That’s also why the return of the MicroSD slot for extra memory is so appreciated by Gikas.
The Galaxy 7S models also proved quite water resistant. The Consumer Reports’ tests showed they can handle being immersed in five feet of water for up to 30 minutes. “They can laugh in the face of sinks, toilets, and scarily deep puddles,” says Gikas.
Fortune‘s Jason Cipriani also found the Galaxy S7 to be quite the amazing smartphone (find his full review here).
