Galaxy S7 Leak Reveals Two New Sizes
StartFragmentLike most other industries, tech usually shuts down over the festive period but it seems Samsung’s employees left the company safe open when they left the office because the leaks keep on coming. Now following Galaxy S7 release date , design and new feature revelations we are brought news of not one, but two size shocks… EndFragment
According to South Korea’s (usually reliable) ET News , Samsung is planning to change the screen size of both its standard and phablet Galaxy S7 models. The standard Galaxy S7 will come with a larger 5.2-inch display (the first change in three generations) and is being developed under the codename ‘HERO1’. Meanwhile an enlarged 5.5-inch Galaxy S7 (presumably the leaked ‘ Galaxy S7 Plus ’) will appear after being developed under the ‘HERO2’ codename.
Interestingly ET News says the Edge variants (Edge and Edge+) will have the same screen dimensions. This would mean just a 0.4-inch difference between the two models compared to the 0.6-inches this year with the 5.1-inch Galaxy S6 Edge and 5.7-inch Galaxy S6 Edge+. To my mind the reduced size difference risks sales of the two models cannibalising one another.
Interestingly the news also runs contrary to rumours that the Galaxy S7 Plus would actually be getting bigger with leaked dimensions indicating a massive 6-inch model . Again I think 5.7-inch is a better sweet spot alongside a 5.1/5.2-inch model than either 5.5-inches or 6-inches (especially with a small bezel), but if Samsung is shrinking down then I suspect Apple’s 5.5-inch iPhone 6/6S Plus is a key factor.
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Four New Models, One Death?
Of course the other interesting element to all this is that it would result in a total of four new models, possibly as soon as February : the Galaxy S7, S7 Plus, S7 Edge and S7 Edge Plus.
Further confusion could also follow with two different chipsets (possibly for different regions) in each of these models while a Galaxy Note 6 launch later in the year would muddy the waters even more. That is unless Samsung plans to kill off the Note range with the S7 Plus. This notion would’ve been unthinkable a few years ago, but it is now plausible given how heavily he Note 5’s international release was curtailed in 2015.
Should the Note range bite the dust, however, a clear Samsung strategy will have emerged as it moves away from functionality/productivity (goodbye expandable storage, removable battery, stylus, bigger phablet sizes) towards premium, lifestyle devices and higher profit margins. It certainly apes (and potentially angers ) Apple, but this strategy also opens the door for rivals to cater for the once-loyal customers upon which Samsung’s smartphone rise was built.
Consequently 2016 may be seen as a year where Samsung plays it safe and polishes rather than innovates. Then again given the progress of Android rivals LG, Motorola, ZTE and – most notably – Huawei in the last year it may turn out that incremental change is the biggest gamble of all…
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