The Samsung Galaxy S7 series has been available for purchase in most regions for nearly three weeks, and now that consumers and early adopters have gotten a chance to spend more time with their latest flagship, fresh reports have started showing up to suggest that the Galaxy S7 is not without its flaws. Most recently, numerous Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge owners have confirmed the existence of an annoying bug that disrupts Wi-Fi connectivity in certain scenarios. Fortunately, the issue doesn’t seem to be caused by faulty hardware, so a permanent fix should technically be delivered by Samsung sooner rather than later.
Smartphones are complex electronic devices running feature-packed operating systems, and as is the case with most computing devices, smartphones are not perfect and can be affected by various bugs. Hardware-wise the Samsung Galaxy S7 series is a very powerful device; one that Consumer Reports considers being the best smartphone currently available on the market. However, as mentioned above, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is not without flaws, and one particular issue was recently brought in the spotlight by numerous owners. Accordingly, it appears that Samsung’s latest flagship has difficulties in maintaining a stable Wi-Fi connection in certain cases, specifically in conjunction with certain Google applications, namely the Google Play Store and Gmail. The issue seems to prevent applications from being downloaded via the Google Play Store, and causes Gmail to fail syncing data over Wi-Fi.
The good news is that users have discovered a variety of ways to work around the problem; the bad news is that all the fixes so far are only temporary. In any case, disconnecting and reconnecting to a Wi-Fi network seems to fix the issue for a period of time, and turning Bluetooth off and / or uninstalling applications that use location in the background seems to have a similar effect. Assuming you own a Samsung Galaxy S7 / Galaxy S7 Edge and you’re experiencing these problems, you can also rely solely on LTE networks to avoid running into issues with Wi-Fi connectivity, but evidently this can take a toll on your monthly data allowance so tread carefully. In any case, the problem doesn’t seem to be caused by hardware, so it’s likely that Samsung will patch the bug through a future software update eventually.