One of the most valued smartphone analysts on the planet has been waxing lyrical about the forthcoming Galaxy S7, creating a huge amount of Internet buzz about this key Android smartphone. Evan Blass, more commonly known as @evleaks, has become renowned for predicting smartphone features long before they become public knowledge.
And Blass believes that Samsung is ready to make major changes to the forthcoming Galaxy S7. This will undoubtedly be motivated by the fact that Samsung has experienced a pretty lean time economically recently, and must have the intention of improving its market share and position in 2016. Samsung is facing a double-pincer attack at the moment, with Apple dominating the premium end of the market, and affordable Android variants are threatening its operations in East Asia.
One should certainly pay heed to the predictions of Blass, as @evleaks possesses an outstanding track record in obtaining information on Galaxy devices ahead of their release. With the Galaxy S7 expected in February, probably debuting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, there will be a huge amount of interest in these murmurings, as the potential release of the device is only weeks away.
Blass has made five key prognostications in particular.
Samsung Galaxy S7 – Water resistance
Samsung will be improving the dust and water resistance of the Galaxy S7, resurrecting the IP67 rated quality of the Galaxy S5 that was dropped by the Galaxy S6. It is possible that the Korean corporation has one eye on Apple in this regard, as it has been strongly rumored that the California-based company will include this quality in the iPhone 7.
Battery improvements
Blass also suggests that the 5.2-inch version of the Galaxy S7 will benefit from a significantly larger battery than its predecessor. The analyst believes that Samsung will increase this cell by 20 per cent compared with last year’s handset, with the size of the battery leaping from 2,550 mAh to 3,000 mAh.
The larger version of the Galaxy S7, rumored to be a Galaxy S7 Edge device this year, will also benefit from an increase in battery size. Blass indicates that Samsung will increase the battery in this handset by a whopping 40 per cent, ensuring that it improves from 2,600 mAh to 3,600 mAh. Both of these increases could help to significantly differentiate the Galaxy S7 from the iPhone 7, particularly as Samsung devices have already been acclaimed for having superior battery life to the iconic Apple mobile.
It is not stated by the analyst whether Samsung will return to removal batteries with the Galaxy S7 or not.
Expandable storage
The decision by Samsung to remove micro SD from the Galaxy S6 was one of the most reviled in the history of the smartphone series, or possibly any mobile. So it is not surprising that the Korean company has listened to consumer preference, at least according to @evleaks, and decided to reinstate expandable storage in the Galaxy S7 generation.
Blass believes that Samsung will provide support for micro SD storage cars up to 200GB in quotient. This will put pressure on Apple to increase the base level iPhone 7 storage from the rather inadequate 16GB that was included with the iPhone 6S.
Camera revolution
This particular aspect of the Galaxy S7 has been reported by ValueWalk previously. The decision to potentially downgrade the megapixel rating of the Galaxy S7 can be considered controversial, but it is happening with improved features also in mind.
Blass indeed suggested that Samsung will take the gamble of reducing the camera resolution of the Galaxy S7 from 16-megapixels to 12-megapixels. This could negatively impact upon the detail of shooting that the Samsung camera is able to achieve, but the consumer electronics giant has other aces up its sleeve to ensure that it still delivers an outstanding product in this department.
Firstly, Samsung is expected to include its revolutionary BRITECELL technology in the Galaxy S7, which is reported to significantly improve low-light shooting. If this is indeed achieved, it will be a major breakthrough for Samsung, as this has been a perennial difficulty for all manufacturers of smartphone cameras.
There are also design advantages for Samsung in reducing the megapixel quotient of this smartphone. With the Galaxy S7 camera being a 12-megapixel snapper, the Korean corporation will be able to ensure that the camera is snuggly fitted against the body of the phone, and also that a super fast f/1.7 aperture (up from f/1.9 in the S6) is included. This will enable the quality of action shooting to be vastly improved, and add further low-light shooting benefits.
This could possibly get a mixed reaction, but it certainly shows that Samsung is not happy to simply play it safe with the Galaxy S7.
Split chipset
Again, it has been widely anticipated over the last few months that Samsung would return to its previous policy of having two-tier internals for differing geographical markets. Blass confirms this impression, suggesting that the Exynos chipset will be restricted to Asia, while the Qualcomm Snapdragon will feature in the Galaxy S7 destined for the Western marketplace. Samsung will doubtless be working behind the scenes now to ensure that this doesn’t result in models that deliver different performance in real world settings.
Other specs
Aside from the Blass leaks, it has been reported elsewhere that Samsung will not opt for a 4K resolution display for the Galaxy S7, instead saving this technology for the Galaxy Note 6 later this year. Instead, Samsung will retain the quad HD display which featured in the Galaxy S6 in 2015.
Rumors also point to both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge utilizing 4GB of RAM, with Android still guzzling memory rather greedily. It is hoped that this extra spec will provide the Galaxy S7 with the power required to significantly improve performance in this generation.
This all points to a powerful performer for Samsung, and the Blass report will doubtless have whetted appetites all over the world.
