The Samsung Galaxy S7 may still be several months away, but even with the Galaxy Note 5 occupying the spotlight, there are a few things we already know about this upcoming device. The Galaxy S7 release date is pretty much locked down and it's sure to cost just as much as its premium predecessor, the Galaxy S6. Check out which other rumors have been doing the rounds lately – including the possibility of 6 GB of RAM – below.
Samsung Galaxy S7 specs
South Korea's Electronic Times, citing unnamed industry sources, has reported that Samsung could be using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chips for the Galaxy S7, but only for units sold in the US and China. Elsewhere, the paper said, Samsung would use its own Exynos processors. If true, this would be big news for Qualcomm, which may have thought its days of powering Galaxy devices were over.
The two companies have had a strained relationship ever since the Snapdragon 810 chip was dropped from the Galaxy S6 in favor of Samsung's Exynos processors in 2015. There were rumors that the switch was related to overheating issues with the 810, but nothing was ever confirmed.
Whatever the inside story, Samsung and Qualcomm seem to be back on speaking terms. Chinese site Weibo recently posted benchmarks of two versions of the Snapdragon 820 against the old 810. The yellow bar represents the Snapdragon 820-A and the red represents the 820-B. The green is the Snapdragon 810.
The results show that the Snapdragon 820-B variant performs 1.38 and 1.77 times better in single-threaded integer and single-threaded floating tests respectively, compared to the previous generation Snapdragon 810. It appears that the 820-B model is the latest version of the Snapdragon 820 in development, but whether it is the 3.x version that was rumored earlier remains to be seen.
Other benchmark results on Geekbench have shown the possibility that there might be two variants of the Galaxy S7: one with 3 GB of RAM and another LTE version with 4 GB of RAM. Both devices have appeared under the codename Project Lucky.
However, in September, Samsung launched the industry’s first DRAM chip that would allow smartphones to run 6 GB of RAM. The company said it will appear in "next-generation flagships". The new chip is reported to perform 30 percent faster and consume 20 percent less energy than Samsung's previous LPDDR4 module. If it does make an appearance on the Galaxy S7, it would surely make it the fastest smartphone in the world.
The Galaxy Note 5 arrived with a QHD display, but now that the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium has broken the seal on 4K screen technology we might just see one on the Galaxy S7. What's more, Samsung is said to be priming an alternative to Corning's Gorilla Glass screen protection with something known as Turtle Glass. If this rumor is true, we will likely see the new technology on the Galaxy S7.
Of course, Samsung's next round of flagships will arrive running Android Marshmallow.
Samsung Galaxy S7 release date
We've got this one nailed down pretty well. The Galaxy S6 launched at MWC 2015, and the Galaxy S5 launched at MWC 2014, so the Galaxy S7 release date will undoubtedly coincide with MWC 2016: that's February 22-25, 2016.
Market availability will likely be around five or so weeks after the launch. That would put it on shelves in the last few days of March (or the first few days of April).
Samsung Galaxy S7 price
The Galaxy S7 price will be pretty high, if the Galaxy S6 is anything to go by. We're not sure if these 4K display rumors are going to pan out to be true, but if they do you can expect another price increase.
If we don't get a 4K screen, it might not be much more expensive than the Galaxy S6, but if the 'base model' internal storage increases from 32 GB to 64 GB, we might have a starting price of US$650-700, or higher, if 4K makes it in.
Samsung Galaxy S7 camera
A new report from MK, a Korean publication, claims that the Galaxy S7 will come with a dual camera setup as well as a 5.7-inch display, which is a large bump from the current 5.1-inch display on the Galaxy S6. The report doesn't provide any proof for these specifications, however.
A previous phone that was launched with dual rear cameras is the HTC One M8. It didn't necessarily equate to better photographic capabilities on that device, but we suspect that if the Galaxy S7 were to feature dual cameras, Samsung would get the formula right, something HTC was not entirely successful at.
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