Galaxy S7 Rumors, Specs & Release Date: Upcoming Samsung Flagship Handset to Bring Back MicroSD Card Slot and Snapdragon Processor?

Galaxy S6

A market analyst believes that the upcoming Galaxy S7 smartphone from Samsung will sport a few major improvements.

These include a more powerful CPU and the comeback of an expandable internal storage.

When Samsung officially debuted the Galaxy S6 earlier in April of this year, it disappointed a lot of tech fans. For one, aside from the short battery life, the device does not come with microSD support. This came as a surprise to consumers since a slot for an SD card has already become a staple feature in today's smartphones.

For the Galaxy S7, however, it seems Samsung has heard the calls of customers to bring back the microSD card slot.

"Many people were angry about Samsung removing the SD card in the Galaxy S6, but I believe we will see that come back to the S line with the S7," analyst Patrick Moorhead of the Moor Insights & Strategy said according to Computer World.

But aside from the strong possibility of equipping the Galaxy S7 with an expandable storage option, Samsung might also turn to this year's recently released processor model to power the upcoming flagship. Instead of its in-house chip Exynos, Moorhead believes Samsung will go with the Snapdragon 820.

If this happens, then it will mark the reunion between Samsung and chip-maker Qualcomm. The relationship between these two firms quickly ended almost immediately after the overheating issues associated with the Snapdragon 810 chipset emerged.

With a faster and more powerful processor, the analyst thinks Samsung will have a better chance at beating its major rival Apple in terms of smartphone performance. In fact, benchmark tests have already revealed that the Snapdragon 820 can easily outperform the Cupertino-based tech firm's A9 processor.

"This is not just a classic improvement in the next-generation smartphone feeds and speeds, but a dramatic improvement and Qualcomm talked about doubling the performance per watt on this card," Moorhead said about the Snapdragon 820.

As for the other details of the Galaxy S7, it is not yet clear what other physical specs the future flagship handset will sport. But, based on the leaked renders obtained by GSM Arena, Samsung will sport two models of the S7. The first one will have dimensions of 143.37x70.0x6.94mm, which is about the same size as the Galaxy S6.

The other model, on the other hand, will be bigger at 163.32x82.01x7.82mm. The tech news site noted that this could be a Plus version and could sport a screen size of 6.0 inches.