Samsung Galaxy S7 Release Date, Specs and Rumors

Oct 27, 2015 01:56 AM EDT

Rumors concerning the Samsung Galaxy S7 are now in full swing, months after the April release date of the Galaxy S6. The next device in the Galaxy S series is expected to hit stores early next year.

Notably, the internet already abounds with release date gossip - with a lot of it coming from South Korea. This is not surprising, considering that the country is home to the company that makes the Galaxy S lineup. More recently, Newsis quote alleged insiders as saying the Galaxy S7's development is continuing about three months ahead of schedule. Those sources also claim that the device will be out by January 2016.

This year, the Galaxy S6 did not sell as well as Samsung hoped. According to various news sources, this may have influenced the tech firm to adopt a more aggressive management approach to push devices out more quickly.

GforGames recently reported that Samsung's new model involves streamlining development to four stages instead of the usual seven. Theoretically, this will shorten the process by at least one to two months.

Rumored Materials

It is still much too early for Samsung to tease any features of the Galaxy S7. This has not stopped rumors from circulating on the web. Korean news agency inews24 reported that Samsung is testing a magnesium-based alloy for its upcoming lineup of smartphones. It goes without saying that the material might make its way to the Galaxy S7. Supposedly, the metal is light but very strong.

Hopefully, Samsung's technology will spare it from embarrassing debacle similar to Apple's "bendgate" incident. Weak metallurgical materials in the iPhone 6 reportedly caused the device to bend in half. Apple rectified the problem with aluminum for the iPhone 6S, but the damage was already done. Happily, for millions of Samsung users, there have been no reports of Samsung devices being easily bent.

Specs Gossip

Samsung has prudently avoided revealing the specs for the Galaxy S7, as the Galaxy S6 still has a long way to go before being considered outdated. Still, sites like Asia Today in Korea believe that the Galaxy S7 will come in both 5.2-inch and a 5.8-inch display.

An AnTuTu Benchmark was recently the subject of an article by GforGames as well. The report alleges that the Galaxy S7 will have Snapdragon 820 processor installed. This is odd considering that the Snapdragon 820 processor is not expected to be available until well into 2016. The benchmark test also reports that the device has 4GB of RAM and 64 GB or internal storage. Naturally, none of this information can be taken at face value considering that Samsung has yet to have the final word.