A day prior to the MWC 2016 that begins today, Samsung has launched the widely expected Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge flagship devices. In addition, it also launched the Gear 360 – a 360 degree camera.
Samsung Galaxy S7
As expected from the leaks over the past few weeks, the S7 comes with a 5.1-inch super AMOLED dispay with 2550 x 1440 pixels. Although the US market would get the Snapdragon 820 variant, global markets would find their Galaxy S7 powered by a Samsung Exynos chipset instead. In this year’s version of its flagship, Samsung has bumped up the RAM to 4GB.
A welcome development is the availability of expandable memory support for upto 200GB. The memory card goes into SIM slot 2. Yes the device is a dual SIM smartphone.
In terms of camera, Samsung has decided to stay with 12MP as the primary camera with f/1.7 aperture and 1.4-micron pixels and OIS. For selfies and video calls, the Galaxy S7 will offer a 5-MP front camera.
The Galaxy S7 has a non-removable 3000mAh battery. In addition, it supports Fast charging as well as wireless charging (Qi and PMA). The device would run Android 6.0 Marshmallow. In terms of dimensions, it measures 142.4 x 69.6 x 7.9mm and weighs 152g.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
Similar to the Galaxy S7, its curved sibling also boasts of 4GB RAM. However, it comes with a 5.5-inch display with 2550 x 1440 pixels as compared to the 5.1-inch in the Samsung Galaxy S7. The devices in most others areas are identical spec-to-spec. The other difference being the 3600mAh battery in the S7 Edge compared to the 3000mAh battery in the S7.
In addition to 4GB RAM, Samsung has also revealed that the Galaxy S7 would include features that would enhance the gaming experience. These include water-cooling for the processor. There’s a copper pipe running alongside the processor with water to dissipate heat as a result of extreme gaming.
Gear 360 camera
After launching the two flagship devices, Samsung made a surprise announcement of the Gear 360 camera. The device, which resembles a baseball, is a new consumer camera for recording 360-degree videos. Given that Mark Zuckerberg was present at the launch event, the focus hinted at exploiting the recently released 360-degree support for videos on Facebook.
The Gear 360 has two cameras on the opposite side and each of them has super wide-angle lenses. The device supports two modes. You could either use them for complete 360-degree videos or via a single lens mode, you could also capture traditional videos in 180-degree.
In addition, the Gear 360 features NFC and Wi-Fi Direct. This enables you to interact with your Galaxy smartphone or PC for editing, stitching panoramic views and sharing on social media.
In terms of specifications, the Gear 360 has dual CMOS 15MP sensors with f/2.0 fisheye lenses. The camera enables up to 3840 x 1920px videos at 30fps in the dual cam mode. In the single cam mode, it captures up to 2560 x 1440px videos. Similarly, the dual cam mode could capture a 30MP image (7776 x 3888px), while the single cam mode could capture a 5MP image (3072 x 1728px). It is powered via a removable 1350mAh battery and has 1GB RAM and supports microSD cards up to 128GB.
