BARCELONA: At least Samsung has officially unveiled its latest handsets Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The S7 Edge has a 5.5-inch (14cm) screen, while the S7 has a smaller 5.1-inch display, with both handsets boasting water resistant features that were missing on the S6 and S6 Edge, reported Daily Mail.
As rumours suggested, the phones feature an ‘always-on’ display so users can see basic phone information, such as time, date and notifications, without having to wake it up and use up battery life. While the technology is new to Samsung handsets, the Nexus 6P and Motorola Moto X both use always-on ambient displays.
The ambient display works by only showing the pixels that are needed to display a particular notification at the top of the screen.
For instance, when a notification arrives, it appears in black and white on a small portion on the S7 and S7 Edge’s screen, meaning the phone doesn’t have to use its battery’s energy powering up all of its pixels. ‘We know that people check their phones on average 85 times a day,’ said Samsung’s Vice president of brand and product marketing, Europe, Rory O’Neill.
‘For a large amount of people that’s usually to check the clock or the calendar so what we’ve done is built a series of configured time, or calendar, or “other” always on displays, which means the display will always be on the device.’
He explained the S7’s super-AMOLED can be controlled pixel-by-pixel. ‘Because we used super-AMOLED we are much more power efficient in terms of how it will respect the battery,’ he added.
A new feature that will excite more accident-prone users is the reintroduction of a water resistant finish.
Both devices are waterproof up to a depth of 5ft (1.5 metres) for as long as 30 minutes, with an IP68 Ingress Protection rating alongside what Samsung says is ‘a zero compromise on design’.
The waterproof feature was first introduced in the Galaxy S5 two years ago but disappeared when Samsung ushered in the Galaxy S6.
Samsung said it has brought back the feature due to user feedback, but unlike the S5 there is no removable cap where the charger slot is. Instead, Samsung has made sure the devices’ metal bodies are fully water tight, locked within the design of the phone.
On the inside, the S7 and S7 Edge tout more powerful central and graphics processors than the S6 versions. Samsung wouldn’t confirm the make of these chips but said they’d be joined by 4GB of RAM, making them ‘the most powerful processors in an ‘S range’ ever’.
To keep them cool, the handsets have got internal air conditioning thanks to technology first used for cooling rockets.
As for storage, Samsung has extended its SIM tray to include an SD card slot to be used for expandable memory up to 200GB, meaning users can store hundreds or even thousands more photos, videos or music locally on the handset.
When it comes to the camera, Samsung claims both the S7 and S7 Edge smartphones are the first in the world to feature dual pixel sensors.
The addition of an extra sensor means the phone’s camera can focus in on an object much quicker, ‘the same way your eyes work together to focus quicker,’ Mr O’Neill said. There’s also a brighter lens and bigger pixels in the S7 and S7 Edge’s camera so that they let in more light to improve aperture and therefore work better in low light conditions.
The company said the handsets have the largest aperture of any smartphone camera, to let more light in, meaning it can be used to take great shots in low light. ‘The pixels on this lens are bigger by 1.5 micrometers, so lets in 56 percent more light, making it work better in low lighting,’ he added.
As part of the presentation, the company showed a comparison between the S7’s camera and that of the iPhone 6S Plus, and the demo seemed to show Samsung’s being faster, brighter and sharper.
Samsung also showed off a ‘motion panorama’ mode and optional clip-on fish eye and wide angle lenses for budding photographers. The camera in the Galaxy S6 had a slightly protracted lens that stuck out of the back, but it is less noticeable in the new handset.
Samsung said it has shrunk this a little in the S7 and S7 Edge, making it more in line with the shell of the device. Both of the new handsets have larger batteries than their predecessors. The S7 now features a 3,000mAh and the S7 Edge a 3600mAh battery, which promises longer battery life.
