Mobile World Congress 2016: 8 Reasons Samsung's Galaxy S7 Will Make Partners Cheer

Samsung's New Flagship

Samsung pulled the wraps off its new flagship smartphones -- the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge -- Sunday night at Mobile World Congress 2016.

While the Galaxy S6 models, introduced last year, were applauded as the nicest smartphones yet to come from Samsung, the South Korean company has upped its ante and made important refinements in its new flagship.

The introduction coincides with Mobile World Congress, an event in Barcelona, Spain, where mobile vendors show off their latest and greatest products. Samsung was no exception, holding an Unpacked event Sunday night to reveal the Galaxy S7, an improved virtual reality Gear 360 camera, and a partnership with Facebook to bring 360 dynamic streaming to Samsung Gear VR.

Following are eight features of Samsung's newest flagship model that will turn partners' heads.

'Always On' Display

One of the biggest new features that Samsung showed off in its new Galaxy S7 was an "always on" display. This display, which seems to be a popular feature among new phones at Mobile World Congress including the LG G5, allows the Galaxy S7 to permanently show a clock with notifications, a calendar, or an image on its screen.

The intention is that Galaxy S7 users won't be rude by unlocking their phones during a meeting or conversation -- instead, they need only take out their phones for a quick peak to see notifications.

According to Samsung, this feature consumes only a half of a percent of battery per hour during testing. When the phone is in a pocket, the screen will automatically turn off.

Design

While the Galaxy S7 looks similar to the Galaxy S6 -- like its predecessor, this phone has a premium aluminum frame as opposed to a cheap plastic frame -- it also has an improved design for holding the device.

Samsung has made its smartphone flatter by thinning out its camera bump and fingerprint scanner, making for a more sleek design overall.

The Galaxy S7 has a 5.1-inch quad-HD Super AMOLED display, while the Galaxy S7 Edge contains a bigger, 5.5-inch display.

Storage And Software

The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge feature up to 32 GB of internal storage, and 4 GB of RAM.

Samsung has also restored expandable storage in its smartphones by implementing a microSD card slot in both models for up to 300 GB of additional storage.

On the software front, the Galaxy S7 models run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which is integrated with Samsung's TouchWiz interface.

Camera

Some of the best features of Samsung's Galaxy S6 were its cameras, and the Seoul, South Korea-based company has not held back on the camera front with its newest flagship.

Both the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge feature rear-facing dual-pixel 12-megapixel cameras and 5-megapixel front-facing cameras. The rear camera has lower resolution than the camera in the Galaxy S6 and its pixels are larger, letting in 56 percent more light for better low-light pictures, according to Samsung.

Battery Life

Samsung gave a major battery boost to its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge -- the two phones contain a 3,000 mAh battery and 3,600 mAh battery, respectively. But beyond the massive batteries, the Galaxy S7 phones also contain fast-charging and fast-wireless-charging capabilities (the wireless charging pad will be sold separately, according to Samsung).

Processor

One of the more interesting features to the S7 line is that it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor -- Qualcomm's fastest processor. This is a break from the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, which used Samsung's in-house Exynos processors (the Galaxy S7 will still pack an Exynos chip in some regions of the world).

The processor is clocked at 1.6 GHz, providing a performance boost for the new flagship -- Samsung claims that its newest smartphone runs 30 percent faster than its predecessor. The graphics performance has been tweaked as well so that users can put battery life ahead of game play to save power.

Other Features

Samsung made an array of other important tweaks to the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge -- including, most important, protection against water. The Galaxy S7 phones are water-resistant and dust-resistant so they are life-proof to accidental spills.

The company also discussed its enterprise-ready features by integrating Samsung Knox into its devices' hardware for mobile protection.

Availability

Samsung has wasted no time with the availability of the Galaxy S7 lineup -- the smartphones will be available for preorder starting 8 a.m. EST on Tuesday, and will be available in stores March 11.

According to Samsung, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Verizon will carry both models in stores.

The Galaxy S7 will be available in black and gold models, while the Galaxy S7 Edge will be available in black, gold and silver models.