Samsung launches Galaxy S7, S7 edge in India with free Gear VR

Mumbai: Samsung has launched its flagship Galaxy smartphones—S7 and S7 edge—in India on March 8 after unveiling the handsets at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 last month.

For customers who manage to pre-order the handsets between 8-17 March will also get a free Gear VR along with it.

India is among the first few countries where the two flagship smartphones were launched. This will help Samsung achieve a significant boost over arch rival Apple, as the Cupertino-based had also planned to launch a new model—iPhone SE—later this month.

In addition to the device launch, the company also acknowledged that it will spend a staggering 100 crores to promote the devices in India.

Both the Galaxy devices will battle it out with Apple’s iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, which are expected to receive significant price cuts soon.

The S7 and S7 edge features AMOLED displays on 5.1-inch and 5.5-inch panels respectively, and both the devices will boast the same QHD display (2550x1440 pixels).

For the US market,  the S7 and S7 edge will be available with Snapdragon chipsets, while the rest of the world would get the home-brewed Exynos chipset.

The two devices, apart from the chipset variants, have a staggering 4GB RAM boost along with 32GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded via a micro SD card to 200GB.

The micro SD card expansion will be optional for those who want to see a dual SIM variant as the same SIM slot doubles up as SIM+SIM or storage+SIM.

Moving further, the S7 flagships have a 12MP sensor with a 5MP front selfie shooter. Both the S7 variants have also received the mush awaited water resistance IP68 certifications.

Once again, the two devices will be shipped with Android Marshmallow 6.0 out of the box, while the S7 and S7 edge will be powered by 3000mAh and 3600mAh batteries respectively.

The company's home-brewed Exynos processor has allowed the S7 to be priced at a reasonable Rs 48,900 and the S7 edge at Rs 56,900.