Along with the Galaxy S7 Edge, the smaller but equally as powerful S7 was launched today in Barcelona at MWC. The 5.1″ device is smaller than its Edge sibling but feature-for-feature, is almost identical when it comes to specifications. Pre-orders with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and U.S. Cellular all start on Tuesday, February 23rd with the devices being available in stores the next Tuesday, March 1st. Prices will be around $21 per month on payment plans through the carriers and devices will also be available through Best Buys, Target, Staples and Walmart as well so you shouldn’t have much of a problem finding it with your carrier or local big box store.
Identical in almost every way to the Edge, the Galaxy S7 has impressive specs. It is powered with a quad-core 2.15 GHz on 2 cores and 1.6 GHz on the other two. It has 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 32GB of storage with expansion up to an additional 200GB thanks to the MicroSD slot. The S7 has a 5.1″ Quad-HD Super AMOLED display that renders at 2560 x 1440 resolution and 577 PPI.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Wirelessly Charging
The rear camera is an impressive 12MP f/1.7 shooter with OIS while the front camera is a 5MP that is also f/1.7. Battery wise, the S7 has a slightly smaller battery than the Edge at 3000 mAh but it also supports fast charging and wireless Qi charging. The Galaxy S7 will be running Android Marshmallow out-of-the-box and features NFC, a fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac support and Bluetooth 4.2 LE.
Ultimately what Samsung is doing here is offering the same great phone as the Galaxy S7 Edge with a slightly smaller package for those who don’t want a phone in the 5.5-6″ phablet range. While the market will determine the success of this phone, Samsung looks to have a rock solid player on their hands that, while at a premium price, will over a premium experience.
As I pointed out in the S7 Edge specs post, those with a keen eye will note that the camera on the Galaxy S7 is a slightly lower megapixel count than the S6. That is true but they have lowered the micron measurement to 1.4 which means you will get higher quality images at a lower megapixel count.
