Galaxy S7 Active can't swim, claims site. But it can, vendor retorts

Samsung is defending its latest line of Galaxy S7 phones after a report questioned the water-resistance claims made by one model of the handset. Consumer Reports claims that the Galaxy S7 Active fails to hold up under the water immersion claims made in Samsung's ads, most notably that the Active can operate after being dunked …

[Thecowking]

Metric converstion

14.616 kPa if you're wondering, and 5 foot is 1.524 m.

Really should be in the article, because not everyone speaks ancient measurements. Not a correction because it's annoying as hell to read an article and have to do the conversion.

[John Robson]

Re: Metric converstion

What is this metric of which you speak.

We have El Reg units here.

[Danny 14]

Re: Metric converstion

I know right? if you cant dunk a phone in a yard of ale for the time it takes steak and chips, garlic bread and some sticky toffee pudding order to arrive then it fails IP68 surely.

[AMBxx]

Re: Metric converstion

They're quoting an American study. Why would they use a unit of measure that none of their readers would use?

[Thecowking]

Re: Metric converstion

@AMBxx

Why should a British website translate an American study's units for its largely technical and scientific audience?

I wonder.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was acceptable in the 60s... it was acceptable at the time

"If you cant dunk a phone in a yard of ale for the time it takes steak and chips, garlic bread and some sticky toffee pudding"

Bzzt! Foreign food, er unit detected. Back to France or Romania or wherever it is you come from!

If you were a *true* Little Englander you'd have used the regulation few slices of pre-sliced Mother's Pride spread with round-tub non-sunflower margarine.

Mmm, mm, mmmmm. :-)

Back to the *cough* good old days for Good Old Blighty as it heads towards a glorious post-EU future, blah blah....

*Munches on tasty garlic bread as I'm neither Little nor an Englander* :-)

[Baskitcaise]

Re: It was acceptable in the 60s... it was acceptable at the time

"Bzzt! Foreign food, er unit detected. Back to France or Romania or wherever it is you come from!"

Just a little culinary cotton picking moment there:

Garlic/garlyk has been used for centuries here, IIRC it was first mentioned in 1192 it thee writ worde, and has been used for many things: gastronomic, medicinal and may even be the origin of the word for "ransom" meaning being kidnapped and the place for the money to be paid

See "Ransoms" or "Garlic lily" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_ursinum ) which were used to mark where a meeting place was, the lily gives of an unmissable aroma and can be found from miles away also it usually grows near fresh water, can be found in Church grounds as well, which could be one of those other things where the Church uses things from ancient religions to make "Christianity" more palatable to the pagans ( pun intended ).

The leaves of which can be finely sliced and added to salad greens for a subtle yet refreshing flavour.

Coat? yep the one that matches my chefs whites, thank you.

[KH]

Re: Metric converstion

A yard of ale? Is that 3 cubic feet? LOL

[Jon Massey]

Re: Metric converstion

6.56 x 10^-6 Norrises per nanowales by my reckoning

[Anonymous Coward]

Got a dead Samsung Galaxy A1 here...

Some reviews mention it is water resistant...

... it may have been until my poor friend plugged it into the charger. On inspection there is some residue in the case where some of the components *used to be*.

[Sykobee]

Re: Got a dead Samsung Galaxy A1 here...

Yeah, it should go without saying that if you do get it wet, wait for the micro-USB port to dry out before trying to charge it.

[Danny 14]

Re: Got a dead Samsung Galaxy A1 here...

why on earth isn't wireless charging included on ip68 equipment?

[AMBxx]

why on earth isn't wireless charging included on ip68 equipment?

'Cos people would put the charge underwater.

[Steve Davies 3]

It all comes down to who you believe

The manufacturer who wanted to embiggen their products[1]

OR

The 3rd party testers who find the problems

Your choice but in the meantime you'd better keep those S7's dry.

[1] Are Samsung actually selling lots of these? Why else would you be able to get a free tablet with a phone on some US Cellular contracts?

[Danny 14]

Re: It all comes down to who you believe

or third party reviewers who suddently don't get anymore review products if they tell the whole truth.

[Caustic tWit]

Re: It all comes down to who you believe

Consumer Reports purchases all the products it tests. They will not solicit or accept products for review.

[nerdbert]

Re: It all comes down to who you believe

One of the key differences between Consumer Reports and the vast majority of reviewers is that they actually purchase their test samples at retail outlets. As such, their reviews are for stuff that the actual consumer will encounter, not stuff hand-picked by suppliers to hand-picked reviewers. This does mean that by the time the report is actually done the product might not be available (depending on the durability times, for example), but it does mean that you'll get a more honest review.

Oh, and Consumer's Union, the folks behind Consumer Reports, don't accept advertising or corporate support. Again, to give the most unbiased opinions.

Personally, I find their auto reports to be the most revealing of all their stuff since they track long-term durability of various brands and makes.

[404]

Re: It all comes down to who you believe

'[1] Are Samsung actually selling lots of these? Why else would you be able to get a free tablet with a phone on some US Cellular contracts?'

Yes, Verizon pushes the FUCK out of Samsung products, they sell a lot of them.

The thing with USCellular is because it's a third or fourth tier player and requires extra to pull someone into their store. I don't like them much, they're shady.

Sent via Verizon LG G5

[Breen Whitman]

My s4 active relied on ultra accurate tolerances for waterproofness So that means taking the back of to access the sum cat more than a few times disputed it so waterproofness was lost. That phone was a cot case. Lower screen quality and camera.

[TheProf]

Did you write your post on a half-drowned mobile by any chance?

[Duffy Moon]

Is a sum cat some sort of miniature feline maths coprocessor? Anyway, you'd have to take the back off occasionally to feed it etc.

[Steve Foster]

@Duffy Moon et al

I rather think that's a predictive text substitution for sim card.

Perhaps Samsung's marketing department could make their next model the S7 Felix... :)

[CrazyOldCatMan]

> miniature feline maths coprocessor?

I have some not-miniature feline food co-processors.. (they sometimes eat from the same bowl.)

[Scott 53]

Re: sum cat

Are you from Mars?

[Breen Whitman]

People are taking the piss but you are 100% correct. The waterproofness of the s4 active was like a perverted joke.

I stopped buying samsung for that reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not easy

When they've got nobody to copy the technology from..

[404]

Re: Not easy

What a dickhead...

The iPhone7 will be incorporating LG's wide-angle camera system as well as a type C USB 3.1 port.

What were you saying again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not easy

There have been rumors about Apple switching to dual cameras for at least some models of the iPhone 7 since right after the 6S came out - before the LG did. So it wouldn't copying them, unless you think whoever comes out later is automatically copying even when the product would have obviously been in the design stage before the competition introduced theirs.

As for a type C USB port, Apple is highly unlikely to switch away from Lightning at this time, though they may at some point. If/when they do, the idea that introducing a standard is "copying" is ludicrous. I guess Apple was copying Android phones when they introduced their first model that had LTE support, since Android phones had it first? If we use your moronic definition of copying, I guess Android phones copied Apple when they introduced a 64 bit CPU...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not easy

But isn't that the metric that's been used in the reverse all these years? Samsung made a rectangular screened phone - It copied Apple. Android has icons on the screen - It copied Apple.

"unless you think whoever comes out later is automatically copying even when the product would have obviously been in the design stage before the competition introduced theirs"

I'm still amazed how Google and its partners managed to put out iPhone copies so quickly. Unless maybe they were working on them before the iPhone came out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not easy

The head of the Android project admitted they basically had to start over once they saw the iPhone. It was first shown off in early 2007 and the first Android phone came out in late 2008. That's how long it took them to rework their 'smartphone with a keyboard like Blackberry' to be a 'smartphone with a touchscreen like iPhone'.

The idea that a 'rectangle with rounded corners' can be copied is of course ludicrous, what were they going to do make it oval (I shouldn't laugh, there were some phones sold in the mid-late 2000s that were oval just to distinguish themselves from the crowd) My beef is with the idea that if you beat someone to market by a few months that the follower copied you. You can't change the camera you're going to use in three months. In a year, sure you probably can do that.

Given the rumor mill industry and speculation surrounding future iPhones, and how big they are in terms of sales versus any one model of Android phone, if there were rumors that "iPhone 8 is going to include a FLIR sensor and laser distance measurement functionality" and an Android phone was introduced in summer 2018 with those features I'd argue they might have copied Apple even though they were first to market, because they may have added those features only because Apple was going to (assuming the rumors came true, of course)

BTW, there are no such rumors and while they would be cool to have those would obviously be niche functionality that wouldn't be worth adding to an mass market phone that sells 200 million units a year, but I could see those being worthy additions to a niche market Android phone - some extra durable model intended for contractors, home inspectors, realtors etc... That's the other thing about adding features - the Android phone market as a whole will always have more features than Apple because every phone sells in much smaller numbers than iPhone, and most sell in FAR smaller numbers. If it isn't something with mass appeal there's not a good reason to add it to iPhone, but adding a niche feature like turning your phone into a projector or adding a huge DSLR sized sensor makes sense for a few models of Android phones as those who need/want such features can seek them out without making the 98% of customers who don't want them bear the cost.

[Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip]

Re: Not easy

I think those pesky sum cats have copied you already Doug.

http://www.catphones.com/en-gb/phones/s60-smartphone

[ChrisC]

Haven't paid any attention to any S7 ads, but is 30 minutes at 5 feet depth *really* what Samsung are claiming for the Active? On its website, the claim smallprint actually says:

"Water-resistant in up to 5 feet of water for up to 30 minutes"

Which isn't quite the same thing at all... If it genuinely was able to withstand immersion at 5 feet for 30 minutes, there'd be no need to bother with the "up to's" in that statement - the presence of those suggests however that it's the specific combination of depth and duration that is important here, e.g. 30 minutes is OK if the phone is only *just* completely immersed in water, and 5 feet of immersion is OK if you fish it out straight away, but both together is a no-no.

[Hairy Spod]

Do the same review phones get passed around or does a new one get sent out to each reviewer.

If its the former is it possible that some other journo had previously taken it apart to see what was inside and some form of seal got broken?

[Darryl]

As mentioned above, Consumer Reports buys all of their test items from a retail store

[JCB]

A real 5 foot or a pretend 5 foot

"The review site tested a pair of S7 Active handsets subjected to 30 minutes underwater at 2.12 pounds per square inch (the equivalent pressure of five feet of water)."

So they didn't actually drop it into a tank containing water 5 feet deep then? I take it this was a simulated drowning rather than an actually drowning, to coin a phrase. I read their words to mean that they put the phone in a press vessel, covered it with a little water and then pumped up the pressure. At the very least I can imagine a pump produced a momentary over-pressure as the nominal value was indicated on pressure sensor in the vessel. Easy enough to make a true 5 feet of water using a 5 foot length of wide-enough pipe stood on end if you don't want to take it to the local swimming pool and explain to the supervisor what you are doing.

[Anonymous Coward]

or .. not both

Samsung says that it can withstand "Up to 30 minutes or 1.5 meters under (water)".

[Allan George Dyer]

Is this the new swimming proficiency test?

"Now kiddies, throw your phones into the deep end, then dive down and retrieve them"

You pass if you don't get back with a brick.

[Breen Whitman]

Re: Is this the new swimming proficiency test?

Certainly works when testing for witches too.