Finishing just a few hours ago in Barcelona, Samsung has completed their first Unpacked Event of the year, unveiling none other than their latest flagship, the S7 and S7 Edge.
With all the specifications leaked, it still doesn't take away much of the excitement as each and every one of them are confirmed (as these are specifications that we really want).
DJ Koh, their President of Mobile Communication Services stepped first onto the stage, giving us an introduction onto what they have been doing so far.
He mentioned that they have learned to listen to their consumers and to also make bold decisions. These new devices are reimagined with customers demands in mind.
I day say they delivered what they preach. Certain features that have been top on my want lists are present.
Beginning with the design, visually it's not that different from the S6 and S6 Edge except for a few small yet very welcome improvements. The new devices according to their DJ Keoh feels smaller and thinner in the hands yet has the same large and immersive screen.
One handed usage on the Edge variant is also expected to be better with new features and abilities incorporated within the device such as Quick Task and Quick Apps. Not to forget that the Edge features is now bigger ( similar to the what the Marshmallow update on the S6 Edge allowed them to do).
Another aspect is that they pointed out, and was leaked a few times, is that the camera hump is much lesser. Almost levelling up with the black glass panel.
Other than that, Samsung has also announced a new feature, taking a cue from their competitors (the ones who just launched their own flagship product in case you're wondering) an
Always On Display.
This feature unlike LG's V10 doesn't use a secondary screen for this, instead opting for the main screen to display informations such as notifications and the time/date. This is promised not to sap your battery too.
Screen sizes for the devices are as rumoured, the standard S7 gets a 5.1-inch QHD AMOLED Display while the S7 Edge variant has a 5.5-inch QHD AMOLED screen.
Another killer feature of the S7 is
waterproof. After removing it on their previous device due to certain constraints, Samsung had found a solution to incorporate this feature without having to compromise on the design. It's not just simple waterproof. This is the highest rating at IP68 which translates intp it being able to be submerged upto a depth of 1 meter for 30 minutes. Their solution was to insulate the device from the inside instead of the outside. Even their usb port is waterproof while being capless.
So far no official mention of the internal storage but specifications from Android Central states that both variant will start with 32GB. Don't worry, as this can be expandable with a
microSD! Yes it's back as well. Hooray to cheap storage! (Not official/Rumoured to be up to 200GB)
Samsung didn;t forget to mention one of the most important aspect of a smartphone nowadays, the camera.
Emphasizing much of this year's camera on
Low light performance, Samsung's latest smartphone camera now has an aperture of F1.7 the biggest on a smartphone so far (and as I know of).
For this they had to reduce the size of the megapixel count to 12MP.
This would then allow more lights to be captured resulting in better looking and clearer night photos
They've also showed a comprison between a night photo taken with the iPhone 6S Plus against one taken using the new S7.
In order to achieve this, they didn't just make the lens bigger but also incorporated another technology called
Dual Pixel. Inspired by the way our eyes work where each eye takes in and process visually individually, a 100% of their pixels are dual pixel compared to less than 5% found on Apple's iPhones.
Other details include it having OIS and 1.4-micron pixels.
A mode called Active Panorama is said to breath life into you wide photos.
And if that's not enough, you could also get yourself a lens cover for an even wider angle.
(Front camera rumoured to be 5MP)
Moving onto performance wise. Samsung as expected didn't mention much on the processors that they'll be using. But don't worry, that's why we have leakers. It's known that Samsung would be using either the
Snapdragon 820 or their own in-house Exynos 8890 (said to be slightly better) depending on the market.
I guess they are saying that as a whole that the improvements from the previous device is by around 34% while gaming performance is up by 63.9%.
Not mentioned though, the RAM is said to be 4GB.
Like a high-end computer, Samsung has included a radical solution to heat management by having a tube with a cooling liquid running through it. In a way, you can say that it's sort of like water-cooled. (It's a big deal)
A major complain among users is the lack of battery life at the end of the day. The new devices have an upgrade in battery capacity compared to their previous generation. The S7 having a
3000 mAh battery while the S7 Edge is equipped with a
3600 mAh.
Promoted by Samsung, the device can play a whole season of Game Of Thrones on a single charge.
Wireless charging is still available, and so does Fast Charge.
Samsung also announced a Vulkan SDK opening said to be allowing mobile games to reach the standards of consoles.
The
best of all would be this offer from Samsung. They're giving away a
FREE GEAR VR for pre-orders of the S7 in certain countries. Yes for free as rumoured! This should certainly entice people into buying their latest device. (Fingers crossed Malaysia gets this promo)
Highlighting a few other specifications not announced on stage, in terms of connectivity the Wifi is going to be 802.11ac, with Bluetooth 4.2.
GALLERY:
One is a 16MP shooter while the second is
an 8MP camera that would then allow you to have a wider angle of view of 135
degrees. Probably for panorama or fish-eye shots. Another 8MP camera can be
found on the front side of the phone.
Dwelling deeper onto the 2 modules, apart
from giving the G5 a better camera-like grip the LG Cam Plus also has physical
buttons for photo, video and even for zoom. It also adds an extra 1200mAh of
juice to the G5’s battery. The B&O Hi-fi can also be used as a separate
Hi-fi DAC player for PC or other smartphone.
Other specifications are Snapdragon 820 as
the processor, a 2800mAh battery (with support for Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0,
4GB of RAM, a 5.3-inch QHD (2560x1440p) IPS display, 32GB of Internal storage and a USB-C
port.
