Galaxy Note 7 review: The recalled 2016 flagship — technically brilliant, infamously flammable.
The brilliant phone that caught fire.
Galaxy Note 7 was, on paper, the best phone of 2016 — iris scanner, IP68, S Pen, dual-curved QHD AMOLED. A battery-design flaw caused spontaneous fires, triggering a global recall and permanent discontinuation within two months. It is studied today as the defining case in lithium-battery safety.
01Display
88/10088/100 puts it above the 86-point average for legacy flagship phones of 2016.
02Camera
80/100At 80/100 this is one of the strongest camera showings among legacy flagship phones of 2016 — 7 points above the cohort average.
03Performance
75/100At 75/100 this is one of the strongest performance showings among legacy flagship phones of 2016 — 8 points above the cohort average.
04Battery
30/10030/100 is one of the weaker battery results among legacy flagship phones of 2016 — 18 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
05Build
86/10086/100 — right at the average for legacy flagship phones of 2016.
06Value
30/10030/100 is one of the weaker value results among legacy flagship phones of 2016 — 13 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
- First mainstream phone with an iris scanner.
- IP68 + S Pen + USB-C ahead of its time.
- Dual-curved QHD Super AMOLED was best-in-class.
- Dual-pixel f/1.7 camera was a 2016 benchmark.
- Globally RECALLED for battery fires — banned on aircraft.
- Production permanently discontinued within two months.
- Most units remotely bricked by Samsung.
- A cautionary tale in battery engineering, not a usable phone.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 2-phone cohort of legacy flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .