6 things the Samsung Galaxy S7 did better than the Galaxy…

Despite being a decade old, the Galaxy S7 did a number of things better than the brand-new Galaxy S26.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge came out a decade ago. While the two have nothing on the brand-new Galaxy S26 family when it comes to computing power, hardware specs, or camera quality, there are still more than a few areas where the Galaxy S26 falls behind its ten-year-old cousin. While the Galaxy 26 looks like just another plain, all-screen slab with a hole-punch camera, the Galaxy S7, and especially the S7 Edge, had a unique identity and tons of character.

Those thick bezels above and below the screen not only featured the Samsung logo but also that massive home button everyone associated with Samsung phones. You also had the slightly curved back, which made both phones fit like a glove in most hands and look super slick in person. The Galaxy S7 and its Edge cousin were unapologetically Samsung, while the Galaxy S26 is just another face in the crowd.

Samsung's "Infinity Display" was and still is a masterclass in industrial design. No other phone could match Samsung's Edge models during the Infinity Display's heyday. It's no wonder everyone tried to copy Samsung's edge screens in the years after it debuted on the Galaxy Note Edge. While it wasn't very practical on the larger Note handsets, it was simply perfect on the S7 Edge. It not only improved grip and made the phone look amazing even today, but it also made using the edge panels feature a breeze.

The Galaxy S26 arrives with only a USB-C charging cable. The Galaxy S7, on the other hand, came with a range of accessories. You were getting a charger, a data cable, a pair of wired earphones with a microphone, and a USB-A-to-micro-USB OTG adapter. I mean, I'm fine with not getting a charging brick, but given that even the base S26 costs $900 and still doesn't include magnets, a MagSafe case would be most welcome.

LED notifications were a small but super handy feature on many older phones that has since been replaced by various forms of the always-on display. While the always-on display is better on paper, the subtle informativeness of LED notifications cannot be beaten. Thanks to it, you could see that you had just received a message or that the phone's battery was low, even if the phone wasn't near you, unlike with the always-on display.

The worst part is that manufacturers could easily bring back LED notifications. All it would take is a system-level feature that lights up a ring around the front camera that lets users customize it, and it would work much better than the old feature. Just imagine—you could assign a different color to each app, allowing you to instantly know whether you’ve received an email, a Slack message, or a notification from your chat app of choice.

Credit where credit's due: Samsung did bump the base storage on the Galaxy S26 to 256GB. Still, getting 256GB of storage and a microSD card slot would work even better. Even 256GB of storage isn't that much if you listen to local music and take tons of photos and videos every day. With the RAM-pocalypse in full swing and no sign of it slowing down anytime soon, we might finally see SD card slots return to phones next year.

I certainly wouldn’t mind that. Then there's the headphone jack, which you also won't find on the Galaxy S26. The Galaxy S7, on the other hand, included both a card slot and a headphone jack. Granted, 2016 was a different era—the era of wired earbuds. Apple would announce the first generation of AirPods almost half a year after the Galaxy S7 debuted, a move that would change everything and ultimately lead to the downfall of the headphone jack on phones.

The regular Galaxy S7 launched at $669, while the Edge model started at $779. A decade later, the base Galaxy S26 costs $900, which closely follows inflation ($669 in 2016 is just over $906 in 2026). However, the 32GB iPhone 7 was just $20 cheaper than the 32GB Galaxy S7, while the latest iPhone 17 costs $100 less than the Galaxy S26, which isn't a great look for Samsung. I've said this many times before, but I much prefer the design of 2010s phones to what we're getting in recent years.

Aside from foldables, certain cool-looking compact phones, and the occasionally intriguing experiment like the Clicks Communicator, most modern phones are dull as dishwater. I'd much rather carry around a Galaxy S7 Edge than any member of the Galaxy S26 family. In fact, a Galaxy S7 Edge with 12GB of RAM, tons of storage, and a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 would be a killer handset, delivering on both form and function.

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