The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is one of the biggest major smartphone releases that will come through in the next few months. In fact, it is arguably the biggest and as a result a number of reports have already come through looking to confirm a number of aspects of the next Note, including the name jump from the Galaxy Note 6 to Galaxy Note 7, some of the specs and even an early press render of the actual phone (shown above).
One of the constant specs which has been thought to be in use on the Galaxy Note 7 is the use of Android 6.0 (Marshmallow). Although Android 7.0 (Nougat) is now in the latter stages of development, with the Galaxy Note 7 expected to be announced (and possible released) in the early part of August, it has been thought that the timescale is too soon for the Galaxy Note 7 to come running on Android 7.0 at launch. Well, that might not be the case as a new benchmark which has surfaced today on Geekbench seems to show the Galaxy Note 7 being benchmarked, while running on Android Nougat.
The model number benchmarked is the ‘Samsung SM-N930F’ and this is a model number which has already been associated with the Note 7, hence the indication that this is the next Note. As you can see from the listing below, the tested Note 7 does indeed come running on Android 7.0. That all said, it is worth noting that the processor being used on the tested model is not the processor that is expected to come with the Note 7 at launch. The indications are the tested model is running the Exynos 7420, while all the rumors point towards the Galaxy Note 7 launching in two models, one sporting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820/821/823 and one sporting the Exynos 8893 processor. Likely reasons as to why the scores noted on the benchmark are significantly below par for what is to be expected with the Galaxy Note 7. Not to mention, the benchmarked device is listed with only 3GB RAM, when it is largely expected that the Galaxy Note 7 will come with 6GB RAM.
So while there are some contradictions here, one thing that does seem likely to be the case is that the Note 7 is being tested in different circumstances. However, as Android 7.0 is now noted as included on one of the test models, this does at least lend support to the notion that at launch the Galaxy Note 7 could come running on the very latest version of Android.