Samsung Galaxy S7 rumours: The 2016 flagship will come with a beefy 3,600mAh battery

New picture reveals Samsung Galaxy S7: A new picture posted by @evleaks Aka Evan Blass on Twitter showcases what the new Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge look like.

In terms of design, the smartphones appear to be quite similar to the S6 series, something that was expected. Given that the glass and metal design worked well for Samsung, the company has continued with the same in the latest series as well.

MicroSD slots, water-resistant: According to a new report by VentureBeat, Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge will come with microSD card slots. The report further says that the microSD card slots in Samsung 2016 flagships will be compatible with cards up to 200GB. The company also plans to launch the smartphones with IP67 dust- and water-resistance certifications.

Samsung Galaxy S7 leaked photo by @evleaks. (Source: @evleaks Twitter)

New pictures of Samsung Galaxy S7 leaked: New pictures of the front camera unit have been leaked by GSMArena. The website has also put out pictures of a demo unit of the Galaxy S7. Read more on that here.

US release date will be March 11: Samsung Galaxy S7 will launch in the US on March 11, according to Evan Blass aka evleaks. Blass posted the date on his Twitter account, saying, “Starting to look like a Friday, March 11th Galaxy release in the U.S.”

Samsung is expected to reveal the new smartphone at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

New benchmarks of Samsung Galaxy S7 leaked: A Hungarian Tech blog has put out the benchmarks of the S7. The single-core and multi-core results show Samsung S7 getting a score of 1873 (single core) and 5946 (multi-core). The benchmarks reveal an eight-core processor and 4GB RAM on the new S7.

Of course, benchmarks never tell the complete story about a phone’s performance, but given that Galaxy S7 is set to launch soon, the leaked images are generating enough interest.

S7 edge+ to also launch: According to leaks on social media, the Galaxy S7 edge+ will also launch at the MWC conference along with the regular Galaxy S7, S7 edge. Last year, Samsung launched the bigger screened Galaxy S7 edge+ with the Galaxy Note 5, just before the start of IFA.

3D-Touch display just like the iPhone 6s:  Samsung’s new Galaxy S7 series will come with a pressure-sensitive display, similar to what Apple’s iPhone 6s offers.  This was first reported by Wall Street Journal, although not much has leaked on this front since then.

The pressure sensitive display in iPhones allows user to peek at a content or app without opening it. Developers can also set specific functions for an app, when users apply pressure on the icon. We’ll have to wait and see how Samsung implements this technology in its new phones.

The report notes that Galaxy S7 won’t be radically different from Galaxy S6 in terms of design.

Type-C USB charging: According to the Wall Street Journal report, Samsung will also go for high-speed Type-C USB charging. Given that Google’s Nexus series has moved onto Type-C USB, which is being seen as the new standard for smartphones, Samsung is also expected to jump on board soon. A report on Sammobile also claimed, that S7 will join the league of Type-C USB phones.

Watch video review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 

Live photos: Another Apple feature that we might see in the Galaxy S7 is ‘the Live Photo’ one. If a report on Android Geeks is to be believed, Samsung is working on its own version of Live Photos, although they won’t include sound when the picture is taken, unlike what Apple allows. According to the report, this will let users share photos as GIFs on social networks.

The report adds that the feature is still under development, and could be introduced later on the S7 series as a software update. Samsung is looking at names like Timeless to Vivid Photo for the feature.

Samsung has always introduced a host of features in its camera app, some of which are similar to Live Photos. For instance, the Galaxy S4 came with ‘Sound & Shot,’ which captured sound and voice when a picture; this is pretty much what ‘Live Photo’ on Apple does.

Samsung’s new Galaxy S7 will feature a 2K display, and come in 2 processor variants.

Processors: According to leaked benchmark scores, Samsung Galaxy S7 will come in two variants with two different processors.

Sammobile reports that Samsung Galaxy S7 will have “the company’s own Exynos 8890 chipset” and another variant will run the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC. The report notes that the 820 has already topped benchmark tests. GeekBench benchmark scores of a so-called Galaxy S7 smartphone with Snapdragon 820 were also spotted on the Chinese website Weibo.

Interestingly Antutu’s verified account on Weibo had posted a screenshot of a benchmark test showcasing all the detailed specs of the Galaxy S7 smartphone. The benchmarks indicate a 2K display, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage space, 12 mp rear camera, and yes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor.

Screen Sizes: According to Sammobile, the Samsung Galaxy S7 will come in 2-screen sizes, 5.1-inch for S7 and 5.5-inch for the Galaxy S7 edge.

Watch our video review the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge +

Little design change: A report in the Korean Times says, that Samsung is planning very little design changes to the new Galaxy S7. It says that Samsung will stick with the metal and glass design introduced with S6 series.

The newspaper quoted a source as saying, “As the S6 and S6 Edge represented progress, the S7 will have improvements both in picture quality, performance and other some new features. But because smartphones have already been commoditized, you don’t need to spend more on a surface overhaul.”

The metal and glass design was extended to all the top-end Samsung devices like the Galaxy Note 5, the new Galaxy A series for 2016. Samsung’s new design philosophy has won approval from critics and fans.

The leaked Samsung Galaxy S7 Antutu benchmark tests from Antutu. (Source: Weibo page of Antutu)

Return of the MicroSD slot: The WSJ report also claimed that Samsung will bring back the microSD slot to the Galaxy S7, which was missing in S6, S6 edge.

Cooling tech: A report on Taiwan’s Economic Daily News claims that Samsung plans to tackle the heating issues in the Snapdragon 820 processor by adding next generation heating pipes in its phones.

Again this could be one of the Samsung rumours that never come true, just like the Retina/Iris Scanner which has been ‘leaked’ since the time of the Galaxy S4.

Production line of 5 million: Samsung plans an initial production run of about 5 million of its upcoming Galaxy S7 smartphones, according to a report from South Korea’s Electronic Times. The report also gave a different screen size; 5.2-inch for the regular S7 version.

Samsung plans to initially make 3.3 million of the flat-screen devices and around 1.6 million of the curved-screen version, the report said.

Pricing, launch date: Reports indicate that the S7 will be showcased in end February and will hit the markets by March, although an India launch could take place by April or late March as has usually been the case. The phone will start at 699 Euros, which is around Rs 51,000 for the new phone.

Read more: Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review: For those who must jot down everything