All aboard the Galaxy S7 rumour train – This is what we know (so far)

Would you look at the time. Apple have done their thing, so now it’s up to Samsung to fill the void and they’ve stepped up in fine style already, with details of the Galaxy S7 leaking. Er… already. The new flagship is reportedly known internally as Project Lucky – likely because of the S7 designation – and quite specific information (and a little speculation, we’ll admit) on what we can expect from Samsung’s next handset has surfaced.

Details regarding the processor, RAM, probable camera, the handset’s display and even a preview look at the benchmarks for Project Lucky (which is extremely likely to be the Galaxy S7) have come to light. The one thing we have not yet seen is the phone itself but with a leak like this, it’s only a matter of time.

Lucky Processor

Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and every high-end phone the company has revealed since have been performance monsters, so it’s not surprising that Samsung are reported to be rolling out some big guns for the next phone. As usual, there will be an Exynos and Qualcomm version of the Galaxy S7, with the Qualcomm phone using the Snapdragon 820 at its core. A new Samsung-made chip, the Exynos 8890, has been sighted though its performance has been variable. Samsung are supposedly aiming for a 2.3GHz clock speed at the end of the day and if early benchmarks for this CPU are any indication (see below), the S7 should be very fast indeed.

Increase The Megapixels Igor

Samsung will also be increasing the size of the Galaxy S7’s camera, because of course they are. Early reports are that Sammy are bringing in a 20MP ISOCELL camera and also that they’re developing something called an ‘all lens cover’. Which could be a way to attach aftermarket lenses to the phone or something else entirely. Nobody seems to know. There’s also talk of a dual-camera arrangement for the Galaxy S7 but few specifics about how it would work.

On Display – Two Of Em

There are reports of two displays coming for Project Lucky – both of them possibly using a 4K resolution. This is the sort of move Samsung would make – always pushing beyond that was last done – besides which, they now have to compete with that premium Xperia Z5. The display sizes, said to be 5.2-inches and 5.8-inches respectively, suggest that Samsung will be launching a vanilla Galaxy S7 as well as a Galaxy S7 Edge if the S6 launch is any kind of benchmark. Then again, there’s also talk of a 5.7-inch screen coming…

Early Benchmarks? Sure, Here They Are

Project Lucky certainly exists and there is a fair amount of confirmation about the specifications of the handset, thanks to benchmarks have have shown up in the Geekbench databases. One such benchmark (above) confirms that Project Lucky will be using an octa-core Exynos 8890 processor and that there will be 3GB of RAM in this particular model. 4GB of RAM has also been sighted in an LTE model of the phone. But, as you can see from the benchmark, Samsung’s handset posts some impressive results – better than the Galaxy Note 5 at this point and the Exynos 8890 is supposedly not running at full speed yet.

When Will We See It?

Ah, that’s a good question. One of the earliest Galaxy S7 rumours was that we’d see it around December 2015, thanks to a new fabrication and design processor that could accelerate the phone’s arrival. That’s still not out of the question but an early 2016 release seems to be the favourite time frame right now – if Samsung can’t get the S7 into hands before the festive season begins, they’re not going to drop it on the market until the end of February 2016.

We’ll have to wait until more complete information arrives, perhaps from an official source, but what is known so far fits with Samsung’s patterns – though it’s a tad early for a new flagship. Another item that might be making a re-appearance is expandable storage – Samsung could just be working out how to include an SD slot in their new phones as well. If any of these reports are true, we really want it to be this last one.