While it's not a surprise that Samsung brought out a new member in its Galaxy S family, the Galaxy S7 comes with both a number of big upgrades from last year's S6 and some, well, less than impressive elements that might sway your decision if you're deciding between the two.
Whether you're in your local phone emporium, wondering whether the S7 is worth that extra money (especially when it seems to have a lower-spec camera) or just want to see all the changes succinctly, we've been slipping them up against one another to help you decide.
Design
The way the Galaxy S7 looks is probably the least-inspiring upgrade of them all - so let's get it out of the way early doors. Side by side, screens on and facing you, the S7 and S6 look virtually identical, with only a few cosmetic alterations telling any of the story (the metallic ring around the fingerprint scanner has gone this year, for instance).
However, while they look very similar, in the hand they feel very different indeed, as the S7 now comes with a rounded back to make it feel more comfortable to hold. That could make it a little slippier day to day, but the effect feels wonderful when handled for the first time.
In terms of screen size and resolution, both phones offer a 5.1-inch display with a QHD resolution, which might seem like a bit of a cop-out from Samsung. However, the newer model doesn't suffer as a result - it was a great display last year and still is worthy of a premium phone.
Samsung's using the screen on the S7 a little differently though, with an Always On Display showing a clock, calendar or pattern when left in standby. It's a fairly novelty feature (and one that does drain the battery, albeit only slightly each hour) but does add a premium air to the look of the S7 over the S6.
The Galaxy S7 is also IP68 rated, which means you can dunk it in up to 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes before panicking that you've broken your phone. Don't do the same with the S6 as, well, it'll break. It's not water resistant, and you'll be sad.
Oh, and the Samsung Galaxy S7 has a cheeky new feature in the SIM tray: there's a microSD slot in there to let you expand the memory by another 256GB if you want to lob in a load of media onto your phone.
Want that extra space on the Galaxy S6? You'll have to spend a lot to get the higher capacity variant.
Interface
There's very little difference in the overall interface and the way the two phones work, but visually there are some tweaks from Samsung. For instance, the phone, messaging and internet icons on the bottom row are now flatter and cleaner, taking more cues from Android 6 (which the Galaxy S7 now comes with).
These could well come to the older model too when Marshmallow lands, along with the starker and cleaner notifications shade at the top of the phone screen, but for now it's a difference.
While Samsung's not overtly confirmed the CPU in the Galaxy S7, the engine (likely to be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820) combined with 4GB of RAM sees the phone fly along under the finger compared to the S6. That's not to say that the older phone was slow - far from it - but there's a definite zip on 2016's model.
That raw grunt might be something that prevents the S6 from gaining a new feature - stitching together 360 video on the fly, coming from Samsung's new Gear 360 camera. It's also 'only' got 3GB of RAM to play with.
It's not slow, as mentioned, but in the future it could get a touch slower as more high-power apps enter the market. Although even 3GB should be able to handle most of them.
Battery
One of the major failings of the Samsung Galaxy S6 was the battery life - it would kill all of our tests, be it YouTube streaming, gaming or web browsing, and yet in real use it would be terrible, barely lasting a day even in low usage.
Samsung's main failing here was sticking a small 2550mAh battery in the S6, which didn't seem capable of managing the tasks most demanded of it.
Hopefully the brand has fixed that, with the new Galaxy S7 getting a 3000mAh power pack to help it go even longer - that's impressive given the dimensions haven't changed too much. Combine that with Android's new Doze Mode, which stops the phone pinging for data as often and thus stopping the phone from draining away when just sat idly on the desk, and the Galaxy S7 could really blitz all our tests this time around.
However, we're looking forward to seeing how much of a difference Android 6 makes to the S6 - but it's unlikely to be anywhere close to the prowess of the S7.
Camera
A lot of people will have jumped straight to this section because they'll be confused: has Samsung really dropped the megapixel level from 16MP to 12MP from the S6 to the S7? Yes, but that's actually a good thing - it should lead to better snaps.
The reason is simple: if each pixel is a window for light, shoving more into a sensor (that's limited to a certain width) stops as much light getting in. That means by lowering the megapixel count you'll get better pictures in low light situations, and faster too.
The S7 also focuses a lot faster than the S6, thanks to the new dual pixel sensor in the latest model. Samsung tries to make things a little confusing by claiming this is like the way two eyes will see an image when focusing, but in reality it just means that when you're trying to take a picture when moving, or of motion, you'll get results that are lot crisper.
Early verdict
The difference between the Galaxy S6 and S7 might seem to be minimal from the outside - or even worse, in the case of the camera. Samsung' releasing a very similar-looking phone year on year isn't something that should be lauded, but in this case it has pushed in enough tweaks to make it a worthy upgrade. Just.
The camera and battery boosts are the most welcome, and should really help with day to day functionality. The increase in power won't have much of an effect if you're just browsing for the latest sports news, but if you do inexplicably decide to become a director of 360 degree films and only want to do it on a phone, the S7 is the stronger choice.
The design hasn't changed much visually, but feels nicer in the hand, and bringing back expandable memory and waterproofing is sure to impress a few Samsung fans, believing in a more robust phone.
The price is going to be a lot higher though, so if you're OK with the slightly iffy battery life of the S6 (fine if you're upgrading from a phone that's more than two years old) then you can save a lot of money, potentially.
But let's wait and see, OK? We'll be bringing you our full Samsung Galaxy S7 review very soon, and we'll pit it against the S6 at the same time to help you make the best decision.
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