Every February, the biggest names in mobile technology travel to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest event for cell phones, laptops, tablets, and new ways to compute on the go. The two big winners this year were Samsung and LG, who both took the opportunity to unveil their flagship smartphones for 2016: the Galaxy S7 and the LG G5, respectively.
The LG G5 is the more unique of the two and features a modular design that promises to expand our use of smartphones. Along with the device, LG announced a line of “friends” products that are meant to enhance your smartphone experience. The bottom of the phone can be removed and replaced with a digital-to-analog converter, or DAC, for enhanced audio and manual camera controls. LG also has a new VR solution that is much more compact than its competitors, and a personal home Android for pet- and child-care. Currently, the LG G5 and its “friends“ line don’t have a release date, but expect them to make it to an electronics store near you by the end of the year.
Samsung’s offerings were much more traditional. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge were both announced at the convention. The S7 is now much faster than the previous model and marks the return of two of Samsung’s most popular features: IP 68 water resistance and microSD card support. Removable batteries are unfortunately still out, but it looks to be a decent return to form for customers who were burned by last year’s more stripped down model. The S7 edge is much the same as last year’s variant but has a larger size and a few new features for the edge screen, including added app shortcuts. The larger size may be a nice feature but it could irritate a few customers who purchased the Galaxy Note Edge late last year, which had a similar size but fewer features and was less powerful. The Galaxy S7 and the S7 Edge are up for preorder now and will be officially released on March 18th.
Both companies added similar features to their custom versions of Android, including always-on displays and the removal of the popular app drawer feature. While Samsung allows customers to opt in or out of the app drawer, LG has removed it completely from the phone (though there will more than likely be a few back-end methods to get the feature back).
No matter which phone or carrier you go with, it looks to be a big year for mobile technology. There has never been a better time to own an Android smartphone.