Samsung Galaxy S7 release date, specs & price rumours

Design

Samsung is apparently already rather far along in its development process for the new Galaxy S7, which may even launch two months earlier than normal. We don’t know what it’s going to look like yet, but rumor has it that Samsung is planning a flat panel model and another with an edge display. SCAVidsHD recently created two concept videos that imagine what the Galaxy S7 Edge.

To be honest, I’m not expecting many changes on the design front from the Galaxy S7 and expect it to look similar to the existing Galaxy S6. Samsung’s just gone through a massive redesign phase and it makes sense for the company to work with what it’s got at the moment, rather than changing things completely.

The only thing really up in the air is whether there’ll be a flat Galaxy S7 and the curved-edge Galaxy S7 Edge, or just the latter model. Overall sales, manufacturing costs and yields on the curved display are likely to dictate that answer, but we’re too far away to have answers at the moment.

One thing that might make the cut, though, is a newer, stronger glass panel. Korean site KBench has allegedly spotted a trademark request from Samsung filling for a new type of glass cover called Turtle Glass, which is meant to be even more sturdy than Corning's Gorilla Glass, which is currently used on the S6 and many other top-end smartphones. it has also been reported that the S7 might be in line to use a new magnesium-based alloy chassis to strengthen it further, potentially leading to better heat dissipation and a lighter phone overall.

Either way, it sounds like durability will be one of Samsung's key focus areas for the S7 next year, no doubt in an effort to one-up Apple's iPhone 6S which uses the same type of aluminium that you'll find in planes. On the whole, though, the S6's build quality was already excellent, although various review samples I've had in have nearly all come with cracked rear panels, so there's definitely room for improvement. A stronger type of glass would certainly be welcome, but we probably won't know for sure until early next year.

Display

Samsung uses a 5.1in 2,560x1,440 Super AMOLED screen in the S6 and S6 Edge, and it’s likely that the screen size will continue for the next-generation galaxy. The real question is, will Samsung go for a full 4K (3,840x2,160) resolution for its next phone. It certainly has the technology to do so, but it’s hard to imagine what the benefits are. At this screen size, the extra resolution won’t be that noticeable, but the screen will draw more power and affect battery life.

Sony has just launched the Xperia Z5 Premium, but based on an early hands on it's very difficult to spot any real difference between 4K and 1440p in a handheld device. The Z5 Premium doesn't even render at 4K resolution most of the time anyway, so you only really get the benefit in photos and video. I think we’re going to have to wait a bit longer to answer this question, but Samsung is almost certainly keeping a close eye on the popularity of the Sony handset.

Processor

Although it’s early days yet, some information about an unreleased handset, which could be the Galaxy S7, has already made its way on to the internet. Picked up by GforGames, the documents leaked on the Chinese social networking site Weibo show a new Samsung handset codenamed ‘Jungfrau’, which is allegedly the codename for the Galaxy S7. The document shows that this handset will have the MSM8996 CPU, which is the codename for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820.