Speculation about Samsung’s next-generation Galaxy S flagship picked up pace, with suggestions that the Galaxy S7 will see the return of a microSD storage slot.

While the feature was offered on a number of earlier Samsung flagships, it was removed in later devices, as the company redesigned its smartphones. While Samsung is not the only vendor to omit a removable storage slot – Apple’s iPhone line also does not offer one – it is a feature liked by many users.

With smartphones featuring HD screens to display content and capable of capturing high resolution image and video, storage has become a key factor for device owners. And while vendors are happy to sell customers higher-capacity devices, the pricing for these is often significantly higher than base models – which themselves are not cheap.

Other mooted features include pressure-sensing on the touch screen, a feature which hit the mainstream with Apple’s latest iPhone, and USB Type-C port.

Another interesting issue is the processor choice for the new flagship. While in the past Samsung has used a mix of its own Exynos silicon alongside Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, with the last generation it shifted wholly to its in-house platform.

It has now been suggested that Galaxy S7 will include either Samsung or Qualcomm chips, indicating it may be set to return to dual-sourcing processors.

And two flavours of smartphone have been mooted: a 5.2-inch screen standard version, and 5.7-inch curved screen Edge variant.