Samsung Galaxy S7

Update: The Samsung Galaxy S7 is now available in the US unlocked. We've added the new price to this revised review.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 finds itself in a slightly tricky situation. Samsung needed a big win from the Galaxy S6 in 2015, which it got after reinventing the design of its flagship smartphone, but you're not going to get the same degree of evolution again just a year later.

• Buy Samsung Galaxy S7 (32GB) at Amazon for $497.48

This means the Galaxy S7 falls firmly into the iterative camp, building on the solid foundations laid by its predecessor without fiddling with the winning formula too much.

Some will argue this phone should be called the Galaxy S6S, but are they right? I've put the Samsung Galaxy S7 through its paces to see if it's a worthy seventh-generation flagship, or a just cheeky six-point-five instalment.

There's initial good news in the fact that the S7 isn't competing as closely with the Galaxy S7 Edge as the S6 was with the S6 Edge last year, with the curved display variant getting a bump in screen size this time round, taking it more into phablet territory.

• Read our in-depth Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review

Check out our Samsung Galaxy S7 video review:

That leaves the way clear for the 5.1-inch Galaxy S7 to make its mark as the core flagship handset, and it commands a price tag which places it at the top of the mobile tree. Yet, unlike its predecessor it only comes in one variant (32GB of storage), making pricing more straightforward.

In the UK you're looking at a hugely impressive £450 SIM-free, while those in the US will have to part with $199 upfront as part of a two-year contract, or fork over $669 for the new unlocked Samsung Galaxy S7 price. In Australia the SIM-free price is set at AU$800.

Those prices pretty much match up with the 32GB Galaxy S6, when both were a few months old, so at least Samsung isn't trying to short-change us, but it's still a considerable amount to part with for a device which isn't exactly reinventing the smartphone wheel.

That said, it's hard not to like the Samsung Galaxy S7. It takes the much-improved, premium design from the Galaxy S6 and reinstates a few features from the Galaxy S5 which were shockingly missing from its successor.

The package is an enticing one, but 2016 is a tough year for flagship phones. The LG G5 has launched with a unique modular pull, the HTC 10 is looking to rekindle some of the Taiwanese firm's former glories and the Huawei P9 offers up a slightly more affordable, yet still premium experience straight out of China.

We did expect the Sony Xperia Z6 to launch this year which isn't coming any more (the Xperia X turned up instead) and, of course, the iPhone 7 expected to arrive later this year too.

Samsung may have been first out of the flagship blocks, but it needs to make the most of its strong start to stay ahead of the pack.

This is what it's like to use a $4 Android phone

July 6, 2016 9:00 AM PDT

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Manish Singh/CNET

Four. That's how many US dollars the Freedom 251 costs.

It's a shockingly low number, especially if you're used to doling out $600 for a flagship phone. And despite raising many eyebrows when it was unveiled by Indian company Ringing Bells back in February -- with some doubting that the phone would materialise at that price -- not only is the Freedom 251 real, it's also surprisingly decent.

The company faces a loss of around 150 rupees ($2.25) per unit, and is hoping the government will offer a subsidy of some kind. The Freedom 251 that I got my hands on, which Ringing Bells says is the version that will ship to customers, is noticeably different to the one it showed earlier this year. That's a good thing -- there have been some big improvements.

The smartphone feels well built, despite its too-good-to-be-true price. The curved sides and placement of the rear camera are reminiscent of the Moto E, though it's noticeably thinner.

$4 (about £3 or AU$5) isn't going to buy you a swish metal case, but the Freedom 251's plastic body doesn't feel cheap either, and it does make the phone quite light. The grid finish on the back, coupled with its 4-inch screen, make the device easy to hold in one hand. The buttons on the sides are plasticky, but they give good enough feedback.

Key specs

The phone is certainly no powerhouse, but in my testing I didn't find it to be too slow, either. Here are some of its specs:

• 1GB RAM
• 1.3GHz quad-core processor
• 4-inch IPS, 960x540-pixel display
• 3.2-megapixel rear camera, 0.3-megapixel front

Like most entry-level smartphones from Asia, the Freedom 251 has a dual-SIM card slot and it supports Wi-Fi and 3G. It also has a 1,450 mAh battery, which the company claims will keep the phone ticking for a day on a single charge.

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Manish Singh/CNET

On the software side, the unit I got to play with had a build based on Android 5.1 Lollipop with no extra bloatware installed on it. However, the company has partnered with other software firms for an additional source of revenue -- so if you buy this phone, you will find preinstalled apps and services.

I noticed that the icons on the phone still looked similar to Apple's iOS. But they're not a blatant rip-off, as they were in the February unveiling.

One of the most noticeable corners that Ringing Bell has cut with the phone is in its sound. The speaker, placed at the bottom, makes a loud enough noise but the quality is poor.

The Freedom 251 nonetheless seems like a well-built phone with decent hardware for the price. Ringing Bells says it will ship its first batch of 200,000 phones on July 7.