Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge review: The bar has been raised

Overview

It's no secret that Samsung needed to shake things up with the S6. While the S4 and S5 were both good phones, there was a definite sense that Samsung had become complacent, releasing the same thing year after year. Neither the S4, nor the S5 really captured the attention of the public and for the past two years at least, Samsung's Galaxy Note series has been its most exciting product line.

Well shake things up Samsung did. Gone is the utilitarian plastic build of past Galaxy smartphones. Gone is Samsung's partnership with Qualcomm. For better or worse, gone too is the removable battery and expandable storage. In their place, Samsung has put together an aluminum and glass stunner, with an in-house Exynos 7420 octa-core processor, with 32, 64, or 128GB internal storage options and a sealed 2,550mAh battery. And if that's not different enough for you, there's even a dual-curved screen variant, the Galaxy S6 Edge.

Both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will be available on 11th April 2015 at the following recommended retail prices:-

• Galaxy S6:- S$998 (32GB), S$1,148 (64GB) and S$1,288 (128GB)
• Galaxy S6 Edge:-S$1,168 (32GB), $1,298 (64GB) and $1,448 (128GB)

All three telcos will also be carrying both phones. You can view their contract pricing plans here: M1, Singtel, StarHub. For convenience, we've also done a telco price plans comparison feature.

Play

Design

Well, it's about time. For years we’ve been complaining about Samsung’s plastic phones. The Galaxy S5 and its predecessors have all been entirely plastic, and while it used to be acceptable, when HTC and Sony started releasing metal phones, it was hard not to feel ripped off paying S$1000 for a plastic one. Fortunately, that's all changed. There's barely an ounce of plastic on the S6 and S6 Edge. The only place you'll find it are the four antenna lines at the top and bottom edge - a necessary evil. The front and back are Gorilla Glass 4 (which Samsung says is 50 percent stronger than Gorilla Glass 3), and the frame is aluminum with chamfered edges. It's classy, it's tasteful, and it looks and feels premium. It's about as far as you can get from last year's band-aid-inspired S5. It almost looks like something made by Apple.

Speaking of which, let's address that. There are definitely some similarities between the S6 and the iPhone 6 that can't be ignored. The button and port placement is exactly the same, and the speaker grille looks just like the iPhone 5. Even the color of the aluminum matches the matte silver color Apple uses on the white iPhone 6. As a result, the bottom edge looks shockingly similar to the iPhone 6. Still, they're just similarities and viewed as a whole, the S6, and especially the S6 Edge, is definitely its own phone.

In Samsung's defense, this isn't actually the first time it's experimented with a metal design. The Note 4 had a metal frame, as did the Galaxy Alpha, and the youth-orientated A series smartphones all sport metal chassis. All of this has been refined for the S6, and it shows, displaying a level of fit and polish that far surpasses Samsung's previous efforts. Now we're just hoping that Samsung carries this newfound attention to detail over to the Note series and finally ditches that faux leather it's been championing.

In terms of shape, the S6 isn't all that different from previous Galaxy devices, with Samsung's familiar rounded corners. On both phones, the power button sits on the right edge right under your thumb, and on the S6, the nano-SIM card slot can be found here too.

On the S6 Edge, the nano-SIM has been relocated to the top of the phone. Up here, you'll also find an IR blaster on both phones, in case you want to use your phone as a TV remote.

On both phones, the micro-USB port and headphone jack can be found on the bottom, while the left-side houses individual volume up and down buttons.

One thing that's worth pointing out here is that, unlike the S5, the S6 isn't waterproof - Samsung seems to have ditched the whole 'active lifestyle' thing it was pushing last year.

The S6 Edge ups the wow factor with a display that curves around the sides of the device resulting in a beautiful bezel-less infinity pool-like effect. We first saw this on the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, but this time, both sides of the screen curve off the edge at a steeper gradient for a more aesthetically pleasing symmetrical design. The dual curved display is an immediate attention grabber, and the way it makes images and icons pop off the screen is completely unique. It's hard to capture just how gorgeous this display is in pictures, and you really have to see it in person.

In hand, both phones feel great, with the S6 being the comfier of the two. The edges on the S6 are rounded, but unlike the iPhone 6, Samsung has wisely flattened out the sides, rather than rounding them all the way, resulting in a less slippery, more comfortable grip. The S6 Edge, due to the way the screen curves over the side, doesn't really have that benefit, and it feels a bit sharper as a result, but not entirely uncomfortable.

On the front of both phones, a metal-ringed home button joins two capacitive keys. As with the S5 and Note 4, the home button is a fingerprint scanner, but it's been hugely improved and is actually worth using now. Instead of swiping your finger across the sensor, you now just press it on the home button, similar to Apple's Touch ID scanner. It's fast and reliable, and one of the better fingerprint scanner implementations we've seen on an Android device.

On the back of both phones, you'll find a 16-megapixel camera with an f/1.9 aperture lens, and an LED array that includes the camera's flash and heart-rate monitor.

If there's one sore point regarding the design of the S6, it's how far out the camera bump protrudes.

Both phones will be available in White Pearl, Black Sapphire, and the ever popular Gold Platinum, which looks absolutely stunning now that Samsung is actually using a metal build.

In addition, both phones get their own unique color variant. The S6 sports a very nice Blue Topaz finish, while the S6 Edge gets Green Emerald. Do note however that neither of these colors will be available at launch. On each of the three main colors, the metal frame matches the main body color, with the aluminum on the Black Sapphire being a shade darker than on the White Pearl. The Platinum Gold, of course, is gold colored. Both the Blue Topaz S6 and Green Emerald S6 Edge appear to use the same light silver aluminum frame as the White Pearl.

Samsung has done an amazing job on every color, and the finishes look more like high-end car paint jobs than smartphones. Our favorite right now is probably Black Sapphire, which is actually a very dark navy blue. The color shifts depending on how the light catches it, appearing black sometimes and dark blue at others.

Display & Audio

Both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge have made the leap up to QHD screen resolution and boast a whopping 2560 x 1440 pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio. With both phones using 5.1-inch displays (the S6 Edge display is exactly the same size, it's just curved at the sides), that results in 577ppi, which is by far the highest ppi count available right now. For comparison, the LG G3, which also has a QHD display, but is larger at 5.5-inches, has 538ppi. The upcoming HTC One M9 has a 5-inch Full HD display, resulting in 441ppi, while the 4.7-inch Apple iPhone 6 has just 326ppi.

At this resolution, it's impossible to discern any pixels on the screen, and even through a magnifying glass, you'll be hard-pressed to see any jaggedness. Having said that, side-by-side with just your eye, it's hard to see much, if any, difference between the S6 and the - on paper at least - inferior iPhone 6.

As with most of Samsung's displays, both displays are Super AMOLED, with flawless contrast, vivid colors and deep blacks. The displays are also some of the brightest we've seen, even by Samsung's already high standards. Despite the highly reflective finish of the Gorilla Glass 4 covering the displays, reflections aren't too bad due to the high screen brightness, and even under bright sunlight, the screen remains fairly easy to view.

Audio on both phones comes from a single speaker located on the bottom edge. It's fairly loud and the audio quality is satisfactory but it really doesn't compare to front-facing stereo speakers such as the ones found on the HTC One M8 and Sony Xperia Z3. On the plus side, it's still far superior to the rear-facing speaker found on the S5. 

Like the iPhone 6, the problem with bottom edge speakers is that when you hold the phone in landscape orientation, it's quite easy to cover the speaker with your hand. And even if you don't, there's an annoying one-sided quality to the audio. It's a pity because with a screen this good, we hoped the audio would be able to match it. Of course, you can always plug in some headphones.

UI & Features

For years now, we've lampooned the bloat heavy and often sluggish Samsung TouchWiz UI, but surprisingly that's all changed with the S6. Based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, Samsung has shown remarkable restraint, resulting in the closest to stock Android experience we've seen in a Samsung phone. Gone is the lag, replaced with a snappy and responsive user experience. Samsung has streamlined a lot of its services and features too, and some, such as mutli-window mode are now baked into the UI, and don't need to be toggled on individually. In the case of multi-window mode, you just tap open split screen windows from the recent apps menu. 

As for pre-loaded apps, Samsung has cut it down to a few of its greatest hits comprising of S Planner, S Health and S Voice. If you want others like Kids Mode, Car Mode and SideSync, you can download them individually from Samsung's Galaxy apps store.

Like a few other Android phones, Samsung has also introduced a themes store, which let you change things like icons, wallpapers, widgets and the system font all in one go. Right now there's not that much here, but we did spot an Avengers: Age of Ultron theme, just in time for the upcoming movie!

S6 Edge Features

The S6 Edge also has a few (and we do mean a few) extra features that take advantage of its curved display. The Night clock mode, which will dimly display the clock for up to 12 hours a day (or night) and the Edge information panel, which displays the clock, date and any missed notifications when the main screen is off, have made it over from the Note Edge. Unfortunately, the rest of the Note Edge's functionality, like the always on information ticker running down the side of the screen, or the optimized apps with relocated controls on the edge part of the screen, or even silly apps like the ruler, are all missing from the S6 Edge.  

One new feature not seen on the Note Edge is Edge People. Swipe inwards on the small grey tab in the upper right corner of the screen and you'll see a hub showing your five favorite people. Select one and assign them a color, and you can fast-track a call or message to them. If you miss a call from one of them, a slim tab in their designated color appears on the side of the display to alert you.

The Edge People feature goes hand in hand with the S6 Edge's other new feature, Edge lightning, which lights up the edge of the display when you're receiving an incoming call, but strangely it only works when the phone is placed face down. If you've assigned the caller to one of your Edge People tabs, their chosen color will display when they're calling. A handy but ridiculously specific feature also lets you send them a Quick Reply SMS informing them you're busy right now by covering the heart-rate monitor with your finger.

Samsung definitely made the S6 Edge primarily in pursuit of aesthetics and style and, to their credit, it does look ridiculously cool. We suspect that for many people, that will be more than enough reason to buy it. But we're still a little disappointed that the S6 Edge doesn't have more built-in functionality to justify its design, as we quite liked some of the things the Note Edge could do. It's also worth noting that, as of now, none of the apps created for the Note Edge work on the S6 Edge.

Benchmark Performance

After years of using Qualcomm processors, this year Samsung has broken away from the pack, and is using its own Exynos 7420 SoC rather than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 we expect to see in most of the other Android flagships this year, such as HTC's One M9 (and that we've already seen in the LG G Flex 2).

The Exynos 7420 certainly looks impressive on paper. Like the Snapdragon 810, the 64-bit processor is based on ARM's big.LITTLE architecture with four Cortex-A57 cores at 2.1GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.5GHz. Where it differs from the 810 is that it is the first mobile chipset to be built on a 14nm fabrication process (the Snapdragon 810 is 20nm). This makes it more power efficient, which should also reduce the chance of overheating and any subsequent thermal throttling problems like the ones the Snapdragon 810 was facing when it was first introduced. As for the GPU, Samsung is using a Mali-T760 from ARM. 

SunSpider Javascript

SunSpider Javascript helps measure the browsing performance of a device when processing Javascript. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. Both devices scored very well here. In fact, their scores are a little suspicious, especially when you take into account that they're twice as good as any other Android-based smartphone and Samsung's past history of boosting benchmark scores. Having said that, in actual usage, both devices were snappy and responsive, delivering a smooth browsing experience without any lag or stuttering, so it's possible that the scores here might be real. 

Quadrant

Quadrant is an Android benchmark that evaluates a device's CPU, memory, I/O and 3D graphics performance. The Exynos 7420 was very impressive here, easily beating Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810, with both the S6 and S6 Edge outscoring the LG G Flex 2 by a massive 35 percent.

3DMark (2013)

Originally developed as a PC benchmarking tool, 3DMark is now expanded to support multiple platforms including Android OS. The Ice Storm benchmark is designed for smartphones, mobile devices and ARM architecture computers.

For an in-depth understanding of 3DMark for Android, do head over to our article, "3DMark - Android Device GPU Performance Review." In a nutshell, it is an OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark test that uses fixed off-screen rendering to run two graphics tests designed to stress the GPU performance of your device and a physics test to stress its CPU performance. The benchmark consists of three test portfolios:- Standard (720p resolution rendering), Extreme (1080p resolution rendering with higher quality textures and post-processing effects) and Unlimited (disabled v-sync, display scaling and other OS factors that make it ideal for chipset comparison).

As all recent flagship smartphones have been maxing out the scores on the Standard and Extreme tests, we will only be looking at the scores for Ice Storm Unlimited.

If there's one area where Qualcomm seems to have Samsung beat, it's the GPU, with both the S6 and S6 Edge falling slightly behind the LG G Flex 2's Adreno 430 GPU in this benchmark. Having said that, the Exynos 7420's Mali-T760 ARM GPU was still quite decent, and easily outperformed the Apple iPhone 6's PowerVR GX6450 and the S5's Adreno 330 GPU.

Imaging

The camera on both the S6 and S6 Edge is identical, and uses the same 16MP Sony IMX240 sensor that we saw on the Galaxy Note 4, but with a new wider f/1.9 aperture lens. Like the Note 4 and Note Edge, both phones have built-in optical stabilization for easy shooting in low-light situations. Samsung has also added a couple of new features, our favorite of which is the simple camera Quick Launch: double press the Home key from anywhere on the UI - even while the screen is off - and the camera app launches in less than a second.

The default camera UI is fairly simple, and is the same for both phones. We really liked the Note Edge's camera app, with the settings relocated to the edge display, so we were a bit disappointed to not see it return for the S6 Edge. However the S6 Edge's curvature is more aggressive than on the Note Edge, thus there's a design limitation preventing the feature from making its way on the S6 Edge. As with most phones, the volume keys double up as a shutter button, and you can also activate burst mode (up to a maximum of 30 shots) by holding down either the volume butter or the on-screen shutter button. Testing burst mode, we must admit that the phone is really fast and is able to capture shots successively.

Both phones come loaded with a variety of different shooting modes, ranging from slow motion and fast motion (time lapse) to panorama and selective focus, the bokeh-imitating mode we saw in last year's S5. Selective focus is still a bit gimmicky, snapping two photos in quick succession and then letting you choose between near or far focus, and blurring the fore or background appropriately, but it doesn't do the best job at distinguishing the outline of objects. Actually, the f/1.9 lens is wide enough that you can get a nice natural bokeh effect without any software wizardry, especially on macro shots:

The mode you'll probably use the most is the new Pro mode, which gives you manual control over focus, ISO settings, exposure compensation, white balance and color balance. You could do all of this on the Note 4 and Note Edge, but the UI wasn't as simple to use, and you had to fiddle around in the settings menu to access them. As a nice touch, you can even save your current manual settings as a preset to use again later. This mode is surprisingly advanced and we were very impressed with the color balance settings. You get several presets to choose from, but you can also make your own if you can't find anything you like. There are sliders to boost shadows or highlights, and you can adjust the contrast and saturation, and even the temperature and tint.

Image quality on the S6 and S6 Edge is excellent, with an impressive level of detail retention and sharpness throughout the picture. Noise is kept in check even when shooting at high ISO settings and we couldn't spot any artifacts from software processing. The optical image stabilization works well too, and lets you shoot at relatively slow shutter speeds even in dim lighting. White balance is always spot on, even in tricky lighting conditions, and colors remain accurate too.

Battery Life

Here's the one area where the S6 differs internally from the S6 Edge. The S6 has a 2,550mAh battery while the Edge has a slightly larger 2,600mAh one. As mentioned before, both batteries are sealed, so you won't be able to remove and replace them like most of Samsung's other phones.

Our standard battery test for mobile phones includes the following parameters:

• Looping a 800 x 480-pixel video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

Battery life was quite decent considering both phones' QHD resolution screens, with the S6 Edge running for just over eight hours, and the S6 for just under. Just for comparison, the QHD LG G3 lasted for a mere six hours. Still, it's worth noting that last year's S5 lasted about half an hour longer.

As a nice additional feature, both phones support wireless charging and are actually compatible with both the Qi standard, as well as the lesser-known PMA standard, ensuring that you'll be able to charge your device anywhere that offers wireless charging. If you want a wireless charger to use at home, Samsung is selling one separately for S$98, or you can always opt for a cheaper generic wireless charger.

Portability

We measure the portability of a device by calculating its battery life to (weight x volume) ratio. Thanks to their light weight and relatively compact size, both phones actually scored quite well here, even with their less than stellar battery life.

Conclusion

The S6 represents a new era for Samsung. Like its predecessors, the S6 is packed with high-performance hardware, but this time it does so with a new attention to aesthetics and build quality that is second to none. It's not perfect - that rear camera module really does stick out a lot - but it's the best thing Samsung has ever made, and right now, there's no better phone out there.

Performance-wise, Samsung has shown that it doesn't need Qualcomm, and its Exynos 7420 can easily match or exceed the Snapdragon 810 in most benchmarks. For the record, throughout all of our testing neither the S6 or the S6 Edge ever felt warm, something we can't say for the LG G Flex 2. And Samsung has finally gotten its software right too, stripping out bloatware and fixing problems that didn't just affect the S5, but have plagued Samsung phones for years.

Now the only question is, which one do you buy? We expect the regular S6 to be the model that will end up in most people's pockets, and rightfully so, but there's just something special about the S6 Edge that calls to us. To be perfectly clear, there's very little functional benefit to the Edge, it does everything the regular S6 does, and what few extra tricks it does bring aren't even all that useful, but it's undeniably one of the most attractive phones we've ever seen. The curved display is a beauty to behold, and a real joy to use, and unlike other curved displays that try to sell you on functionality, or "immersion", the S6 Edge just exists to be gawked at, but that's all it needs. We get the feeling a lot of people will walk into a shop with the intention of buying a regular S6, and end up walking out with an S6 Edge and a huge grin on their face. And that's why the Galaxy S6 Edge gets our Editor's Choice award.

If you're all set to make the phone upgrade, here's our telco price plans round-up article for further assistance.

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.