Samsung Galaxy S 6 and S 6 Edge: Preview
by Joshua Ho on March 26, 2015 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy S6
- Galaxy S6 Edge
Initial Thoughts
With the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge Samsung claimed that they wanted to completely rethink how they designed and made smartphones. On the surface, it seems that Samsung has delivered on this promise as the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are unlikely any other Galaxy S phone they have made previously. There is no removable battery, no microSD slot, or even a removable back cover. I would’ve liked to see a microSD slot, but I personally wouldn’t be affected by being limited to 32GB of internal storage. The removable battery issue is a bit concerning for me though, as it’s likely that disassembling this phone to replace the battery will require extensive use of a heat gun to loosen glue that may not adhere properly when reassembled. The materials are now aluminum and glass, which dramatically affect in-hand feel. I definitely like the move to the aluminum and glass design for the improved look and feel of the phone, but the use of the glass back is a bit annoying as the phones have a tendency to slide off pretty much any table. The edge variant of the phone also feels quite sharp in the hand and almost too thin to hold, but this is generally quite subjective.
Outside of design, there is a lot to talk about in the SoC and display. The Exynos 7420 SoC appears to be class-leading in performance, although there is the obvious question of power consumption that still has to be answered. Samsung’s first 14LPE SoC seems promising, although we’ve yet to validate whether big.LITTLE is more efficient than when we last tested it in the Exynos 5433. The GPU is generally quite close to the Adreno 430, with about a 10-20% advantage in performance depending upon the workload, although at the same clock speed it probably wouldn’t have any advantage. The 1440p display can also reduce performance compared to a 1080p display.
Speaking of displays, Samsung has integrated an incredible display into both versions of the Galaxy S6. I’m really blown away at how far AMOLED has come in the past few years, as the Galaxy S6 is one of the best displays we’ve tested for luminance and overall color accuracy. The only real problems I can see are color shifts with viewing angles, and white point tending to be a bit green depending upon the unit we’re looking at. There are some edge-specific issues, namely uneven luminance and odd color shifting towards green hues on white at the edge of the display. Other than this, the display of the Galaxy S6 is relatively perfect with its dark, inky blacks and amazing color.
Obviously an SoC and display aren’t the only issues to discuss in a smartphone, but given the limited time that we’ve had with the device this was all that could be tested. We hope to have our full review for both devices completed in the near future, and to be able to provide the full picture of the Galaxy S6 line at that time. Pre-orders for the US Galaxy S6 variants will begin on March 27th, and the phone will go on sale on April 10th throughout the US with 32, 64, and 128 GB SKUs in Black Sapphire, White Pearl, and Gold Platinum. The S6 edge and S6 will be available on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and US Cellular, but on Boost Mobile, Cricket Wireless, and MetroPCS only the S6 will be available.
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SydneyBlue120d - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Thanks a lot for the quick reply :) Do you think this could change with future software updates? Why not exposing if it is supported? Maybe the software driver is not ready?Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
No idea yet. The hardware block's firmware is on the phone but the decoders don't seem to be made available to the Media API of Android.Azurael - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
This looks like a nice phone - finally OIS (which was keeping me with LG) and the display on this (and the S5, for that matter) looks really good - I was put off AMOLEDs in the past since nobody seemed to be able to make one colour accurate, and at the time when I had an HTC Desire (and later a RAZR i, for that matter) the PenTile layout was horrible. Now the subpixels are too small to make out, that issue is gone. My one remaining worry regarding the screen is what it will look like a couple of years down the line, screen burn is a big issue and neither of the AMOLED devices I have here can display anything like continuous tone any more, plus their white points have shifted significantly (though they were far from great when new...)The other question I have is whether Samsung have got their act together regarding kernel support for their own SoCs? Their stock ROMs tend to be buggy as hell, and at one point a few years back, a large proportion of the CM team managing Exynos devices walked away due to Samsung's incomplete source drops. There are still outstanding power management bugs affecting the old Exynos 4210 (crashes during deep sleep, mainly) in the Galaxy S2 and the Nexus 10 is by far the buggiest, least stable of the Nexus devices (I speak from experience, between myself and my girlfriend we've had/have every one bar the N6/N9....)
Impulses - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
As someone who's already living sans micro SD and a removable battery, I'm not terribly concerned about either (my N5's battery seems to be holding up well a year and a half later...).This is probably the first Galaxy S I'd buy, just because SAMOLED is finally on par with the better displays and having OIS + a better build is appealing. Now if only they'd make a smaller flagship...
Physical home button is still a turn off for me personally. Are they still clinging to that because it's part of their design or because it better masks space taken up by the internals?
I'm thinking it started off as the former but has ended up as the latter... Still, I'd take a larger display with on screen buttons whenever possible, I think LG has made the best compromises in that regard.
Azurael - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Personally, I'd much prefer to have off-screen keys than a fugly waste of actual display area. Until Android developers get their act together with using the full screen mode, anyway. But since even Google's own YouTube app has a mini-fit and refuses to hide the softkeys & status bar on a regular basis, what hope has anybody else got?Sadly, the last chance I had at 'real' buttons was my One X. It's amazing that app developers haven't got the hang of softkeys in 3 years.
Impulses - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Ehh, developers are more likely to put an effort if a majority of phones are using soft keys, and guess who moves a good majority of phone stock... :pI've got several handy apps that make good use of full screen mode tho, and on screen buttons aren't an uglier than capacitive ones, specially capacitive ones with white LEDs on a white phone.
I've seen more than one use unfamiliar with Android either struggling to use or outright ignoring the back/menu/app-switcher buttons because they were either invisible in daylight or kept switching off.
I never really got why Samsung had them switch off so quickly by default... I don't think they even switched off at all while the phone was in use on the three HTC phones I had with capacitive.
Drovan - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
I'm wondering if the Exynos 7420 has an integrated LTE modem. That would really close the gap with Qualcomm.Fallen Kell - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Wow... really no removable battery and NO SD SLOT! That is a no go for me. I was really hoping this phone would be nice. The display numbers look extremely impressive, but without a removable battery or SD card it doesn't matter how good the display is because the phone is unusable.hrrmph - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link
Exactly. Unusable and not improving in the areas where it most needs to.Where is the increased storage? My Blackberry Z10 has 144GB. My Samsung ATIV-S WinPhone has 144GB, my Samsung Note 2 has 144GB.
Any day now, the new 200GB Micro-SD chips will be in stock and I'll start upgrading those devices to 216GB. So again, where is the increased storage with the S6?
There is none. It's a downgrade.
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