Lots of news is coming in from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. While I no longer cover smartphones in detail, I do occasionally cover some of the highlights. One of the major announcements was the launch of Samsung's Galaxy S7 lineup.
The main novelty seems to be that Samsung is bringing back some features that were dropped from the last generation. The S7 once again features a microSD memory card slot so you can upgrade the internal memory and the company also brought back the IP68 waterproofing.
The Galaxy S7 has a 5.1" AMOLED screen with a 2560 x 1440 pixels resolution, whereas the S7 Edge variant has a 5.5" screen with the same resolution. Computing power is delivered by the Exynos 8 Octa SoC with four Exynos M1 cores running at 2.3GHz and four A53 cores cocked at 1.6GHz. The Mali T880MP12 takes care of the graphics side and the phone features 4GB of LPDDR4 memory.
The battery got a bit larger too, the S7 has a 3000mAh battery and the Edge features a 3600mAh battery. Samsung also claims the S7 series supports faster wireless charging. Other features include a 12MP digicam that promises higher image quality and dual-pixel autofocus technology, as well as a 5MP front camera. Samsung did stock with micro-USB though, the phone has no support for the newer USB Type-C.
You can expect the Galaxy S7 series in stores on March 11, with pricing of $699 (699EUR) for the Galaxy S7 and $799 (799EUR) for the Galaxy S7 Edge. Also worth mentioning is that for a limited time, Samsung is offering a free Gear VR (usually costs $99) if you pre-order one of the new phones.
Samsung Galaxy S7 woes crowds with its waterproof design, free Gear VR headset
Posted on Monday, February 22 2016 @ 14:45 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck