What are the special features of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge?

The new Samsung Galaxy Edge has been promised to arrive with a host of new and special features. Though it may be too early to make predictions, or reach conclusions - yet, here are the features that have been making news -

1. Always ON

The Always On feature lets the onscreen widgets stay visible even when the phone is idle. Please note that the feature will not apply to all widgets, but time, date and notifications will still be visible. Samsung has stated that this will not affect battery life as the phone has an AMOLED display which switches off unused pixels.

2. Water resistance

Water and dust resistance have made a comeback. Avid Samsung fans were annoyed with the lack of these features on Galaxy S6. Both S7 and S7 Edge now have IP68 level water resistance. That means your S7 Edge can stay under 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes.

3. Quick charging

The Galaxy S7 Edge does support quick charging. It will let you charge your phone to full in just under 100 minutes. If you are using a wireless charger, you can charge your phone to full in 150 minutes.

4. Game launcher

Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have introduced the Game Launcher option on the devices. If you are an avid gamer, this is what you will need most. It will let you turn off all other phone functions so that you can use full resources for your gaming. You can also set your phone not to disturb you while you are playing. There is also an option to record your game play and share it on your social circles.

5. Change in Edge menu

Edge software has now improved. The Edge features like People Edge which we have seen before has improved. Third party apps will now be made available on the edge menu. An API will be released that will make it possible for third party developers make their apps compatible to edge menu.

In addition, it has the compatibility to virtual reality. The smartphone supports Gear VR and Samsung has stated that it is giving free Gear VR to those who pre book the device on its portal.
Galaxy S7 Edge supports memory expansion upto 128 GB. Android Marshmallow supports the expansion upto that size.

One interesting point about the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge is that it has two hardware variations - Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and Samsung Galaxy S7 edge Duos. The duos being designed for dual SIM. The dual SIM is a good feature for those Asian countries where LTE is yet to be properly implemented.

TouchWhiz Menu : Touchwhiz interface for always on functionality allows you to view the date and time. You can also access the touchwhiz menu by using the display interface as well. This menu hasn't changed in terms of functionality but it has some cosmetic changes to look better on this phone. Display remains on and you can disable that using TW menu.

Fingerprint Sensors: The device has fingerprint sensor for you to lock the device. It can also open the touchwhiz menu based on fingerprint recognition.

Device Charging The device charges up very quickly compared to other non galaxy devices from the company. It also has Wireless charging system. Though the such chargers cost a lot in India, still a good feature nonetheless.

Battery PerformanceSamsung has improved a lot when it comes to battery drain with software features. So the current improvements have slowed down the battery drain. Do note that S7 Edge don't allow you to use external battery and it is locked out to device.

VR Gear The reason the device has gained popularity is because of the Virtual reality gear. The gear is free if ordered during pre order session and after that it'd cost around 5900 INR. The gear is yet to be reviewed so we have to wait to see the quality of the gear compared to other device gears.

Visual enhancement The device allows you to view around 15 Million colors on the device. Though they are not high but for virtual reality gear they can be good enough to view a movie. It supports OIS aka Optical Image Stabilization which avoids the image blur during shaky scenarios. The display screen is water resistant and can withstand most of the shocks.

Another important but ignored feature is the ability of the device to support SD card upto 128GB. The android version is optimized to support this functionality. Though the base android is built in java itself but the device doesn't support any JAR file based app and games to be installed anymore.

These are some of the exciting features to look out for if you are checking out Samsung Galaxy S7 edge.