As we approach the end of the year, it’s time to start casting our eyes forward to 2015 and the phones we can expect from the major Android OEMs. Samsung’s almost certainly going to be releasing a Galaxy S6, and if SamMobile is to be believed then there’ll a few interesting changes on offer.
Earlier this month, SamMobile claimed that an internal codename of “Project Zero” pointed to Samsung’s intention to design the Galaxy S6 from scratch with “an entirely new vision”. Samsung’s said to be focusing on adopting new trends quicker. The Galaxy S6’s body might share more in common with the metallic Galaxy Alpha than it does the Galaxy S5.
Unsurprisingly, we’re looking at a QHD screen, although the specific size of the screen is apparently yet to be decided. SamMobile is also reporting that we’ll see a variant of the S6 with a curved display, the “Galaxy S6 Edge”. While the company has dabbled in curved screens with questionable results in the past, an “Edge” moniker could imply that Samsung intends to bring the Note Edge’s curved “edge display” feature to the main Galaxy S line.
Specs Evolution
There’s said to be either a 16MP camera with Optical Image Stabilisation (as seen on the Note 4) or a 20MP unit without OIS on offer, with a 5MP front camera. After seeing what OIS can achieve on the Nexus 5 and Note 4, I’m really hoping they stick with the OIS. Storage is said to be offered in 32, 64 and 128GB denominations, although if past performance is anything to go by we’ll only see the base model (in this case, 32GB) in Australia. That Micro SD card might get less of a workout.
Finally, there seems to be a bit of Exynos-Snapdragon jostling going on for the coveted spot of providing the S6’s chipset and modem. For the main change here, we’ll be looking at a 64bit processor to drive Lollipop, and it’ll be either the Exynos 7420 or Snapdragon 810. There’s not really any reason to assume markets that have seen Qualcomm variants of Samsung handsets in recent years will see Exynos versions in 2015.
These are all well and good in terms of evolutionary changes – it’s what we expect to see year-on-year. For “Project Zero” to actually deliver a re-envisioned Samsung flagship though, I’d like to see Samsung adopt some new trends on the software side of things. TouchWiz – almost always the focus of criticism in any Samsung review for the last couple of years – currently bears little in common with Lollipop’s Material Design, so I’m hoping for a serious update to Samsung’s Android customisations. The exact form that might take is open to interpretation, but I think the way forward should be pretty obvious from what some other manufacturers are doing.
What would you like to see in the Galaxy S6? Tell us in the comments!
Who would have thought the combination of cheap, tacky hardware combined with ugly, unintuitive, slow software would lead to a profit and sales decline? Colourme shocked. And now they’re scrambling to overhaul the phone desperately trying to recover those lost profits. I came from a Lumia and got a Galaxy S5. Absolutely turd phone with turd software. The phone feels like a $200 phone with that oboxious plastic band with metallic paint, trying to fool buyers that it’s metal (it’s not). The completely unusable fingerprint scanner where you have better odds of winning lottery than unlocking he device with it.… Read more »
The problem is that few Google Play Edition devices released were always US only, and were never mainstream distributed in addition. Those devices would show you just how badly Samsung has effed up the OS. The mob who do the least amount of UI damage is Motorola, but their device release and distribution is nothing short of woeful. Sony don’t do vanilla Android, but they don’t go overboard with damage to it either, and if you don’t need to unlock the bootloader to get root access, could be worth a look. The rest of the majors, LG, HTC, Huawei, ect,… Read more »
Except that it’s more like Google copying HTC from Sense 5. That’s where this ‘material design’ stuff came from. The flat, colourful look was on HTC’s Sense 5 and certainly Sense 6 before Google adopted it. Prior to Lollipop, stock android were dark colours, blacks and blues, whereas Sense was colourful. Now all of a sudden Lollipop is colourful and Google are getting the credit for it. And of course there’s the video highlights Google took from HTC as well and put it in their photos app. Kinda find it interesting you claiming HTC are ‘piling on the garbage’ when… Read more »
In addition to my previous post with a more colourful UI, video highlights, quick settings in notification bar:
– Double tap to wake
– Paginated app drawer
– Screenshots
– Do not disturb
– Phone smart dialer
And many more features that I can’t remeber off the top of my were implemented into stock android/nexus devices after other Android OEM’s had those features in their devices already. But I suspect Jeni won’t call those additions ‘piling on garbage’ when Google does it, right?
You’re mistaking the overall OS art style as BEING the OS. It isn’t. The changes that Samsung and and the other Majors do to Android are comparable to the Windows total conversion packs which existed for Windows XP. They altered XP inside and out, making it look like, and interact like, a completely different OS. On my 2008 Lenovo notebook, running WinXP SP2 at the time, I applied FlyakiteOSX, and the sheer extent of the changes it made were so thorough that local computer repair shop technicians, who were serious online gamers, were confused by how the OS now looked… Read more »
This makes no sense. Everything that Andrew was talking about are features, not art styles. They are hardcoded extensions of the OS, not some cheap re-skinning.
You’re completely missing/ignoring everything I said. I’m not just talking about the aesthetic design of the OS (which Google did emulate from Sense 5 & 6 anyway), I’m talking about features that were in Samsung, LG, HTC etc phones that weren’t in stock android or in Nexus phones and Google adopted and implemented into the core OS later down the track. You’re quick to bag OEM’s for ‘piling on the garbage’ on Android, when Google are benefiting from this ‘garbage’ as they are then implementing those features into the core android OS. So Jeni, please tell us, is the aesthetic… Read more »
+1 Lachlan I feel exactly the same. I’ve been on Galaxies for years and because of that, Android = lag and sluggishness in my mind. I don’t mind TouchWiz as a Launcher but it is bloated beyond belief and 5 generations of Galaxy shows Samsung have no intention of ever overhauling it for performance. I suspect they’re suffering the same fate as HP whereby they have a large array of devices requiring software and they reuse the same code bases for all kinds of products. Hence why the software for my HP printer was a gig of almost pure code.… Read more »