Since the release of their first powerhouse flagship GALAXY S1 Samsung has been trying to be a global brand name and not just another Asian company and their unrelenting determination and efforts have paid off , Samsung is currently the top manufacturer of android mobiles.
So it was natural that they will joust with Apple for the brand image, market and reputation as the top mobile manufacturer in the world.
Galaxy S4 and S5 although technically superior to iphone 5 and 5s were lacking something and hence were never considered as an serious alternative for then iphones.
That something was design
Samsung then undertook total design overhaul for their flagship and released S6 in 2015
dubbing it as an CLEAN SLATE and DESIGN ZERO meaning that future galaxy phones will be based on this design.
It was first time that a Samsung flagship received full metal and glass design.
Although company experimented with full metal design with its A series but the combination of metal and glass in S6 was exiquisite to look, hold and most importantly own.
Samsung phones were no more plastic inferior wannabe iphones.
Now, in 2016 company has release S7 and S7 edge as their flagship. Staying true to Design Zero the company has not made any major difference in appearance from s6 and only significant change is almost non existing back camera bump from s6.
As for hardware the company seems to have adopted Apple's policy- meaning hold back some of the features from an currently released phone and add them as features in the next flagship release. A practice I am not very fond of but somewhat can understand it is necessary to keep producing and selling high end phones one after the other.
Anyways the specs on Galaxy S7 edge are
Corning Gorilla Glass 4 back panel
Samsung Pay ( Visa, MasterCard certified)
IP68 certified - dust proof and water resistant over 1.5 meter and 30 minutes
Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors 5.5 inches , Resolution 1440 x 2560 pixels ( ~534 ppi pixel density)
Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820/Exynos 8890 Octa
Quad-core ( 2x2.15 GHz Kryo & 2x1.6 GHz Kryo) /Octa-core ( 4x2.3 GHz Mongoose & 4x1.6 GHz Cortex-A53)
GPU Adreno 530/Mali-T880 MP12
One of the best camera of 2016 in regards to low light photography and automatic mode selection
The improvement over S6 edge are-
-4GB RAM
-memory card support
-IP67 water and dust resistance ( its not waterproof! keep that in mind)
-CPU, GPU and chipset improvement
-Slightly tweaked camera with reduced focal stop for better pictures( Among the top cameras of 2016)
As for edge panels sadly they don't offer much experience wise but are nice too look at.
