Yesterday at the latest Samsung Unpacked event, Samsung announced the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge as their 2016 flagship devices – offering improvements over and above the Galaxy S6 in almost every respect, but with more than a throwback to the Galaxy S legacy. The new flagship represents something of a blend of the existing Galaxy S6 with some features added back into the device from older models, such as the MicroSD card slot from every other Galaxy S apart from the S6, and the waterproofing and dust protection from the Galaxy S5.
In terms of headline specification, the smaller Galaxy S7 comes with a QHD, or 1440p, resolution, 5.1-inch Samsung AMOLED display with an “always on” mode and a 3,000 mAh battery, which is supported by fast charging for both wired and wireless technologies. There’s Qualcomm’s latest flagship System-on-Chip, the Snapdragon 820 (this SoC variant is used in Canada & the U.S.), which is a quad custom core, big.LITTLE chipset with high performance graphics and supported by 4GB of RAM. The Snapdragon is built by Samsung on a 14nm process. Around the back, there’s a new generation 12MP rear camera with some clever photography technologies, including very fast auto-focusing and larger pixels for improved low light photography. The device is supported high performance networking and runs a cleaner, revised version of Samsung TouchWiz over Google’s Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. Samsung have made the device slightly thicker than the Galaxy S6 and the reward for this is that the device now has a less pronounced camera bump and that higher capacity battery. The key differences between the Galaxy S7 and the larger Galaxy S7 edge are that the edge comes with a 5.5-inch, QHD Samsung AMOLED panel, a larger 3,600 mAh battery and a $100 price premium.
The new Galaxy S7 family is being made available around the world in March and we’ve news today of the Canadian carriers that will be stocking the handset on the 11 March. Furthermore, we can also tell you what carriers are making the device available for pre-order from this morning, that is Monday, 22 February 2016. Running through the carriers, we see that Rogers, Bell, Telus, SaskTel, MTS, Eastlink, Videotron, Fido, Koodo, Videotron and Virgin Mobile will be opening their pre-order books today, and devices will be in stock in a little under three weeks on Friday, 11 March. At the time of writing, Wind Mobile have not confirmed when pre-ordering will start or when the device will be made available.
Of these carriers, Bell have confirmed pricing – the Galaxy S7 will be $399.99 on a contract, or $899.99 outright. The Galaxy S7 edge will be $499.99 on the contract or $999.99 outright, and pre-ordering customers will receive a free and improved Gear VR along with their smartphone. Samsung needed to improved the Gear VR so that it would support the new Samsung flagship. Finally, for the Canadian market Samsung are making the Galaxy S7 available in Black Onyx or Silver Titanium whereas the Galaxy S7 edge will only be available in Black Onyx.