The only remaining hitch for Samsung is software, as the new Android version still has fits and stops and constant interruptions from bloatware. This could be improved with a move to a native Samsung OS like Tizen…do not tell me about app support, as apps do not matter outside of Facebook and Gmail, which have plenty of resources to provide Tizen apps. Studies show people use 5 apps and Text messaging and Mail, and calendar are three of them.
In the review below, you’ll see below that Samsung improved the screen, camera and battery on the S7, things that were already near perfect (batteries follow an industry-wide linear curve). CPU got better too with a custom design, as did the form factor, which is the most beautiful on the market, I guarantee Apple will copy it for the 7.
With the S7, Samsung Systems LSI’s introduces their first custom CPU architecture in a shipping mobile SoC. In both cases, we’re looking at Samsung’s 14nm LPP process node which should provide an appreciable increase in circuit-level performance as the taller fin means better control over the channel to reduce leakage and improve drive strength, and improved silicon straining should also result in higher maximum clock rates at the same power draw due to improved carrier mobility. The Galaxy S7 also bumps RAM from 3GB to 4GB which should help reduce the rate at which applications are evicted from memory and improve multitasking performance.
In a move to address all of the criticisms mentioned at the start of the article, Samsung has re-introduced microSD on the Galaxy S7, the battery size has jumped 18% from 9.82 to 11.55 WHr, Samsung Pay is now truly ready for users from day 1, the camera hump has been reduced by making the phone roughly 1mm thicker, and the Galaxy S7 is now water and dust resistant, rated at IP68 which means it is completely dust tight and can be submerged in at least 1m of water for an indefinite period of time.
With the Galaxy S7, Samsung is taking a rather bold step with a move from the 16MP, 16:9 aspect ratio sensor of the Galaxy S6 to a 12MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor in the Galaxy S7. While sensor format is roughly unchanged at 1/ 2.6”, the pixel size is now 1.4 micron which should significantly increase the number of situations where the image quality is limited by shot noise rather than image sensor noise. Interestingly enough, Samsung Mobile has elected to forgo a move to RWB color filter array, which replaces the green subpixels of the RGBG Bayer array with clear/white color filters, despite the 3.5dB sensitivity gain promised by Samsung Systems LSI, although it might just be that such a move would entail too much risk from an image processing standpoint at the moment as Bayer color filter arrays are much more mature and well-understood from an image processing standpoint. The units we were able to get a hands-on were sporting Sony’s IMX260 image sensor, which might be a Samsung contracted unit.
