Samsung Galaxy S7 release date, specs & price rumours – what’s coming next?

After years of making phones out of plastic, Samsung finally gave us the build quality and style to match its technical prowess with the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Now I’ve seen what Samsung is truly capable of, I’m quite excited about what it can do next for its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S7. In this article, I’m rounding up all of the latest rumours and information, building a picture of what we can expect to see next year. As we get closer to the event, the information will become more accurate and in-depth, so check back regularly to find out the latest bits of information.

All you need to know, quickly

Skip the blah and jump straight to the point, with our short and snappy guide to the Galaxy S7. Of course, for more detail, you can carry on read this article, below.

Release date

Let’s start with an easier one, when is the Galaxy S7 coming out? Previous form and a yearly release schedule would suggest that we can expect the phone to go on sale in April 2016. It’s hard to put an exact date on things, as shipment dates can move by a few weeks, but pencil in the first couple of weeks of April as the most likely. That said, we should see the phone before that, with Samsung traditionally announcing its new Galaxy phones at MWC, and MWC 2016 runs between 22-25 February 2016.

Design

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.

Screen

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. I think we’re going to have to wait a bit longer to answer this question.

Processor

Although it’s early days yet, some information about an unreleased handset, which could be the Galaxy S7, has already leaked, apparently. 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.

For those of you thinking that this information doesn’t make any sense, as Samsung moved to use its own Exynos chips in the Galaxy S6, you might want to read what J K Shin, Samsung’s head of mobile, had to say, “We have to use the best engines to make our products competitive, which is why we opted to use our own chips. But we may very well end up using products from Qualcomm again in the next Galaxy phone.”

Admittedly, this isn’t concrete proof, but the fact is that Samsung hasn’t ruled out using Qualcomm chips again. My best guess is that Samsung will try out its own chips and Qualcomm’s, picking the one that works best in the end.

Battery

Provided that Samsung doesn’t dramatically change the design of the S6 for the S7, we’re likely to see the same size battery as on the previous generation: 2,550mAh in the S7 and 2,600mAh on the S7 Edge. A new processor will make things more efficient, so we could see the phones last longer than the previous generation. Given the design, it’s unlikely that we’ll see a return to replaceable batteries with these handsets. Expect the S7 to be chargeable by wireless and USB, with Samsung likely to have boosted its fast-charging technology further.

Camera

There’s not a lot of information around at the moment, but the odds are that Samsung will stick with a 16-megapixel sensor for its new phone. However, the company announced that it has developed a 1um-pixel sensor, which is smaller than the existing sensor in the Galaxy S6. A smaller sensor could mean that the company could potentially do away with the protruding lens on the back of the phone, making for a slimmer design.

Samsung has stated that its smaller sensor doesn’t introduce more noise (a potential issue, as each pixel effectively gets less light than on a larger sensor), but until some sample shots have been seen it’s impossible to say for sure.

Android

It’s rather obvious this one: Google has just announced Android Marshmallow, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out that Samsung will use it for the Galaxy S7. With the S6, Samsung cut out a lot of the bloatware it shipped with previous versions of Android and we expect the company to follow the same pattern with Marshmallow, putting out a relatively clean OS with only a few modifications.

USB-C

It’s possible that Samsung will use USB-C on the Galaxy S7. This new type of port, first seen in the new 12-inch MacBook delivers more speed and power than any existing USB standard, all through a comparatively small port. Given the built-in wireless charging and relatively few times that you need to actually plug a Galaxy smartphone in, USB-C is interesting, but far from critical to have.

See, everything you need to know about USB-C

Storage

Expect to see models with 32/64/128GB of storage built in. Due to the design of the handsets, it's unlikely that we'll see Samsung return to a time of providing microSD card slots, although I'm willing (and hope) to be wrong about this one.