On March 4th 2015, I made an article that looked to highlight the main pros and cons to Samsung’s, at the time, flagship phone: the Galaxy S6. What was found was that the pros included elements such as the beautiful AMOLED screen and the camera. However, there was no expandable storage (potentially to match the iPhone 6’s non-expandable storage) and it was extremely pricey when compared to other Android flagship phones such as from LG, Sony and even Apple (the S6 Edge was more expensive at the time to the iPhone 6). Well, my friends, a year has passed and Samsung has just released the all new S7. So, let’s see where the pros and cons to their new device are and to see if Samsung have really made improvements to the S6 from last year.

Pro – Expandable Storage

Straight off the baton, the Samsung Galaxy S7 comes with a micro SD card slot to expand the storage capacity of the phone. This is great news and a welcoming upgrade for users, who were not very happy with last year’s lack of such a slot. This will mean there is no worry that users of the S7 will ever run out of storage for Apps, music, photos and videos.

 

 

Pro – Waterproof

A feature of the S5, the S6 got rid of the waterproof and dust resistance Ip68 water rating – the reasons behind this are not known (maybe because Samsung thought the USP of having such a feature on a phone was not worth the hassle of implementing it onto a phone)? Nevertheless, the S7 returns with complete IP68 water and dust resistance which means it will live through being dropped in baths and more. Great news for people with butter fingers out there and a handy feature to have on a phone.

 

 

Pro – A Larger Battery

The S6 did not have the best battery life mainly due to the fact that the battery capacity was a mere 2550 mAh. This year on the S7, Samsung decided to thicken the phone ever so slightly to 1) increase the battery capacity and 2) make the lip of the camera not as noticeable. From doing this, the battery capacity is now 3600 mAh – wow, what an improvement!

 

 

Con – Price

I think this is always going to be a con of the Samsung Galaxy flagship range. With Samsung looking to come up with the best smartphone on the market, they are constantly pushing the boundaries of technology in order to win over the market to become market leaders in what is a very competitive market. However, the smartphone market is a market where many consumers are willing to pay the price for the newest technology, considering most people pay monthly for phones too. Therefore, is it really a con? Yes, but not a large one at that…

 

Ultimately, I think what this article can conclude is that Samsung has listened to people and addressed the main problems that were associated with the S6. The expandable storage and larger battery are just some of the evidence supporting this. For this reason, I would look at this new flagship phone from Samsung more as an S5s than an S6.