Immediate impressions of the Axon 7 after 3 days of use :
Build quality : very good. The gold color looks superb. The vol and power buttons tactile feedback is excellent
Feel on hand : Excellent and its size I much prefer vs other 5.5 inch phone eg S7e. The S7e I felt Samsung had over compact its size
Camera test : very brief only, taking several shots - average to above average quality and definitely inferior vs say S7e, zenfone3 Ultra, LG v10, S7e. Snapping speed isn't instant as other camera and the camera need a 1-2 sec to focus each time especially in low light situation. Comparatively, I would say the video shot quality is much better
Charging temperature : Using the supplied QC charger ( there is a "3" on top of charge logo indicating QC 3.0 ??). Maximum charge specs are 5V 3.0A. Temperature during charging is quite high at 42 to 45 degree C. Charging time from 10% to 100% took me 1 hour 25 mins
Operating temperature : installing apps, browsing, you tube - quite high at 38 to 42 degree C. One of the warmer phone I had used
Overall smoothness and app speed load up is above average and surprisingly loses out even to the lower specs SD652 of the Zenfone 3 Ultra, which I deemed as excellent. The Axon 7 software isn't as refined as the ZF3Ultra. Even my MiMax and ex A9 Pro felt smoother than it
Audio quality : Simply SUPERB and OUTSTANDING - even with maximum volume I don't hear any cracking at all. Both bass and treble levels at its default is very good. It will shame the HTC 10 and thrashes all my other phones I had now : iPhone 6s plus, Zenfone3 Ultra, Mi Max , P8 Max and ex S7e, Note 7, A9 Pro, LG v10 etc. I am not an audiophile guy but I am very impressed.
With tweaking with an equalizer function, I am sure the sound quality could be even better
Battery life : on a mix of wifi/LTE and mainly on internet based stuffs ( broowsing, newfeed, tweeter, facebook, mail, youtubes etc ) with no gaming : 5-6 hours . I deemed this as quite good for its 3250 mAh battery
GPS : Lockup was poor inside my house and my 2 weather apps Amber weather, Palmonary weather just failed to locate my position. I had never experienced this in my other Androids and my lowly cheap Lenovo K3Note could lock the position easily. Outside in the garden it was OK. I had tested about an hour on Waze and had no issues with it
I have no problems at all with the capacitative buttons - I don't find them that close together as said by some reviewers. It is a pity it is not lighted up. But with some practice I don't think one will have any problems using them