As it did last year, Samsung opted to showcase its latest mobile wares for MWC 2016 a day before some of its competitors. Whether or not it reigns supreme with a week's worth of unveilings and announcements still to come, remains to be seen, but the debut of the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge means the South Korean manufacturer has made a strong start.

New arrivals

The arrival of the S7 and S7 edge will surprise few, especially as leaked images and specs for the devices surfaced online a few weeks before the smartphones made their official appearances. That said, some rumours and leaked information turned out to be nothing more than speculation.

On the surface, both the S7 and S7 edge look like their respective predecessors, but there are a handful of wholesale changes that Samsung has made. On the aluminium frame of both devices for example, a microSD slot has been integrated, catering for an additional 200 GB of extra storage. The unsightly camera bulge has also been done away with, confirming one of the features we wanted to see in the smartphone.

A few changes

Oddly though, the trimming of the camera lens protrusion sees a 12 MP camera replace the 16 MP version the previous Galaxy had. To handle this change, Samsung has upped the aperture to f1.7, with smart OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) tech handling the rest. The company also noted that the new pixels are more sensitive to light. All these changes add up to what Samsung has billed as the best mobile camera experience money can buy.    

It's not only on the exterior where Samsung has done some tinkering, the chipset has also been altered somewhat, with two versions available depending on market. The first is the usual flavour we've come to expect from Samsung, with an Exynos octa-core processor being present, split between a quad-core 2.3 GHz and quad-core 1.6 GHz CPUs. The other is said to be a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, quad-core in nature, with dual-core 2.15 GHz and dual-core 1.6 GHz units being favoured for the States it would seem. 

Coming soon

Shifting back up front, the S7 is the smaller of the two devices, with its Quad HD Super Amoled display (2560x1440, 577 ppi pixel density) measuring 5.1". The S7 edge features a 5.5" display, utilising the same screen technology to yield a similar resolution, but with a lower pixel density of 534 ppi.    

Both devices are slated for global release on 11 March, and we have it on good authority that South Africa will fall into that launch window. Pricing for each device, 32 GB or 64 GB models, is unknown, as Samsung no doubt needs to hash out price points with the relevant local carriers.