Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is the biggest mobile phone expo in the world, and it’s where you’ll see all the big manufacturers showing off their latest devices. Of course, when it comes to smartphones there’s currently nobody bigger than Samsung, and one of the most eagerly awaited announcements at this year’s show was the Samsung Galaxy S7.
A hard act to follow?
The Samsung Galaxy S6 represented a welcome change in direction for Samsung’s flagship handset, with metal and glass replacing the plastic of its predecessors. This helped bring the S6 into line with its main competitors as far as design went, so surely they will have stuck with it for the S7?
Well of course they have, and the S7 and S7 Edge look every bit as stylish as last year’s models, but whilst there’s a few more curves you could argue that it’s a bit too similar to the S6. That’s not a problem in of itself as the S6 really is a stunning-looking phone, but the key improvements to the S7 may not be so apparent to the casual observer. The overall design is similar, whilst the screen is also the same, although in fairness it’s hard to improve on a Quad HD screen with 557 pixels-per-inch!
Thanks for the memory
It's been uncertain times for the trusty Micro SD card and indeed one of the criticisms levelled at the S6 was that it sacrificed the memory card for the greater design good. Well, lovers of expandable storage can rejoice because the S7 is bringing it back! The S7 supports memory cards up to 200 GB and it’s neatly implemented too, with the SIM tray simply pulling double-duty as opposed to Samsung adding a second slot.
Snap happy
At first glance the camera may appear to have been downgraded as the S7 features a 12 megapixel camera as opposed to the 16 megapixel unit featured in the S6. However as we recently revealed, there’s more to cameras than megapixels and the S7 introduces some innovative features to deliver what Samsung promise will be the best smartphone camera yet. It’s the first camera to feature Dual Pixel sensor technology, which offers vastly improved autofocus speeds and with a larger f/1.7 aperture the S7 is theoretically on a par with a dedicated DSLR.
No crying over spilt milk, or anything else
The S7 is the first Samsung flagship to carry an IP68 certification for dust and waterproofing, so it’s surprisingly rugged despite its refined appearance. However we’d expect that waterproofing to come with a few caveats, especially in the light of Sony’s backtracking with regards to the waterproof nature of Xperia handsets. They carry the same IP68 certification, in fact it’s the highest available, but after months of advertising with people gleefully splashing around in the sea they drastically dialled things back last year.
So whilst your S7 should be perfectly safe from spills and probably even an accidental tumble into the bath we wouldn’t expect Samsung to suggest that you take it swimming.
Living on the Edge
The Edge screen also makes a re-appearance this year, but it looks like Samsung have learned from last year when they launched two nearly identical handsets in the shape of the S6 and S6 Edge. So, this year’s S7 Edge not only features the curved screen, it’s also a larger device than S7 – the S7 Edge has a 5.5” screen compared to the 5.1” screen on the S7. Certainly it makes sense to differentiate the two as the S6 Edge did draw a lot of attention away from the S6 at last year’s launch.
Summary
Whilst a lot of things don’t appear to have changed with the S7, the simple fact is that they didn’t have to. The S6 is still one of the best looking phones on the market so there was no need for Samsung to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, they’ve focussed on refining performance and adding features that the S6 was missing. There’s also those innovations that the user never sees, like the addition of an internal cooling system to help stave off overheating, or the implementation of the Vulkan API which offers improved gaming performance. To top things off there's exciting accessories like the Gear 360 camera and Galaxy VR headset which mean the Samsung Galaxy S7 is going to be tough to beat.
When can I get one?
The fantastic new Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are available to pre-order from Carphone Warehouse now, with an estimated delivery date of 11th March 2016.