Earlier today, Samsung announced the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, much to the delight of many a Samsung fan the world over. For the majority of people, the focus might have been on how similar these two are in terms of looks to the previous generation of Galaxy S devices, but for others it will be all about the features. What a smartphone can do is arguably more important than what it looks like, after all. To that end, we’ve seen Samsung announce the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge will all sorts of fun and impressive new features. The aim of the game here appears to be making a smartphone that is not only good-looking, but also a hell of a lot more convenient day-to-day.
One such feature that helps in that area is the new always-on feature. This debuted on the LG G5 earlier today, and has also been featured in a number of different smartphones over the past few years. Popularized by the Moto X line of devices, an always-on display refers to a little bit of information that can always be displayed on screen, or activated using a gesture or such. As the Galaxy S7 line of devices feature Super AMOLED displays, an always-on display feature makes perfect sense. After all, these organic LEDs are essentially turned off completely when they go black, so activating just a few areas of the display with white light costs the battery very little in terms of performance, and will give users pertinent information such as missed calls, messages as well as the time, too.
Samsung have made a number of different choices for people to choose from here, including the ability to choose an analog clock display, a calendar view and what sort of notifications and such appear on this display. The settings are pretty straightforward and easy to use, and there’s a lot that people can tweak and change. A simple, yet effective feature that a lot of people will find value in, it’s nice to see that Samsung is thinking of the subtle improvements here, rather than reinventing the wheel for little to no added value.
