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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acastle5 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Thank you danbob999, that's why these one year 'trade in/up' models are so over priced and bogus through ATT. If I had a Samsung s5, I wouldn't even be considering an upgrade at this point. Maybe in a year or two when the Nex-Gen comes around... I happen to have the s3, which is why it makes sense for me to go ahead and upgrade at this point, buy the phone on the two year plan at a discounted rate and go from there with the new s6 edge... I wont need another phone for about 4 years or so...rocketbuddha - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Josh,Since your unit says TMobile,
a) What is the Cat 6 LTE Modem?
b) Is it a Samsung part or a Intel/ST Micro/Marvell part
c) How good is the Samsung LTE modem at the T Mobile bands including the Band 12
IIRC this is the first time a Samsung is using a non-QCOM Modem chip in the US is with its Galaxy Nexus on Verizon using a Via Telekom CDMA/EVDO + LTE chip.
I will be interested to know if the second time is a charm :D
SydneyBlue120d - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link
I'd like to know also if LTE-A, VoiceOverLTE and HD Voice is officially supported and if such support is available also in European version of the phones.ama3654 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Would it make any difference if the benchmark apps are 64bit as well? Just like on iOS devices.chizow - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Tired of Qualcomm's lack of innovation the last few years, and don't trust Samsung's Exynos enough to go with S6, so I broke down and got myself an iPhone 6 Plus. Figure if Samsung is going to get rid of most of the stuff I liked about their phones (removable battery, expandable storage via microSD), I would just go with the best non-Nvidia SoC on the market. And don't even start on battery life. Galaxy/Android starts off great but then you start getting random processes that loop and cause a fire in your pocket and you need to charge multiple times during the day.So yes, Apple gets my business now that they've finally caved and gone with a real screen. We'll see if it bends.
Darkito - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
If you have an issue with wakelocks on Android, there are ways to fix it. I realize it's suboptimal to have to do it yourself (and it requires root) but BetterBatteryStats shows you exactly what app is responsible for the wakelock.The best SoC as of now is the A8X. The best phone SoC is clearly the Exynos in the S6 though.
kmmatney - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link
I also switched back to iPhone for similar reasons. I rooted my phone, tried different ROMS (bricked my phone once, which required factory software tools to get it back) but never had consistent battery life, and the UI speed was never consistent. I switched to Android as I wanted a larger phone, and I loved the 5.5" 1080p IPS screen. I never used the replaceable battery feature - it's not worth the hassle to keep a second battery around (and keep it charged). I downgraded to a 64GB iPhone 5 for $200 to hold me off until I can upgrade again in September. Battery life is much better with my new 3 year old iPhone. I can replace the battery easily enough if needed, but Apple batteries tend to last a long time. I don't trust Samsung with a non-replaceable battery - I've had several Samsung phones in the past and plenty of dead batteries.chizow - Saturday, March 28, 2015 - link
Yeah maybe on paper the Exynos looks great but again, I don't trust Samsung's SoCs after that whole crossbar issue they had with their S4 big.Little design and the various SoC bench cheat scandals.I just know every iOS device I pick up even months later that has an A7 or better SoC performs great and gives consistent battery life and screen experience, all despite the fact these phones are operating on just 1GB of RAM.
Android is just a hodge podge of bloated, hacked/stolen code. If you have to resort to root and strip half the crap/bloat out of it, just tear it down and start anew.
MercuryHero - Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - link
If someone complains about a flaw in Android as the reason they went to iPhone, it's less than helpful to start talking about root-only tools that you can use to troubleshoot and diagnose the problem; that just makes Android look worse. You should not have to root, learn technical terms like "wakelock" or diagnose the cause of an issue when simply using a phone.That said, it's always the fault of the misbehaving app, not Samsung, or Android - who are designed to implicitly trust that when an app says it needs to keep the phone awake while the screen's off, that the app knows what it's talking about.
I'd personally like to see some more in-built smarts in Android relating to knowing when an app has been permitted to keep the phone awake, but it shouldn't be happening *constantly* - some sort of rate limiter that can be tuned to each app so that, for example, an app that only needs to sync occasionally should be prevented from operating a wakelock once it's apparent that the wakelock is not being released as quickly as it would be expected to.
But that's all stuff for Android internals, and consumers basically just have to put up with the current state of affairs, and just (hopefully) learn that the cause of problems is the misbehaving app.
klagermkii - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Could you please test the minimum white brightness of the AMOLED display? One of the problems I've had with switching to an AMOLED phone is that even at its lowest brightness it's still too bright to read against a white background at night compared to other LCD phones.