Samsung is preparing another duo of Samsung Galaxy S7 flagships
Oh, mobile tech launch cycle, for all the advanced, progressive technology you produce you are such a predictable old fuddy-duddy. It more-or-less goes like this every year folks; September sees IFA happen in Berlin where Sony and Samsung launch new devices, notably including the Galaxy Note, then Apple launches the new iPhones. Google is a little later than expected this year launching new Nexus hardware, but that's coming at the end of the month rather than during June/July as it normally does. Then we'll get some more new iPads in October/November...then pretty much nothing will happen until January, when CES will happen quickly followed by MWC in February/early March and THAT is when, as with most years, Samsung will launch a new Galaxy S flagship. Or probably two, as seems to be its MO these days.Yes it's that time again. We've had the debut of the Galaxy Note 5 just ahead of September and Apple's new crop of iPhones inside September itself, so now apart from eagerly awaiting the next Nexus from Google it's time to start looking forward to early 2016 - and that means a new Samsung Galaxy S flagship! Let's do it all over again!
The rambunctious rumour mill seems to often pipe up very early these days; we're frequently seeing rumours of next-gen devices appear before a new generation of that model is even released. We've been seeing murmurs of the iPhone 7 months ahead of the recent iPhone 6s launch, for example. A similar thing happened with the Galaxy S7 too.
The UK is not getting the Galaxy Note 5 for the foreseeable. But there is some good news on the horizon, as it looks like Samsung will launch its Galaxy S7 handset earlier than expected.
“Samsung could launch its new Galaxy S7 smartphone in January, bringing it forward a month compared to its usual launch date in an effort to get the jump on Apple, its competitor in the high-end smartphone market,” reports The Independent. “As reported by South Korea's Electronic Times, insiders in mobile phone component industries have said that Samsung is planning to launch the new flagship phone in January.”
This is a move no doubt intended to counter the HUGE effect Apple’s iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are wreaking on the mobile space at large. Apple has sold in excess of 15 million handsets in a very short period of time and no one looks like it can stop the company. Can Samsung do what it did a few years ago and topple Apple once again?
Samsung has had a pretty turbulent couple of years. Back in 2012/13 it looked unstoppable but in 2015, largely due to the success of the iPhone 6, Samsung’s sales and profits and market share began to tumble. The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 EDGE were designed to correct this but failed to deliver the goods with respect to overall sales. Apple’s iPhone 6 dwarfed Samsung’s flagships throughout 2015 and resulted in Samsung experiencing a HUGE 38% drop in operating profit for mobile in Q2.
Despite coming to the marketplace with two very compelling handsets in the form of the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 EDGE, Samsung failed once again to give Apple any real trouble. Handset sales were worse than expected, leading to yet another drop in profits for the once-great Korean handset maker.
“Samsung flagged a second-quarter drop in operating profit on Tuesday that missed analyst estimates after sales of its newest flagship smartphonefailed to meet expectations,” report The Telegraph. “The earnings forecast came as a South Korean court ruled in Samsung's favour against a US hedge fund's efforts to block the proposed merger of two major affiliates. The giant smartphone and memory-chip maker predicted operating profit of around 6.9 trillion won (£4 billion) for the April-June period, down more than 4 per cent from a year earlier.”
Samsung blamed the lacklustre sales on not being able to produce enough Galaxy S6 EDGE units. Analysts, however, had other ideas and pointed towards a more sinister problem: long standing Android users defecting to iPhone. Throw in China for good measure, a market Apple smashed in 2015, and you have a recipe for bad earnings calls. With all this in mind, it’s no wonder Samsung has fast-tracked development of the Galaxy S7, the handset that will do battle with the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
“Today's rumor of the moment is that the two different screen diagonals are allegedly going to happen indeed, but they are reserved for the S7 versions with a flexible screen. Again, this is not hard to believe, given that we already have the S6 edge and S6 edge+. The kicker, however, is that the source now claims that the eventual S7 edge and S7 edge+ will be launched simultaneously,” reports Phone Arena. “If we fuse all these rumors together, the Galaxy S7 would arrive with several screen versions to suit every taste - one 5.2" with flat panel, one 5.2" with a curved one on the sides, and another one with flexible display that would be 5.7" in size, all announced at the same time. This would be a pretty tough proposition to believe, so we'd wait until more light is shed on the matter in the form of leaks and tips.”
Initial rumours of the Samsung Galaxy S7 emerged far too early to be all that believeable (although the idea of a new model being worked on at that time was entirely plausible and, in fact, likely), surfacing very soon after the announcement of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge. Those devices have been around for a while now though, and as we head towards Christmas and the new year, Samsung's usual flagship bracket inside Q1 is also nearing at a pace. Meaning, of course, that Galaxy S7 rumours from here on out could carry a bit more weight.
Samsung Galaxy S7 Release Date
Long-time readers may remember way back, a few years ago, Samsung showed up at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with several flexible OLED smartphone prototypes that wowed onlookers with promises of a foldable touchscreen smartphone future. Thus far, that future has failed to materialise, but things might be set to change in early 2016 and Samsung may be leading it, according to new reports.Samsung has made no bones about the fact that it has been working on flexible display panel technology for some considerable time, even occasionally publishing concept videos, such as the one embedded below, showcasing what a working product might look like and how it will change our relationships with our tech.
Most recently that technology has manifested in commercially released products; the Galaxy S6 edge, for example, except in these instances the application has been implemented in the only way anyone (mostly LG and Samsung) has been able to get it to work so far -- a flexible display curved into the desired shape (ie: curved edges) but then fixed in place with a rigid (though also curved) glass display panel on top. In other words, it doesn't actually flex, it just has a fixed, curved shape.
Now though it seems Samsung is finally making plans to introduce genuine flexible devices inside 2016, January, in fact. The word comes via sources on Chinese network Weibo, which claims a so-called Project V or Project Valley is being tested with an aim to release in January. Samsung has previously released concept videos for flexible devices and during the Spring of 2015 did say it intended to introduce flexible devices to market next year.
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