Samsung’s Galaxy S7 — Wishing And Hoping
The Galaxy S7 could well be Samsung’s turn at the Roulette wheel. And we hope they’ve been working hard this past year.
The dust has settled around the launch of the iPhone 6s, fans have gone home and the critics have taken a break. It is now Samsung’s turn to bask in the limelight of their upcoming Galaxy S7, with a February unveiling and a U.S. launch planned for March of 2016.
The launch of a Galaxy S series device always incites discussions and comparisons with it’s iPhone counterparts. This time around too, it is no different with rumours of pressure sensitive screens being introduced in the Galaxy S7 being the most fervently discussed topic (as the iPhone 6s introduced a new technology and called it 3D Touch).
The Galaxy S7 will be introduced to the world at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this coming February and will then, initially retail exclusively in the US market. The sale of the Galaxy S7, like the last two Galaxy S models (Galaxy S5 and Galaxy S6) will commence in April (Galaxy S5 started on 10th and Galaxy S6 on the 11th of April respectively).
This delay will cost Samsung somewhat, as the early adopters would have gone for the iPhone 6s (or the Nexus 5X or Nexus 6P for the Android loyalists) and the fence sitters will have already been titillated with speculations of both Nexus and iPhones 2016 models, which can prompt them to wait and experience these before they shell out the really big bucks for the Galaxy S7.
Samsung lowering it’s prices of the outgoing flagship, during the final few months post launch is also a trend which many would want to exploit.
These probables do not draw a happy picture, unless Samsung comes out with an exceptional device — which till now does seem like a reality.
While not a lot has not changed in the design and the new phone is expected to be fairly similar to the Galaxy S6, however that’s not such a debilitating factor either, considering the iPhone 6s is a twin of last year’s model. So incumbent customers won’t have as much of a lure as a revamped iPhone may have caused.
The internals of the Galaxy S7, could well be another story with if the device sees a major revamp in its hardware.
A lot of speculation seems to be centered around the Galaxy S7’s processor — will Samsung use the Qualcomm 820 from Snapdragon or will they introduce their own Exynos chips?
Samsung had dropped Qualcomm from their erstwhile Galaxy S6, however to make a dent in the highly competitive market, they might have to revive their partnership with Qualcomm.
The phone should retain the 3 GB RAM if not increase it to 4 GB, and the Galaxy S7 could retain the same memory variants (32, 64 and 128 GB).
The Galaxy S7 will come with Android M out of the box and we hope they do not overdo their own UI and hamper the device with bloatware (free memory available to the user in a 32 GB, Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge was just over 23 GB while comparatively an iPhone 6s would give more than 28GB to their users).
Speculations are, that Samsung might be looking at miniaturising their camera sensor, thus reducing, if not doing away, with the camera bulge. It’ll be much nicer a phone to hold!
The concern we have always had at Chip-Monks is that the photographs taken from a Samsung device looked crisp on their device screen, however when viewed on an external screen, they did not retain their sheen. Is this due to the camera specs not being optimised for non-AMOLED screen (Nexus and iPhones have IPS screens, hence they are nearer to the external screen we use)?
A lot of people actually do print photos taken from their phones nowadays, and this disparity between on-screen and actual quality, is quite a let down!
The most talked about addition to the Galaxy S7 will be a “pressure-sensitive” touchscreen technology, a feature parallel to Apple’s 3D Touch.
Synaptics, a San Jose, California-based company, has indicated that it is working with leading brands to offer ClearForce technology to smartphones in 2016. We wonder if Samsung one of them?
Just a small trivia — it was the Huawei’s Mate S and not Apple’s iPhone that introduced “pressure-sensitive” touchscreen technology in smartphones.
Liquid cooling could also be a part of Galaxy S7! The technology involves the SoC to be cooled by liquid-filled pipes which dissipate heat more effectively than the air-cooled models.
This could be a viable solution to the heating of the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip during their tests.
Microsoft Lumia 950 and Sony (Xperia series) have already launched handsets with this technology.
Samsung has to come out with a phone which showcases their technological prowess, so far they’ve seemed to be an aggregator of technologies — no different from any mediocre brand with large pockets to emulate new technology.
Nexus and Apple launch phones with new OS’ while Samsung does not have that advantage either.
Samsung has a tough road ahead, with Apple challenging them for market supremacy and other viable brands nipping at their heels — will Samsung unveil a masterpiece?
Originally published at Chip-Monks.
