Galaxy S7: Everything We Know So Far

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The next major cab off the rank for Samsung will be the release of the Galaxy S7. The Galaxy S range is still considered the premium smartphone series for the Korean manufacturer, and thus this will be a huge mobile release next year. But what can we expect from this latest Samsung release? Here is a rundown of everything we know and suspect about this next generation smartphone.

Release date

It is likely that the Galaxy S7 will be released a little earlier in the year than the Galaxy S6. This is due to the fact that the Mobile World Congress – typically the unveiling location for the Galaxy S series – is being held between February 22-25 this year in Barcelona. This is slightly earlier than in previous years, which suggests that may will indeed see the Galaxy S7 released into the public domain at some point in March.

Samsung has also been developing its Agile production system, which is rumored to enable the Korean corporation to deliver devices in shorter development timeframes. Both of these elements add up to an earlier Galaxy S7 release.

Price

Samsung surprised analysts and consumers by delivering a Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ that were slightly more expensive than expected. So there will be pressure on the Korean manufacturer to freeze the price of the Galaxy S7 from the last generation of the smartphone series. This is particularly true considering the fact that Samsung is facing pressure from affordable Android manufacturer’s in East Asia. So fans of Android devices might have a pleasant surprise in terms of the pricing of the Galaxy S7 when it is unveiled next year.

New features

Several new features are possible in the Galaxy S7, but two of these are particularly concrete. Samsung is apparently considering Synaptics’ new ClearForce technology for inclusion, in order to rival Apple’s 3D Touch innovation. In addition, we are likely to see a USB Type-C port included in the Galaxy S7, as was recently witnessed in Apple’s 2015 MacBook laptop.

Samsung Galaxy S7 design

After a lukewarm period with the Galaxy S series, it is generally considered that the Galaxy S6 was a return to form for Samsung. The gleaming combination of metal and glass made the Galaxy S6 truly feel like a premium smartphone, and it seems unlikely that Samsung will significantly diverge from this blueprint.

What should be noted is that the lack of waterproofing and flexibility – no micro SD, for example – did not find favor with all Samsung fans in the last generation of the Galaxy S series, so this could be rectified when the Galaxy S7 is released. But we are unlikely to see a significant departure from the stylish design of the Galaxy S6.

Display

This is always a major aspect of any smartphone, but the display is arguably even more important for the Galaxy range owing to the fact that Samsung has particularly specialized in this department. Indeed, Samsung has been the largest seller of television sets since 2008, and it is the high-quality display technology that it has produced in these devices that has contributed to its excellent reputation in the smartphone niche.

So Samsung could release a 4K resolution version of the Galaxy S7, and logically there will be greater pressure on the Korean corporation to do so now that Sony has unveiled the worlds first 4K resolution handset.

Additionally, the Korean corporation is likely to keep the curved screen variant as a separate model of the Galaxy S7, as opposed to eliminating the flatscreen smartphone completely. Leaked documents related to Samsung, though, have suggested that curved screens will become increasingly mainstream in the Samsung range in the future, and we could see pretty much a 50-50 split between the two models in this generation.

Virtual Reality

In accordance with the suggestion of an ultra-sharp display in the Galaxy S7, it is notable that the Samsung Gear VR would require such a screen in order to work to its optimum capabilities. It is certainly expected that virtual reality will become a mainstream aspect of consumer electronics culture in the foreseeable future, and 2016 could be a big breakthrough year for VR. So this points to a significant role for virtual reality in the Galaxy S7, along with strong screen technology to support it.

Camera

Samsung has already announced a new camera sensor that is likely to feature in the Galaxy S7. This suggests that the often criticized camera bulge that plagued the Galaxy S6 could be confined to the garbage can. This new sensor is the world’s first 1.0 micrometre 16-megapixel CMOS image sensor.

This revolutionary technology utilizes ISOCELL technology to receive more light, vastly improving low-light shooting. This is a very exciting prospect for the Galaxy S7, and if it is included in the smartphone then it will doubtless be pushed very strongly by Samsung when it is unveiled.

Processor

It seems likely that Samsung is about to revert to its older policy of releasing two separate models of its premium smartphone for Western and Eastern marketplaces. One of these would run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, and the other utilizing Samsung’s own Exynos M1. It is expected that the Exynos variant will be marketed in East Asia, with the Snapdragon retailing in Western outlets.

Benchmarking

GSMArena has also reported that a Samsung smartphone entitled “Lucky-LTE” has appeared on the Geekbench benchmark database. This device apparently featured a 5.7in quad HD touchscreen, 16-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel front camera, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.

Battery

Finally, leaks from close to the Samsung supply chain suggest that the Korean corporation is currently working on a technology that would enable the Galaxy S7 to have a 5-day battery life. This would involve extending lithium-ion battery life using graphene and silicon, and has been developed at Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology.

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