Starting last year with the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung came out swinging in the industrial design department. Gone were the super plasticky smartphones that felt cheap in the hand, and in its place we got metal and glass smartphones that were a sight to behold. Now, the company has launched the follow-ups, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.

You can get the Samsung Galaxy S7 now.

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Video transcript:

Here you see the box, black box on the outside, Galaxy S7 logo on front, 32GB storage indicated at the top of the box, with the color indicated on the side - in this case, I’ve got the gold platinum model here. Your choices on the S7 are gold and black, while the S7 edge comes in gold, black, and silver.

These new models don’t make anywhere near as drastic of a change to the overall design, but they do bring some welcome refinements and improvements to this years Galaxy line, and even restore features that were notably absent with the S6. In fact, I think the Galaxy S7 is by far the best phone that Samsung has ever made from a looks and feel perspective.

Here is the Galaxy S7, and I’ll put this aside for a moment while we check out what else is in the box. Here you’ve got a box that likely contains the quick start guide and some safety and regulatory information, as well as the SIM removal tool.

Also included is a USB connector that allows you to connect two Galaxy devices together over USB for file transfer purposes, as you see here. There’s also a fast charging USB AC adapter - it’s not Qualcomm fast charging, but that shouldn’t matter as long as you use what Samsung has provided in the box. You also get a pair of white earbuds as well.

For the S7, Samsung has brought a new level of fit and finish. It’s more comfortable in the hand to hold, much easier to pick up off of a flat surface, a more flush fingerprint sensor, and the camera bump is vastly reduced in size. It won’t look that much different at first glance from a Galaxy S6, but the changes are much appreciated.

Here on the Galaxy S7 you’ll find a 5.1-inch quad HD Super AMOLED display. On the inside, the device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor here in North America, rather than the Samsung Exynos chips that shipped in the S6 - although you’ll find those in the S7 devices in other parts of the world. As for RAM, Samsung packed the Galaxy S7 with 4GB.

One area where Samsung has made great improvements is battery capacity. The Galaxy S7 boasts a 3,000mAh battery, which is a nice increase from the 2,550mAh, and should solve some of the complaints about battery life from last years model. The batteries support both adaptive fast charging with the included AC adapter, as well as fast wireless charging, but you’ll need to pick up a wireless charging base separately.

The other thing that people are curious about is the camera, and this is likely where the biggest change comes in. It’s a 12-megapixel camera, down from the 16 megapixels found on the S6, but that doesn’t really matter. Samsung says that larger pixels let in 56% more light, and the lens sports an f/1.7 aperture, allowing in 25% more light as well. Combined, that is 95% more light than on the Galaxy S6. Samsung also says that the camera can focus three times faster thanks to the dual-pixel system that lets all of the pixels act as focus pixels. On the front you’ve got a 5 megapixel camera with an f/1.7 aperture as well. Oh, and Samsung has brought back the microSD card slot on the Galaxy S7, so for those of you who end up filling your devices with selfies and cinematic 4K videos, grab a microSD card and expand that storage!

As for software, the Samsung Galaxy S6 ships with Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface on top. The software trick for this year is an always-on display, which will always show a clock with notifications, calendar, or an image of your choosing. There’s not too much to worry about here, as Samsung says this feature only uses one half of 1% of battery power every hour, and when the phone is in a pocket or bag, then the screen will turn off completely.

There you have it guys - that was your look at the Samsung Galaxy S7. Of course, I’ll be bringing you my full review shortly. Big shout out to Verizon for sending the Galaxy S7 over, and if you’re looking to pick one up, you can actually buy one and get one free right now from all of the major carriers - Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint - on both the Galaxy S7, and the Galaxy S7 Edge. Speaking of the S7 Edge, that unboxing video will be following this one, and a review of that phone is incoming as well.

Thanks for watching guys - be sure to hit the like button if you liked what you saw today, and don’t forget to subscribe in order to stay notified of our new reviews, unboxings, tutorials, and gadgets giveaways. We pretty much always have a giveaway going, and you can check out what’s up for grabs right now by clicking on the Gadget Giveaways playlist. This was your look at the Samsung Galaxy S7, I’m Andru Edwards, and I’ll catch you in the next video!

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