Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge Global Launch Announced

Samsung announced its newest Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, as expected, will be going on sale in almost 60 countries including Australia, Europe, Korea, Singapore, and the US starting Friday.

Ahead of the commercial launch, Samsung had revealed that it received "stronger than expected" pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. Koh Dong-jin, President of Samsung's Handsets Business, had also expected that the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge would help the company revive sales in markets such as China where in recent years Apple has shown tremendous growth.

(Also see: Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge Are Ahead of the Curve but Will That Be Enough?)

Unfortunately, the company had not revealed the number of pre-orders it received in various markets, something it did not detail either in Friday's announcement.

In India, the new Galaxy premium smartphones will be available starting March 18. The company priced the Samsung Galaxy S7 at Rs. 48,900, and the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge at Rs. 56,900 - both prices for the 32GB variant. Similar to other markets, Samsung India is also offering a free Gear VR headset to consumers who place pre-orders by March 17.

As expected, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge launched in India come with Samsung's octa-core Exynos 8890 SoC instead of the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset seen in the global variant. Perhaps the most welcome change from their predecessors is the inclusion of the hybrid microSD slot in the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, which means you can either expand your storage up to 200GB or use it as the second SIM slot.
(Also see: Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge First Impressions)

In terms of other specifications, the Samsung Galaxy S7 features a 5.1-inch QHD Super Amoled display, while the Galaxy S7 Edge packs a 5.5-inch QHD Super Amoled display. The always-on display lets users check notifications, time, and date without having to wake up the device. Both phones come with 4GB of RAM, a 12-megapixel 'Dual Pixel' rear camera with an f/1.7 aperture and smart OIS feature, as well as a 5-megapixel front camera with f/1.7 aperture.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge run Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and have IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The Galaxy S7 packs a 3000mAh battery while the Galaxy S7 Edge includes a 3600mAh battery.