When Samsung announced its flagship smartphone the Galaxy S6 in Hong Kong in 2015, its big brother, the more innovative Galaxy S6 Edge, with its curvy, dual-edge front display, stole the show. A year and a “+” edition later, the Edge model is the star of Samsung’s new S7 smartphone range, announced last month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and which goes on sale in Hong Kong on March 11. So does the new Galaxy S7 Edge live up to the hype?
The Galaxy S7 Edge comes in black as well as metallic finishes.
The phone feels as good as it looks. In the hand, it is comparatively light (157 grams) and its metallic casing continues to give the handset a sense of style and elegance. Those who don’t like the look - in “gold platinum” and “silver platinum” - will be pleased to know that the model also comes in black. If it’s a white phone you’re after you’ll have to content yourself with the S7 (also available in “gold platinum”).
The S7 Edge has a Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels.
Both phones are waterproof, and in Hong Kong come with dual SIM card slots and 32GB of memory. Both handsets run on the Android 6.0 operating system, and are responsive, speedy and smooth. The S7 Edge has a 3,600 mAh battery (as opposed to a 3,000 mAh battery in the S7).
Both phones work with the Samsung Gear 360 (above).
What catches the user’s eye is the phones’ upgraded camera. Boasting larger pixels, fast autofocus and an array of different modes, it can now take much better shots than the S6 and S6 Edge, and in more ways than you probably need. Both models work with the newly released Samsung Gear 360, which can take 360-degree photos and videos that can be viewed in the Gear VR, Samsung’s virtual reality headset.
The phones come with a price tag of HK$5,198 for the S7 and HK$5,998 for the S7 Edge.
Multiple shooting modes are a feature of the upgraded camera on the S7 and S7 Edge
