Today at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, Samsung announced its new flagships, Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. All four major carriers and a regional U.S. Cellular have confirmed the launch of the latest Samsung smartphones as well as Cricket Wireless, AT&T’s prepaid brand. Cricket announced the Samsung Galaxy S7 only but didn’t reveal its pricing and availability details. New Samsung Galaxy phones will arrive to Europe and the U.S. on March 11 while pre-orders will start on February 23, 2016.

The new Samsung flagships look quite similar to last year’s models, S6 and S6 Edge; however, on the inside, significant improvements have been made. Some features that company left out from last year’s models have now been restored; both phones are again waterproof and their storages can be expanded via MicroSD cards. Also, Samsung paid attention to improving rear camera’s performance in low-light conditions and to optimizing both phones for games. The phones’ processors support Vulkan API, gaming technology already present at latest PCs and game consoles, that uses more efficiently processors’s GPUs (graphics processing units) as well as battery life.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 features Android 6.0 Marshmallow, a 5.1-inch quad HD display with “always on” function that shows notifications on display without waking it up. The S7 has octa-core Exynos processor with 4 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal storage and support for microSD card up to 200 GB. Its rear camera has been downgraded from 16 to 12-megapixels but with larger pixels due to “dual pixel autofocus” and camera’s brighter f/1.7 lens, camera lets in 95% more light than last year’s model and performs better in low-light conditions. The front-facing camera counts 5-megapixels. The GS7 does not come with the new USB Type-C port but with traditional micro USB port. It has a 3,000mAh non- removable battery with wireless charging features.






Even though the price or the release date hasn’t been revealed by Cricket, the carrier has said that Samsung Galaxy S7 will be coming soon. The cost of the S7, announced by other carriers, goes from $670 to $700, depending on carrier.

Update: Customers who pre-order the Galaxy S7 through March 18 will get a free Gear VR headset. They will also be able to get six Gear VR games including Gunjack, Land’s End, and Anshar Wars 2 for free (valued at $50).

Source: Cricket Wireless (Twitter), Oculus Blog