Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) review: Major Junior League

Gallery

The Samsung Gallery has been focused on Stories for a while now. Stories are shared, collaborative albums - that means your friends can add their own photos from the party or just a Story on a shared theme (e.g. sunsets).

Samsung Gallery

Several image editing tools are available - from basic cropping, to collage making, to a more capable editor (which supports image correction, effects and drawing).

Viewing an image • Image details • Powerful editor

Google Play Music for music playing

Google Play Music is the default player for your tunes on the Galaxy J7 (2017). It can play your local files, as well as stream music from the cloud and it's backed by Samsung's extensive sound enhancements.

They include the SoundAlive tool, which has an intuitive interface for tuning the equalizer. Presets and two simple dials are available for basic users, and there is a manual 9-band equalizer for more advanced users.

Google Play Music

Adapt Sound is even simpler. It tunes the EQ to your hearing and your particular pair of ears and headphones by playing multiple frequencies and asking how well you hear them. Smart Volume automatically adjusts the volume of tracks from multiple sources.

UHQ sound resolution enhancer is available as well for upscaling compressed audio. There are also features such as Surround sound emulation and Tube Amp Pro simulator.

Equalizer and Adapt Sound

Video player

There is no video player app pre-installed, so the Gallery handles the videos by default. Like with the music player, you can grab the traditional Samsung one from the Galaxy Essentials collection in Galaxy Apps (the Video Editor is there too). Even if you don't, the Gallery app is up to the task. It has full subtitle support with advanced features to modify their appearance.

Video player: Interface • Settings • Pop-up view • GIF Creation

The app also lets you play only the audio track of the video. A pop-up view is supported, which you can resize with a pinch gesture - don't look for resizing handles. There is even a convenient interface for quickly creating animated GIFs out of your clips.

Audio output is very good

When plugged into an active external amplifier, the Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) delivered clear output with excellent readings top to bottom. Its volume levels were well above average too, so all’s well here.

Plugging in a pair of headphones introduces a little extra intermodulation distortion, but has hardly any effect on the stereo crosstalk. It’s very accurate audio reproduction overall, and even if volume drops to just barely above average, it’s another solid showing by the Galaxy J7 (2017).

Test	Frequency response	Noise level	Dynamic range	THD	IMD + Noise	Stereo crosstalk
Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)	+0.01, -0.03	-92.8	92.8	0.0032	0.031	-92.3
Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) (headphones attached)	+0.23, -0.15	-92.1	91.8	0.013	0.223	-77.3
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017)	+0.05, -0.28	-91.9	92.2	0.0037	0.051	-90.3
Samsung Galaxy A7 (2017) (headphones attached)	+0.18, -0.05	-91.0	91.6	0.019	0.230	-57.9
Huawei P10 Lite	+0.04, -0.02	-88.2	88.6	0.011	0.021	-84.3
Huawei P10 Lite (headphones attached)	+0.13, -0.05	-87.4	87.7	0.014	0.084	-75.9
Oppo F3	+0.09, -0.03	-93.7	93.5	0.0055	0.0099	-93.5
Oppo F3 (headphones attached)	+0.52, -0.19	-87.6	88.6	0.0081	0.396	-51.7
Huawei Honor 8 Pro	+0.04, -0.01	-93.3	95.0	0.0018	0.0075	-93.3
Huawei Honor 8 Pro (headphones attached)	+0.15, -0.02	-92.6	94.2	0.0023	0.100	-63.9

Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) frequency response

You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.