It's with a slightly (very) heavy heart I write this one. My S7 Edge will soon be retired and replaced by a Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S, which went on sale today and I picked up a Fan Special Edition for £200 delivered. It's true that we truly do live with our phones and my device has been through thick and thin with me, both in life and the phone-world.
I'm aware this thread hasn't been replied to since May 2018.... that's almost 2 years.... and the fact it's been so long and my overall love for this device has only wavered briefly, just shows how special this device was/is.
I was lucky enough to get my S7 Edge just a month or two after it came out in 2016 for the measly sum of £350 (the best £350 I've probably ever spent). Friend of mine got one from work but as an iPhone user, simply couldn't adapt and as such, unlocked it and sold it to me, for the price Music Magpie (a shady recycling firm in the UK) offered him.
Other than the Nexus 4, I'd never really owned a premium flagship, but even the N4 wasn't really a premium flagship. The N4 was a flagship yes, but there were corners cut to achieve that great price (I think I paid £319 for it brand new on the day of release). I got my S7 Edge setup, and realised I had the real deal. Everything was perfect on this phone. Class-leading camera, insane speed, a perfect screen and a true killer in the phone world.
Early on, I suffered the purple strip down the right hand side which many of the early models suffered. Samsung were gracious enough to replace the screen for free, despite no proof of purchase or warranty documentation.
My life went through a bit of turmoil in 2017 and 2018 and yet the one dependable thing I could rely on was my S7 Edge. It never failed. I took it abroad on work trips, holidays and football away day tours and it took a bit of battering.... case on yes, but it was dropped and thrown about a bit (it once fell out of my pocket and fell down the steps of the Crystal Palace away stand ... and still survived).
In 2019, I tried to use adopted storage with BlackDiamond after a factory reset but after a few months I started to feel like maybe the S7 Edge was nearing the end.... little did I realise the lagginess, bugginess and crashes were pretty much entirely caused by the adopted storage (imo). So with one last roll of the dice, I flashed Galaxy Note Fan Edition ROM and opted against adopted storage. Since then, it's felt like a brand new phone. Never lagging. Never struggling my every day needs and I had no plans to get rid of this phone. I would have happily used it for another year until 5G finally became a necessity.
Sadly, all that changed a few weeks ago. Not sure whether it was dropped or just had finally given up but the OLED screen began flashing badly and has only been getting worse since. It can be used only on full brightness otherwise the screen flickers intensely and even on full brightness one half of the screen is very temperamental. Tried to hold on, but I decided it's time to retire it and make it a very trusty backup phone.
So, the S7 Edge is on it's final weeks till retirement. It'll be a sad sayonara to the best phone I've ever owned (by miles...)
