IN SHORT
The Samsung Galaxy S7 — the seventh phone in the fabled Galaxy S smartphone line — will be unveiled at Samsung's "Unpacked" event on February 21. But as we saw with the S6, we’re actually expecting more than one phone. And quite possibly more than two phones. In fact, there could be at least three versions of the Galaxy S7 available once it’s actually announced. We’re also still unsure of the specs or price, but we certainly have plenty of rumors to keep us busy in the meantime.
The S7 will build upon what made the S6 great, and then some. It should have an awesome camera, and hopefully a much better battery. There are also rumors of the new phone being waterproof, bringing back the microSD slot, or even having a removable back and removable battery.
Here's what we know so far:
Samsung Galaxy S7 Release Date
Every year folks like to think the next Galaxy phone will be announced at CES in Las Vegas, and every year folks tend to forget that it will never happen. And, in fact, it didn't happen this year. So the next thing would be to turn our attention to the next big mobile event — Mobile World Congress in Barcelona -- but that too is incorrect. In fact, Samsung has announced that it will unveil the new flagship devices during its "Unpacked" event, set to take place on Sunday, Feb. 21 at 7:00 p.m. CET (that's 1 p.m. ET and 10 a.m. PT) in Barcelona, Spain.
Still, that tells us nothing whatsoever about when the next Galaxy would actually become available. It's possible it could be immediately afterward, but you'll probably see leaks from the various carrier partners before that happens. And because that hasn't happened yet — and because the GS7 hasn't actually been announced — anything you've read so far is just speculation. But an early spring release is likely. Probably. The best we've heard thus far is March for the U.S. — but even that is just a rumor. The S7 did float through the FCC recently however, so that's always a good sign that a device is well on its way into consumer hands.
As we get closer to an announcement, some rumors are saying that the S7 and S7 edge will indeed be available for pre-order on February 21, with a free Gear VR in tow. We're still hearing a street date of March 11th as well.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Design
We wouldn't expect anything too crazy in the design of the hardware, given that the GS6 was a major redesign. Figure more glass and metal and metal and glass, with sleek edges, that curved display wrapped into the S7 edge models, and basically more Samsung.
And that's a good thing, really. Samsung's really come into its own the with design over the past year.
We've seen a few sets of leaked renders, but as we all know, these are always far from official. Still, it could give us a quick glimpse of what's to come in the GS7 and S7 edge.
Set one gives us an overall view of what could be the S7, and it doesn't appear to differ that much from the S6 — which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The next set lends an eye to what could be the back of the S7 and S7 edge, which again, don't stray too far from that of the S6 and S6 edge.
A recent leak gives us a decent look at what could be the S7, with a much more curved design than last years model, and also a flush camera rather than that odd bump we saw on the S6.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Camera
The S7 also is rumored to have a 12-megapixel camera, which doesn't really concern us unless the image quality isn't good. But as the phone isn't official yet, that's getting way ahead of things. This isn't necessarily a bad thing and you can expect that the S7 camera will take some awesome low-light photos.
The bottom line? If the rumors are to be believed, we can expect the Galaxy S7 to blow its predecessors out of the water in low-light photography. A 12-megapixel sensor, probably with much larger pixels than the GS6 or Note 5, combined with a bright f/1.7 lens and optical stabilization, could turn out to be one of the best smartphone cameras of 2016. And just because BRITECELL exists, doesn't mean it's coming to the next Galaxy flagship.
And don't forget, this is Samsung — manufacturer of some of the best camera phones we've ever seen. Don't sweat it.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Battery
The GS7 is rumored to have a larger battery than the GS6, but that's not exactly a high bar to reach. No doubt Samsung will tell us how fast it charges and how long they expect it to last and just how great the battery is in general. And maybe the GS6 being disappointing in the battery department will actually be agood thing for the GS7 — there's no where to go but up.
The latest rumors point to the S7 having a huge 3,600mAh battery, which is an awesome increase over the 2,600mAh battery found in the S6. If this holds true it could fix one of the biggest complaints from S6 and S6 edge users.
Basically look for the battery life to be better than the S6 battery life.
At least it better be.
Samsung Galaxy S7 microSD
One thing that was lacking in the GS6 was a microSD slot, and many users made note of that fact. We could see the return of a microSD slot with the S7, and it would awesome for more than a few reasons. Samsung insisted that not enough people made use of the microSD slot on their devices, but we definitely wouldn't mind seeing it return with the GS7.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Pricing
As for how the Galaxy S7 price will stack up with previous releases, you have to remember that Samsung (rightfully) considers itself to be a premium brand. And as such, the Galaxy phones tend to command premium prices, at least initially. Price always directly relates to the amount of storage on board the phone. The less storage the GS7 has, the less it'll cost. Assuming things start with a 32-gigabyte model, you can assume you'll spend upwards of $600 USD, at least initially. The 32GB GS6 started at about $700 (after tax) — and two levels up, the 128GB Galaxy S6 hit about $900.
But remember that we're also expecting a Galaxy S7 edge model. And a Galaxy S7 edge+. The 128-gigabyte Galaxy S6 edge started at a whopping $1,014 outright. The GS6 edge+ was announced later in the year, but still near $1,000.
The point is, the GS7 probably will cost a lot. In which case Samsung decides to buck the trend and undercut everybody (including itself). But we wouldn't bet on that.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Specs
The Galaxy S7 (we presume — it's not official yet) will be a smartphone. And as such it'll have smartphone-type specs. It'll have a large-ish display, a battery of some sort and probably will run Samsung's own Exynos system on a chip. In fact, it's very likely it'll be running the new Exynos 8 Octa. (Though that sort of thing has been known to change depending on region or other technical reasons.) Here's what you need to know about that:
The Exynos 8 Octa is Samsung's first application processor to include the company's initial premium custom CPU cores based on 64-bit ARMv8 architecture providing over 30 percent improvement in performance and 10 percent in power efficiency compared to the Exynos 7 Octa. This chip also supports enhanced heterogeneous multi-processing for efficient usage of the eight cores, four custom and four ARM® Cortex®-A53, to deliver the highest performance and power efficiency in its class.
So better battery life — and that's something Samsung was panned for on the Galaxy S6, due to its lower capacity.
It's also possible we may we may see a Snapdragon 820 version. We'll just have to see.
The other thing we're looking for is a reversal on expandable storage on the Galaxy S7. Samsung got rid of expandable storage on the GS6 and Note 5 lines, much to the chagrin of people who want and need expandable storage. Maybe it'll come back, and maybe it won't. An argument for the former is that Android 6.0 Marshmallow — which the Galaxy S7 almost certainly will launch with — features adoptable storage, which treats SD cards as if they're part of the internal storage and not just as additional storage. That's a big deal.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Accessories
If you were curious as to what fun accessories would be available for the S7 — wonder no more. A recent leak showed off a multitude of Galaxy S7 accessories including a variety of S View covers, LED View Flip Covers, Wallet flip covers, a keybound case, leather cover, glitter cover and more. We also got a sneak peek at some of the stock S7 wallpapers too.
Samsung Upgrade Program
If some of the latest rumors hold true, it could mean that Samsung may be ready to offer an upgrade program for the Galaxy S7 similar to that offered by Apple for the iPhone. Under the program, S7 owners would be able to finance the phone monthly, and then upgrade to the latest model upon release. Again, this is just a rumor for the time being so the details of any such plan are still unknown.
Comments
Post a Comment