The rumor mill is running at full steam. The Mobile World Congress 2016 is just weeks away now, and Samsung is expected to kick the proceedings off in Barcelona, Spain by unveiling the company's flagship smartphone for this year. Here's the roundup of what Samsung watchers are expecting in the new Samsung Galaxy S7.

Name, Unveil Date & Release Date

First of all, the basics: All signs point to Samsung sticking with convention and naming its 2016 flagship smartphone the Galaxy S7. It's also more than likely that the company will launch an "edge" variant of the Galaxy S7, along with the "plus" size variants.

The unveiling is also likely to follow a predictable pattern. Last year Samsung showed off the Galaxy S6 at Mobile World Congress 2015, and this year's trade show is heavily rumored to provide a similar stage for the company's follow-up.

Release dates are a little trickier, but according to SamMobile, the most likely scenario, considering Mobile World Congress 2016 will take place a few weeks earlier than last year, in mid-February, is that Samsung will move up the Galaxy S7's release date in the U.S. and other launch markets accordingly.

So instead of a March unveiling and April release date, we'll probably see the Samsung Galaxy S7 unveiled in February and released in March.

Display, Specs & Features

The rumors get a lot more speculative when it comes to the specific details of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7, though not due to a lack of ostensible information leaked online.

Leaks of supposed factory images, spec sheets, listings, and benchmarks have been flooding the Internet in recent weeks, providing a plethora of often contradicting details on the 2016 flagship. Part of this may be explained by Samsung's prototyping process, which this year reportedly covers a lot wider and more varied set of possible hardware specifications.

Perhaps the most likely hardware rumor has the Korean smartphone giant re-introducing the microSD card slot, whose removal from the Galaxy S6 caused uproar among diehard fans.

However, the Galaxy S7's design will still be closer to the premium-built Galaxy S6 than any prior Samsung handset, though water and dust resistance looks like it's making a comeback this year, harkening back to the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Meanwhile, many other specs for the Galaxy S7 are up in the air. There's evidence for a Samsung Galaxy S7 sporting a 5.1-inch display, but also evidence that the Galaxy S7 Edge will be at 5.5-inches.

Could Samsung have two different display sizes for the flagship and edge variant? Sure, but it's also very possible one (or both) of those leaks is wrong.

For the camera, an iteration of Samsung's 16-megapixel shooter from the Galaxy S6 is rumored, but so is a 12-megapixel rear camera with a larger sensor size and f/1.7 aperture for better low-light photography.

There's one piece of Galaxy S7 hardware that doesn't need leaks or rumors, due to the nature of Samsung's chip production business and recent manufacturing partnership with Qualcomm.

The Galaxy S7 will definitely sport Samsung's latest Exynos 8 system on a chip (SoC) for the Korean market and elsewhere, while the U.S. variant of the Galaxy S7 will almost certainly be powered by the (now) Samsung-manufactured Qualcomm Snapdragon 820.

Related