What does Samsungs new flagships bring?

It’s that time of the year again – when international manufacturers announce their latest and greatest smartphones in one of the biggest trade shows of the year. And just like last year, Korean juggernaut Samsung wants to jump ahead of everybody by announcing their next Galaxy, the S7 and S7 Edge one day early on Feb. 21. While the official unveil of the two new smartphones are days away, there’s already enough information out on the web via leaks that we have a pretty good idea of what the new phone will hold.

A small design tweak, but the changes are mostly inside

People who are expecting the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge to look drastically different from the previous generation flagships are in for a disappointement. All of the leaked renders and photos for the upcoming flagships point to Samsung refining the design of the previous flagships. There’s very subtle changes design-wise – the corners are a little rounder, the home button has been slightly enlarged but the biggest change is on the rear of the phones. Samsung has finally removed the camera bump on the back, and the camera module now sits flush on the rear.

Another big change is the one that many users have been asking for since the S6 and S6 Edge were unveiled last year: expandable storage. Yes, Samsung has heard the pleas of customers all around the world, and has finally added microSD expansion for the S7 and S7 Edge via the hybrid dual SIM tray. It’s a feature sorely missing from the S5 that we’re glad is making a comeback.

You know what’s also coming back from the S5? Water resistance – a prematurely leaked video from Samsung Indonesia and seemingly confirmed by a source from Endgadget point to IP58 water resistance for the S7 and S7 Edge. One caveat though – we’re almost positive that the water resistance is for occasional spills and drops to a basin or toilet, and not “take your phone to the pool and ocean” that the S5 and previous generation Xperia phones boasted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHaxUZPyomg

There’s now a distinct difference between the screen sizes of the S7 and S7 Edge

When Samsung launched the S6 and the S6 Edge last year, we felt that the company should’ve just done away with the S6 and sticked with the S6 Edge. Aside from cost, there’s no reason to go with the regular S6, since they’re both the same screen size and brought rougly the same amount of performance (the measly 50mAh of extra juice on the S6 Edge notwithstanding).

That’s no longer the case with the S7 and S7 Edge. Leaks indicate that the S7 has a screensize of 5.2-inches, while the S7 Edge has a bigger screen size of 5.5-inches. The size of the battery has also increased – 3000mAh on the S7 and 3500mAh on the S7 Edge. Both displays are still expected to be using Samsung’s Super AMOLED panel, with a QHD rather than 4K resolution.

A smaller resolution camera and the latest SoCs

Just like before Samsung’s using the latest silicon in their newest babies. Since Qualcomm has apparently solved the overheating issues of its Snapdragon chips, two versions of the S7 and S7 Edge are likely to be offered: one with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, and one with Samsung’s homegrown Exynos 8890 processor. If we’re going by what Samsung did previously, you can expect to find Exynos processors in phones offered in the PH.

A bigger change to the new Galaxies is the smaller resolution sensor. The new cameras are tipped to have a smaller, 12-megapixel resolution compared to the S6 and S6 Edge’s 16-megapixels. While the cameras are lower res, they’re said to be more sensitive and can capture more light – the Britecell tech developed by Samsung closely resembles Ultrapixel technology, and works a lot like the camera module on the Nexus 6P.

That’s it for the rumors for the new flagships. Our EIC is in Barcelona, Spain for Mobile World Congress and he’ll have a closer look at the phones on Feb. 21.