Android Circuit: All The Galaxy S7 Leaks, BlackBerry's Android Gamble, MicroSD's Triumphant Return

Taking a look back at seven days of news across the Android world, this week’s Android Circuit includes leaked designs of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7 flagship, the new smaller S7 camera, why microSD storage is important, a goodbye to Motorola, BlackBerry’s big gamble on Android, Cortana sneaking back onto Android through Cyanogen, Jide’s Remix OS offering Android on the desktop, and Facebook’s potential divorce from Google.

Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android in the last week.

1. The Front Of The Galaxy S7

you’ll see the alleged front panel compared alongside a white Galaxy S6 panel and a dark blue Galaxy Note 5 front panel. In terms of shape and design, the S7 panel looks far more like the Note than last year’s Galaxy S. Corners are less round, giving it a more square appearance. We also see the screen is slightly bigger than the S6’s, suggesting rumors of the smaller version having a 5.2-inch display could be accurate.
Earlier rumors have suggested we’ll see two different sized Galaxy S7 phones this year. Corroborating with those rumors, a couple of leaked screenshots suggest we’ll see more than one model, and that one could have a 5.7-inch display, just like the Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge plus.

The internet is pretty much settled on two Galaxy S7 models arriving… except I have one question… These panels are all showing flat edges, so what will Samsung do with last year’s popular curved edge?

Samsung Galaxy S7 Camera
Along with the design, specifications are starting to be corroborated as well, which leads to some interesting thoughts around the size of the camera. It’s not always about the megapixels, so Samsung’s potential move to cut the Galaxy S7 camera down from 16 megapixels to 12.2 megapixels should not be judged as a bad move until we see the quality of the shots. After all the Galaxy S6 was a better camera (just) than the iPhone 6. Throw in new technology such as BRITECELL and the South Korean company could have a potent marketing hook for the next flagship Android device:

Previous discussions about Samsung’s BRITECELL technology point to imaging as an area where Samsung believes it has an advantage that will have a positive impact on the critical and commercial reception of the handset. This new technology was presented at Samsung’s recent Investors Forum, and offers increased sensitivity in low-light conditions while retaining strong color reproduction.

MicroSD Returns To Sell The Galaxy
It also looks like the Galaxy S7 will see the return of microSD card support to Samsung’s flagship smartphone. While that might not be something that gets everyone excited, the reintroduction of an external mass storage card will be seen as an important concession from Samsung that it made a mistake in omitting these from the Galaxy S6 family handsets. If you rely on microSD (as many people do) this omission was a deal breaker:

Many people can get along with a smartphone without ever using external storage (for example, everyone with an iPhone). But it is a vital tool for many users who may be in areas of poor connectivity, who cannot rely on cloud-based solutions to be available or affordable, or who need to store huge amounts of data on their smartphone because it is their primary computing device. MicroSD cards are also easy to switch between devices, and can help move large files between devices without the need of a desk bound computer or expensive data connections to online storage.

Goodbye Motorola
The Motorola name is set to be phased out during 2016. Lenovo (who bought Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014) will stop using the brand in favour of ‘Moto by Lenovo’ featuring in the higher end of the Chinese company’s smartphone portfolio. Tthe lower end will continue with a tweak to the existing brand to make it ‘Vibe by Lenovo’. CNet’s Roger Cheng covers the news from the CES presentation:

Lenovo, which bought Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014, is unifying its two phone businesses under the Lenovo name. It’s going to use Motorola’s Moto brand for high-end products and its homegrown Vibe brand for budget devices. The Motorola name isn’t completely gone. It will live on from a corporate perspective as a division of the Chinese consumer-electronics giant, said Motorola Chief Operating Officer Rick Osterloh.
“We’ll slowly phase out Motorola and focus on Moto,” Osterloh said in an exclusive interview Thursday at the CES conference in Las Vegas.

While the classic ‘batwings’ logo will remain, the Moto branding that has seen a return to prominence in recent years with handsets like the Moto X and Moto G will be used to reinforce Lenovo’s smartphone prowess in new markets.