Galaxy Note7 review: The acclaimed flagship recalled worldwide over battery fires.
The brilliant flagship that caught fire.
The Galaxy Note7 was reviewed as one of the best phones ever made — until battery defects caused units to catch fire, triggering a global recall, flight bans and a permanent production halt. It remains the most infamous safety crisis in smartphone history and a landmark case study in QA.
01Display
86/100At 86/100 this is one of the strongest display showings among flagship phones of 2016 — 10 points above the cohort average.
02Camera
78/100At 78/100 this is one of the strongest camera showings among flagship phones of 2016 — 8 points above the cohort average.
03Performance
74/100At 74/100 this is one of the strongest performance showings among flagship phones of 2016 — 6 points above the cohort average.
04Battery
60/10060/100 is one of the weaker battery results among flagship phones of 2016 — 7 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
05Build
82/100At 82/100 this is one of the strongest build showings among flagship phones of 2016 — 7 points above the cohort average.
06Value
50/10050/100 is one of the weaker value results among flagship phones of 2016 — 10 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
- Iris scanner and refined S Pen with translate.
- Dual-curved QHD AMOLED + IP68.
- Dual Pixel camera was excellent.
- USB-C, microSD + jack.
- Globally recalled over battery fires.
- Banned from flights — a historic safety crisis.
- Production permanently halted.
- Tarnished the Note brand temporarily.
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 109-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .