Samsung announces Galaxy S7 edge and Galaxy S7

On February 21, local time, at a press conference on the eve of Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, ​​Samsung announced the latest flagship smartphones "" and "Galaxy S7." Both are global announcements, and no announcements have been made regarding sales in Japan. In addition, detailed specifications and specifications differ depending on the region where it is released.

is an Android smartphone with a 5.5-inch display and the Galaxy S7 is a 5.1-inch display. Like the previous model Galaxy S6 edge, it uses a curved display with curved left and right sides. Basic specifications other than the display, size, and battery capacity are common to both models. The display is Super AMOLED with 2560 × 1440 dots for both models.

This time, it supports IP68 standard waterproof and dustproof. The Galaxy S6 was not waterproof, but the GALAXY S5 was IP67 waterproof and dustproof, so the S series revived the specifications that had once disappeared with the adoption of a curved display. Also, the GALAXY S5 had a USB port with a cap, but the /S7 has both the USB port and the earphone port without a cap and waterproof.

Like the Galaxy S6, the back is a glass panel, and the battery cannot be replaced. There is a tray-type SIM card and microSD card slot on the top of the main unit. It also supports dual SIM (nano), but a microSD card cannot be used when using dual SIM. Since the Galaxy S6 did not support microSD cards, the specifications have also been revived.

As a new function, the "Always-On Display" that always displays the time etc. is installed in the card tray that can be operated underwater. With a normal smartphone, you need to turn on the entire screen just to check the time, etc., but if you enable the Always-On Display, the time is always displayed, so you don't have to turn on the entire screen.

The Always-On Display function only displays limited information such as the time with a black background. Organic EL like "Super AMOLED" installed in /S7 is self-luminous in pixel units, so the black part does not consume power. Therefore, it is possible to reduce power consumption when displaying a clock on a black background.

For example, compared to a use case where the smartphone is turned on and off more than 100 times a day, it is said that using the Always-On Display can extend the battery life for more than an hour.

, the UI that utilizes the curved parts on the left and right of the display, the "edge display" has been further enhanced. The part that becomes the edge display has become thicker, and it is now possible to display icon shortcuts in two rows and news including thumbnail images. In addition, shortcuts can be assigned actions such as "compose new mail" in addition to simply launching the application. This enhanced edge display will be open to the public with an SDK and will be available for third-party apps.

On the software side, new game support functions such as a performance limit function during game play, a function to limit various notifications, a temporary disablement of the back button, and a function to record play videos are installed. There is also a new UI such as a launcher screen dedicated to the game and floating icons for immediate operation during gameplay. When recording play videos, you can also record the player's face and voice with the in-camera at the same time. There is also a function that allows you to keep the paused state without ending the game you are playing, launch another application, and immediately resume the game by tapping the floating icon.

In terms of hardware, the camera has been greatly enhanced, and it is especially strong in shooting in dark places. The lens is f / 1.7 (Galaxy S6 is f / 1.9) and is a bright lens that supports optical image stabilization. The sensor's light-receiving element area is 56% larger, improving sensitivity.

All sensor elements are split left and right, enabling phase-difference autofocus. This is similar to the technology Canon uses in its high-end interchangeable-lens cameras. Phase detection autofocus is possible at all points, and autofocus in dark places is also faster.

The number of pixels is 12 million pixels, which is slightly less than the 16 million pixels of the Galaxy S6. The shooting ratio was changed from 16:9 to 4:3, making it more suitable for SNS. The vertical resolution and angle of view are higher than the Galaxy S6.

In addition, the camera part on the back of the Galaxy S6 edge/S6 was slightly raised, but the rise is suppressed in /S7.

There are different models depending on the region where the CPU is installed, and either Qualcomm's Snapdragon (MSM8996) or Samsung's Exynos is installed. The performance of both models is almost the same, and it is said that the CPU is 30% stronger and the GPU is 60% stronger than the Galaxy S6.

In order to efficiently extract the heat of the CPU/GPU, a cooling mechanism using a heat pipe filled with pure water is installed inside the main unit. ing. Normally, smartphones are designed to reduce heat generation by lowering the clock of the CPU/GPU to prevent failure when the temperature exceeds a certain level during high-load operation, but /S7 avoids performance degradation due to heat generation, resulting in directly related to performance improvement.

The GPU implementation also supports a new 3D CG drawing API called "Vulkan". The Android standard "Open GL ES" emphasizes compatibility and standardization, so it was not possible to take full advantage of the performance of the GPU. Vulkan is a low-level graphics API developed as a successor to Open GL to deal with such problems. Google has announced that it will support it on Android, and the Galaxy S7 will be the first Android terminal to support Vulkan. Vulkan-enabled apps not only get better performance, but also reduce CPU load by around 20%. As a low-level graphics API like Vulkan, Apple has implemented its own standard "Metal" in iOS and OS X.

In addition, the home button has a built-in fingerprint authentication sensor like the Galaxy S6. The battery capacity is 3600mAh and the Galaxy S7 is 3000mAh, and in addition to QC2.0 wired high-speed charging, it supports Qi large-capacity standards, and 9W high-speed contactless charging is also possible.

The size of the main body is 150.9 x 72.6 x 7.7 mm and 157 g.

Specifications such as the CPU differ depending on the model, but the model equipped with Snapdragon's MSM8996 has a quad core of 2.15 GHz x 2 + 1.6 GHz x 2. System memory is 4GB. Models with 32GB storage are available. There are four color variations for both /S7: gold, silver, black, and white.