First impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge – it’s what the Galaxy S6 should have been
Last year’s Galaxy flagships were definitely a step in the right direction but many of the fans were a bit disappointed by the fact that the flagship model didn’t offer the-the dust and water protection along with the expandable storage. Well, things have changed now and for good. Along with the flashy glass/metal, design, which hasn’t changed a lot this year and most fans would like this.
Anyway, here’s what we think of the new Samsung’s flagship.
Sightly improved design, but keeping what’s good from the previous generation
In terms of design, the new S7 and S7 edge didn’t bring any major changes, however, there’s a notable redesign resulting in no camera bulge (finally!) and slightly curved back on the normal S7. This way the phone rests in hand much better, although the slippery glass on the back might be an issue for some. Moreover, the glass plate on the back is a huge fingerprint magnet as you might have noticed from some of the photos below.
Galaxy S7 edge
The S7 edge is now 5.5-inch and thanks to the curved screen, it doesn’t feel all that big to be honest. it has also grown a bit in thickness – 7.7 mm from 7.0 from the previous generation but we can definitely let that one slide because of the much bigger battery.
Galaxy S7
The change is in the hardware
On contrary to the visual changes, the S7 and S7 edge now sport brand new hardware with the most notable difference this year being the SoC. Last year’s in-house made Exynos was somehow better than it’s Snapdragon 810 counterpart in terms of temperatures and even performance. Interestingly enough, though, Samsung has again switched to Qualcomm with the brand new Snapdragon 820 CPU. That’s, of course, for most markets like the US and Europe, while the Exynos 8890 will still be running the show in some regions, like South Korea maybe. Another notable mention is the additional heatsink with liquid cooling that keeps temperatures low during graphically intensive tasks, which are taken care of by the Adreno 530. The amount of RAM is now 4GB of LPDDR4.
Also, both variants of the new flagships sport much larger batteries – 3000 mAh and 3600 mAh for the S7 and S7 edge, respectively. They also charge up to 83% in 30 minutes thanks to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology. The camera is another aspect that takes a huge overhaul despite the smaller amount of pixels. Now the main shooter uses 12MP sensor with larger pixel size (1.4 µm) and bigger aperture – f/1.7 for better stills in low-light conditions.
Finally, the display stays the same in both handsets without any notable changes, except the Always On feature, which seems to be the hype this year starting with the LG G5, but we welcomed the addition, or the return, of the microSD card slot and the IP68 water and dust protection certificate that we last saw in the Galaxy S5.
We are expecting the S7 and S7 edge to start shipping sometime next month and we will make sure to get a hold of some early samples to review.
Specs Sheet
Galaxy S7 edge
OS | Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) |
---|---|
CPU | Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820 |
RAM | 4GB LPDDR4 |
Internal memory | 32GB / 64GB |
GPU | Adreno 530 |
Display | 5.5-inch curved Super AMOLED (1440 x 2560 pixels), Corning Gorilla Glass |
Connectivity | Bluetooth v4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
Camera | 12 MP (f/1.7) primary + 5 MP, f/1.7 secondary |
Features |
|
Battery | 3600 mAh |
Dimensions | 150.9 x 72.6 x 7.7 mm (5.94 x 2.86 x 0.30 in) |
Weight | 157 g (5.54 oz) |
Galaxy S7
OS | Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) |
---|---|
CPU | Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820 |
RAM | 4GB LPDDR4 |
Internal memory | 32GB / 64GB |
GPU | Adreno 530 |
Display | 5.1-inch Super AMOLED (1440 x 2560 pixels), Corning Gorilla Glass |
Connectivity | Bluetooth v4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
Camera | 12 MP (f/1.7) primary + 5 MP, f/1.7 secondary |
Features |
|
Battery | 3000 mAh |
Dimensions | 142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9 mm (5.61 x 2.74 x 0.31 in) |
Weight | 152 g (5.36 oz) |