Samsung's unannounced next-generation flagship, the Galaxy S7, seems to become the main topic of the tech rumor mills following the recent launch of the Apple's iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus smartphones.
According to a South Korean publication, Samsung has managed to shorten the duration of its development cycle. As such, production of this year's Galaxy S6 and S6 Plus successor will begin on January next year and will reportedly arrive by the end of February 2016.
While it is the first time that Apple integrated a 12-megapixel camera on an iPhone, Samsung may plan to counter that incorporating two cameras at the back of the Galaxy S7, as mentioned by the same report. This camera feature joins other previously reported feature such as a 5.7-inch screen.
Samsung is also said to have a smaller 5.2-inch Galaxy S7 variant in the works. Looking at the significant difference between the display sizes for same model, this supposed move will be a first by the South Korean device maker.
It may be remembered that this dual-camera setup had already been utilized by HTC. The Taiwan-based manufacturer furnished two rear cameras to its 2014 flagship, the HTC One M8. This dual-camera system is intended to allow users to capture pictures with greater depth of field or 3D effect. However, the feature did not help with the sales of the device so HTC decided to abandon the idea and equip its new One M9 handset with a single 20-megapixel shooter.
Apart from the earlier than expected arrival of the Galaxy S7, recent reports also suggested that the upcoming model will be equipped with either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 or a new version of Samsung's Exynos chipset, depending on where users will buy them.
Unlike the current generation Snapdragon 810, the 820 component will take advantage of Qualcomm's proprietary cores called Kryo. There will be four custom Kryo cores coupled with the powerful Adreno 530 GPU. Samsung will also provide its own expertise as Qualcomm will be using its 14nm FinFET process.
The Galaxy S7 Snapdragon variant will likely be offered only in North America and other Western countries given that Qualcomm chipsets are known to be readily compatible with networks on said regions. Meanwhile, the Exynos variant is primarily aimed toward Samsung's native South Korean market.
In any case, it is better to give these speculations a huge dose of skepticism as it is too soon to know if any of these will be confirmed by Samsung. February 2016 is still almost half a year from now so the company has plenty of time to finalize the specifications and availability of the Galaxy S7.
