Samsung Galaxy S7 preview: Premium for the traditionalists

When Samsung introduced a second device to its annual flagship Galaxy S refresh, in the form of the Galaxy S6 edge, we wondered why anybody would choose the more traditional Galaxy S6 over the swanky, newly designed edition.

However, plenty of people did. After all, bar the curved screen there were few differences between the two phones.

This year, things are more distinct. The Samsung Galaxy S7 is similar to its direct predecessor in that it has a 5.1-inch, flat Quad HD display, while the S7 edge has adopted a bigger, 5.5-inch screen. It makes the two devices look and feel very different in the hand, and therefore the decision on which to buy will be easier.

Sadly, we feel that fewer will be opting for the Samsung Galaxy S7. That’s not to say it isn’t a well-spec’ed phone in its own right – more than capable when pitched against direct competitors.

Indeed, bar size and form factor, much of the same technology and feature set found on the Galaxy S7 edge can be found here too.

READ: Samsung Galaxy S7 edge preview: The best smartphone Samsung has ever made?

Samsung Galaxy S7 design

The Galaxy S7 has water and dust proofing to a high standard. It is IP68 rated so can be submerged down to a depth of 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes. It also has a SIM tray that also doubles as a microSD slot for up to 128GB cards. The tray has spaces for both a SIM and microSD card.

The return of microSD expansion will be well received by fans, giving more choices when it comes to storage. Sadly, it looks like Samsung isn’t using Android Marshmallow’s flex/adoptable storage, because it believes that people will want to hot swap cards and use it to add and remove content, rather than being able to use it for added app and data storage: of course, that also means that Samsung can push you towards buying a device with higher capacity storage.

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It also has the always-on screen function also found on the larger sibling. This means that you can set the phone to permanently display certain data or details, such as the time, date, a calendar or personalise it with a funky pattern or picture.

Those worried about battery drain will be pleased to note that this feature only uses at maximum 1 per cent of battery power per hour, so in an average day you’ll barely notice the effect. It can also be turned off completely though, if it’s not your cup of tea.

Samsung Galaxy S7 camera

The camera has been improved over last year’s model, even though the amount of megapixels on the sensor have actually dropped. It is now a 12-megapixel sensor, but that’s because the pixels themselves are now larger (1.4um over 1.2um) and can therefore capture more light, even in low light conditions. A larger aperture of f1.7 also helps.

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That’s Samsung’s main selling point this year – better low light performance – and from the demo we saw at the London prebrief ahead of the MWC unveiling in Barcelona, it works very well in comparison to the SGS6.

When taking a picture or video in very low light, the SGS6 could only capture a fuzzy, noisy image while the SGS7 was much sharper and less murky. Samsung has also added the sort of dual pixel technology that is found on DSLR camera sensors, so autofocus is much quicker too.

What’s more, while the camera lens this year still protrudes from the rear, the lump is less distinct.

Samsung Galaxy S7 specs: Qualcomm and Exynos

Samsung has, as in some previous models, mixed its hardware in the SGS7. It will be using both Exynos and Qualcomm chipsets. Some regions will get the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset and others will get the Exynos 8 Octo.

Qualcomm has seen a lot of support for its powerful Snapdragon 820, which is a 64-bit quad-core processor, with a boosted GPU, making it a lot more powerful than the last generation of chipset, along with a faster X12 modem for LTE speeds up to 600Mbps. We believe that the US will be getting the Qualcomm powered device.

The Exynos version of the SGS7 has an octo-core processor. Again it offers those fast LTE speeds and boasts about being faster and more power efficient than before. Unfortunately we don’t know which handset will be the more powerful – or if you’ll ever get a choice of which hardware you’ll get – we believe that most of Europe will be getting the Exynos version.

Samsung confirmed that as well as better power management, the CPU is 30 per cent faster than the one in the SGS6 and the GPU is 64 per cent faster, although at the time this information was given to us, it wasn’t clear which version was being referred to. The latter is certainly important for one of the major elements Samsung dwelled on in our demo: gaming. The manufacturer is clearly targeting gamers this year, more than any other. To begin with, it has a dedicated hub in the new, less cluttered user experience.

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Game Launcher not only serves as a home for your Android games, but you can change plenty of the options for how you’d like your gaming sessions to progress. You can change the frame rate of any game from 30fps to 60fps and vice versa depending on how much stress you want to put on your battery charge.

There are also tools you can use in game, that appear as an overlay. These allow you to record gameplay with your own face and audio appearing as picture in picture, take screengrabs simply, and other in-game tweaks.

The last aspect of the Galaxy S7 series this year is that both phones come with a tiny water cooler built-in to ensure overheating doesn’t become an issue during the more graphically intensive gaming bouts.

We’d need to test the phone for more than 15 minutes to find out what effect this really has, but it’s an interesting inclusion.

Samsung Galaxy S7 battery

Because of the smaller screen size, the standard Galaxy S7 has a smaller battery than the edge model – at 3,000mAh. Again, we’d have to give the phone a thorough work out to see what that equates to in the real world.

Samsung Knox security comes as standard on the phone, as will Samsung Pay when it launches in the UK later this year.

First Impressions

There’s no doubting that the Samsung Galaxy S7 is a very good phone. It is super fast in operation, has an excellent, vibrant Super AMOLED screen, and plenty of other bells and whistles to make it a distinct improvement over last year’s model even though it’s not a complete overhaul.

However, when directly compared to the Galaxy S7 edge we found ourselves wondering who exactly would prefer the smaller, almost retro of the two?

It is roughly the same in thickness but feels a lot chunkier in the hand even with a similarly styled rear casing. Dare we say it, it even feels more like a mid-range handset when faced with the more modern, sexier S7 edge. The edge just felt more premium, even though much of the spec and abilities of the two phones are identical.

We suspect it will come down to price. If there is a distinct difference between the two handsets in affordability, like there is between the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, there will be a market for the Galaxy S7 for sure.

Once we’ve had one in the Pocket-lint test labs for an in-depth review, we’ll be better placed to make a final judgement.