Samsung at its Galaxy Unpacked 2016 event in Barcelona announced the flagship Galaxy S7 along with the Galaxy S7 edge. Unlike last year, company this time around decided to go with different display sizes for the S7 and S7 edge. Check our first impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S7.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnbkkZxKYVM
The Galaxy S7 has a 5.1-inch Quad-HD (1440 x 2560 pixels) Super AMOLED screen, similar to the S6, but this one is an always-on display. It shows date, time, notifications, calendar etc. all the time and even lets you personalize it accordingly. Samsung said there are third party apps available for the same on launch, and expects more been developed in future.
Like predecessor S6, the fingerprint scanner is on the physical home button sandwiched between backlit capacitive-touch Recent and Back keys below the display.
Internally, the S7 will have two different SoC’s depending upon the market. Consumers will either get a Quad-Core Snapdragon 820 or Samsung’s own Exynos 8 Octa 8890 (2.3GHz Quad + 1.6GHz Quad) powered variant. But both will be backed by a 4GB LPDDR4 RAM.
The S7 also comes in 32GB and 64GB internal storage variants, which can be further expanded via microSD card (up to 200GB). It runs Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with custom Touch Wiz UI skinned on top.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 has a front 5-megapixel selfie camera and a 12-megapixel (f/1.7 aperture) primary rear camera with Dual Pixel sensor, single LED flash and OIS. Samsung elaborated a lot about the improvements of the rear camera claiming that it reproduces brighter and sharper images than the iPhone 6S Plus, even in low light conditions.
Not just that, this Dual Pixel technology vastly improves autofocus performance according to Samsung. We’ll let you know about the camera performance in our detailed review later, but for now you can check more details here.
The Galaxy S7 is water and dust resistant smartphone with IP68 ratings. It is a hybrid dual-SIM (nano + nano / microSD) device that lets you use the second slot as an expansion slot when required. The battery is still non-removable like the S6. It’s a 3000mAh battery with fast charging and wireless charging. The handset supports fast charging for both as well. Other connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, GPS with GLONASS, USB 2.0 and NFC.
The top edge of the handset has SIM card / microSD tray along with secondary noise cancellation mic. The bottom edges mounts 3.5mm audio jack, Micro-USB charging / data port, primary mic and the speaker grill. The left side has volume rocker and right has power /lock key.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 comes in Black Onyx, Gold Platinum, White Pearl and Silver Titanium colors. It will be available starting March 11, 2016. Samsung will be offering a free ‘Gear VR’ headset on pre-orders in select countries.
We also went hands on with the official accessories for the Galaxy S7
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mb2Rg_jDj4
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5__PC3umuU
Images and inputs by Sandeep Sarma