GIMME Edging out rivals

The production and rollout cycle on new smartphone models is blisteringly fast. What was a 12to 18-month pace, say, five years ago, is now holding steady at a sixmonth cycle for most of the top-end and larger manufacturers.

Also, it means that, for the most part, the innovations we see in handsets are incremental, rather than earth-shattering, and manufacturers are having to work harder to include a solid differentiator in models.

In keeping with this, technology giant Samsung released its Galaxy S7 Edge a few months ago, much to the dismay of those who bought the S6 Edge in October last year. Of course, this is the nature of the game right now, and by no means a specific indictment of Samsung, which has included some very nice additions in the S7 and S7 Edge models.

Interestingly, we see a return of a few of the selling points of earlier models — including sacrificing a tiny bit on the “slimness” factor to include a slightly bigger battery of 3600mAh, and the reappearance of expandable memory with a microSD slot, of up to 200 GB.

Both models are also — hooray — dust and water resistant. This is a highly practical and prized feature that was briefly dropped, and we are thrilled to see its return.

The S7 has a 5.1 inch screen, and the S7 Edge 5.5 inches, both with quadHD displays (2,560 x 1,440).

The S7 Edge has a pixel per inch measure of 534. The screen also has a cool “always-on”, almost Kindle-like screen option that can display the time without needing to push anything to “wake” it up.

Both models are also fastcharge capable, with the Edge fully charged in 100 minutes.

The rear camera offers 12 MP — less than the S6 — but very capable, producing genuinely good snaps. Inside is an Exynos quad-core chipset, and 4 GB RAM.

Then we come to the standout features of the eponymous Edge. A quick swipe off the curved edges of the device brings up a number of customisable shortcuts and groups, like an apps edge and a tools edge. This works wonderfully for speedy access to your mostused functions.

Altogether, this is a title contender in a seriously crowded top-end space.