Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge pre-orders to go live on February 21, free Gear VR included

The folks over at Android World are reporting that the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge will go up for pre-order in the Netherlands right on launch day, February 21st. It’s not the first time pre-orders will begin on the day a Samsung flagship will go official – the same happened with the Note 5 and S6 edge+ in the US (well, it happened a day later for those two devices), and we have seen third-party retailers and even Samsung in the Netherlands start pre-orders soon after unveiling a device. The same will be the case for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge according to the site.

Samsung will also be giving away a free Gear VR to everyone who pre-orders either of the two phones between February 21 and March 10 and signs up on the company’s official site. That’s good news, though Android World also says only the 32GB model of the S7 and S7 edge will be available in the country. Perhaps that isn’t something we should be unhappy about, as the microSD slot is making a return and should allow users to extend their phone’s storage by up to 128GB. It’s always good to have as much internal storage as possible though, so maybe Samsung will consider launching the 64GB variant sometime down the line.

A March 11 availability date is also mentioned, which has already been rumored a couple of times in recent weeks. All in all, it doesn’t look like we will have to wait long before the Galaxy S7 and its larger curved sibling become available for sale after the Unpacked event.

Samsung trademark hints towards ‘Always On Display’ mode on the Galaxy S7

It appears that Samsung has filed an application to trademark the term ‘Always On Display’, which points towards the presence of such a feature in its upcoming smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge. It was suggested in a recently released report from VentureBeat that the next-generation flagship smartphones from the company would feature always on displays.

The South Korean smartphone giant has filed an application with the USTPO and requested to trademark the term ‘Always On Mode‘. Even though the term ‘Always On Display’ sounds very generic, Samsung clearly wants to protect it as the feature might be used in the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 edge.

Since Super AMOLED displays have self-emitting pixels, they consume power only while displaying the content. Hence, it can be used to display vital information such as time, date, weather, messages, news, calendar entries, or notifications while consuming very little power.

Apparently, this feature uses just one percent of charge from the battery every hour, and the Galaxy S7 devices are expected to be equipped with larger batteries. Nokia (Glance Screen) and Motorola (Ambient Display) have already used a similar feature in their smartphones, and it’s good to know that Samsung is finally thinking to bring it to its future smartphones.

Samsung to reportedly use its own touchscreen digitizer in the Galaxy S7

Samsung has been trying to become self-reliant when it comes to smartphones components. It has already started equipping its smartphones with display panels, camera sensors, processors, DRAM chips, storage chips, and cellular radios that are internally developed by Samsung. Now, it will start using touchscreen IC that is developed by its System LSI division.

According to ETNews, Samsung has been developing its own touchscreen digitizer since past three years, and it was recently decided that it will be put to use in theGalaxy S7. More importantly, it is being reported that this new digitizer will only be supplied for the Galaxy S7 family of devices. Earlier, the company used to rely on digitizers from Synaptics and ST Microelectronics in its high-end devices.

It is being predicted that Samsung will further reduce its dependance on foreign companies. Moreover, since touchscreen displays are being increasingly used (even in laptops), the company wanted to speed up the process of developing its own touchscreen digitizer. Now, brands like Synaptics and others will receive direct hits in revenue once Samsung stops or reduces purchasing digitizers from them.

The Galaxy S7 might arrive sooner than we thought

We're so used to seeing Samsung’s flagship phones launch in the second quarter, but a new report suggests the Galaxy S7 will debut much sooner.

And it’s all down to a new production process that Samsung has started utilising called “Agile”. Asian sources quoted by SamMobile say that it’s replaced the old “Waterfall” approach, and apparently lets Samsung's engineers work on multiple parts simultaneously.

That means we may see Samsung completing development of the Galaxy S7 as soon as December, making it very possible for the device to launch early 2016, maybe even at January’s CES tradeshow.

The new process also means Samsung can quickly change direction and get rid of anything it wants at the drop of a hat. Overall, it should minimise delays and disruption as much as possible.

Needless to say, Samsung hasn’t officially confirmed any of this information, so do take it with a pinch of salt. Also it may prove counterproductive to bring the Galaxy S7 forward too much, given that the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge Plushandsets are expected to debut on August 13.