By now, most of us know the story on the Galaxy S7. Samsung really doubled down on everything that made its 2015 flagships great, while fixing a few of the main pain points like battery life, expandable storage and waterproofing. And since you can get the same basic Galaxy S7 from just about any carrier in the U.S., each one is trying to do things a little different to get customers in the door. Thankfully for us the carriers haven't customized the hardware on the Galaxy S7, and Sprint in particular didn't even put its name or logo on the phone. Obviously the software differs slightly between the carriers, as do the pre-installed apps, but what really differentiates them is their offerings in terms of network, features and pricing. Verizon is offering the Pixel 4a for just $10/mo on new Unlimited lines If you haven't done so already, it's worth reading our complete Galaxy S7 review for the full take on the phone, regardless of which carrier you choose to go with. Beyond that, I've spent a couple weeks with the Sprint version of the Galaxy S7, seeing how it differs from the other carrier versions and where Sprint has made changes to try and differentiate itself. Here are all the details.

Software differences

In terms of superfluous changes to the software, Sprint has changed very little on the Galaxy S7. Its setup process doesn't include a bunch of extra steps trying to up-sell you on features, which is refreshing. The settings menu is completely standard, aside from the few changes necessary for a Sprint device in terms of activation and managing the CDMA network. You'll also find that you have no access to any of the deep cellular network settings, and there's a new top-level settings entry for Wi-Fi calling. Sprint also does something else the right way, as it doesn't bake all of its pre-installed bloatware into the system. Instead, it triggers a download of a suite of apps once you've set up your phone on Wi-Fi. As you'll see, that means you can uninstall a good portion of the bloatware on the phone. Sprint's slate of pre-installed apps (call 'em bloat, call 'em whatever you want) come down to three categories: Sprint's own first-party apps, third-party partner apps, and third-party stub "apps" that are simply shortcuts to the Play Store: First-party apps : App Spotlight, Sprint Fun & Games, Sprint Voicemail, Sprint Zone, Tech Expert, Sprint TV & Movies, Sprint Music Plus, Sprint Caller ID, Sprint Wi-Fi Calling, Sprint Family Locator, Sprint App Spotlight.

: App Spotlight, Sprint Fun & Games, Sprint Voicemail, Sprint Zone, Tech Expert, Sprint TV & Movies, Sprint Music Plus, Sprint Caller ID, Sprint Wi-Fi Calling, Sprint Family Locator, Sprint App Spotlight. Partner apps : Amazon, Amazon Photos, Amazon Music, Amazon Kindle, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Lookout

: Amazon, Amazon Photos, Amazon Music, Amazon Kindle, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Lookout Stub apps: 1Weather, NextRadio Interestingly, several of the first-party Sprint apps can be completely uninstalled, as can the two stub apps, but all of the Amazon and Facebook apps, as well as Lookout, can't be uninstalled. In total you can uninstall eight of the pre-installed apps, but the rest are there for your to either keep or simply disable. We have to give Sprint about a half of a thumbs-up here for letting users completely uninstall a good portion of the pre-installed apps, but unfortunately the apps that aren't uninstallable are the biggest ones of the group. With just a rough calculation there's over 600MB of pre-installed apps that can't be removed, and even if you disable them they of course still take up space in the system folder. The largest offenders are the Amazon apps, of which many people are likely to use but that doesn't mean we should all be subjected to having them stuck in our phones. Call quality and network features

When it comes to looking at network quality on phones, there are an amazing number of variables that come into play. For our purposes, the entirety of this review was conducted in the greater Seattle, WA area, so with the caveat of "this is how it is here, but maybe not where you are" these are my findings. Call quality and Wi-Fi calling Believe it or not, people still make voice calls. I don't really make them all that often, but in all of my testing the Galaxy S7 on Sprint handles them just fine. You don't have any additional settings to deal with in terms of toggling on HD voice. The only big downside when it comes to Sprint voice calls is the lack of simultaneous voice and data (unless you're on Wi-Fi), meaning that if you take a phone call, your data service will be suspended until the call is over. Needing voice and data at the same time may not be a big feature for most, but for those who use it often this is probably a deal breaker. Like most other carriers, Sprint offers baked-in Wi-Fi calling support, which is useful both at home and when you're roaming abroad. Unlike T-Mobile, Sprint doesn't bother you with a persistent notification when Wi-Fi calling is turned on, and instead just uses the stock method of showing a small Wi-Fi calling icon next to the signal strength in the status bar when it's connected. You can toggle Wi-Fi calling on or off through a quick settings button, but Sprint also installs a Wi-Fi calling shortcut in your app drawer ... which you can promptly uninstall without any effect on the feature. Calls made on Wi-Fi sound great, and the system has a nice feature of being able to choose which of your saved networks will have Wi-Fi calling enabled. For example if you often visit a restaurant or café with Wi-Fi that you use, but it's not consistent enough for calling, you can just toggle that network off. Data speeds For the past couple of years, getting Sprint phones in for review in this area was a painful experience. After being one of the early launch cities for Sprint's WiMax network, Seattle was way behind on deployment of LTE for the carrier. Today, things are leaps and bounds better, and I can actually test the Galaxy S7 on a network that's up to par with the phone. This area is covered in Sprint's so-called LTE Plus network (a far better name than "Spark"), which means the phone can combine three different radio bands for faster speeds and better coverage. In using the phone for a couple of weeks in Seattle we didn't find a single unexpected slowdown or network hiccup, and anecdotal speed test results backed that up.

Ping times were never over 75 ms, download speeds never under 10 mbps and upload speeds never under 5 mbps were good to see, with the lowest numbers coming in the busiest days in the population-dense areas. Of course my top observed speeds were much higher than this, though Sprint seems to be configured to favor downloads heavily — downloads were as high as 80 mbps and uploads as high as 20 mbps. These are of course the numbers that differ vastly depending on where you are using the phone, and you'll know your area best based on experience and talking to friends with Sprint, but in my tests in this area Sprint has really upped its game. On average Sprint still came up short of T-Mobile's speeds here, when compared side-by-side on the Galaxy S7, but I still don't have a single thing to complain about in terms of data speeds in our testing. Pricing and financing options