At Samsungs Unpacked 2015 event tonight, Samsung unleashed the Galaxy S6 and the slightly more ‘edgy’ Galaxy S6 Edge. We’re live here in Barcelona and we’ve taken a quick look at the phones and here’s what we think.
The two phones are cut from the same cloth when it comes to specs, but when it comes to looks and feel, the Galaxy S6 Edge is definitely a different animal. There’s some striking similarities between the two phones, with both definitely falling into the ‘fingerprint’ magnet category. The phones are both covered in Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which is the toughest Gorilla Glass yet, it’s smooth, a warm feel to it but it’s definitely going to irk you if you don’t like fingreprints.
The Galaxy S6 has a beautifully rounded edge curving round to the front of the screen, while the Galaxy S6 Edge has a slight lip around the edge screen which can feel a little sharp, but is still comfortable to hold.
The phones are not overly large, with a simple 5.1″ display, but with a QHD resolution, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge screen is stunning up close. The colours are warm and pop as you’t expect with an AMOLED display and it seems quite bright, but this is under the glow of the bright lights of a display booth.
The big change under the hood is the decision to go with their own in-house Exynos 7420 Octa-Core processor. From first experience with the device though it’s quite responsive when you put both of the phones through their paces. Being stuck in a booth means you can’t really download and run the latest games, but the experience when swiping around the homescreens is smooth, but these days what Android flagship phone isn’t?
The camera is of course the big question for any Android phone and Samsung is promising a lot with the 16MP camera on the Galaxy S6 phones. The big play is in low-light and for ‘instant’ (well 0.7 seconds really) response to taking a picture, with Samsung advising that the camera is always in standby mode. In reality it’s fast and takes a darn good shot. We snapped a couple of pics on the S6 and retrieved them, they’re taken in a fairly well lit area so you can take that with a grain of salt.
Samsung seems to have toned down their skin for this latest release. The notifications seem to be fairly easy on the eyes, but again in a booth environment there’s not much to see, and I’ll need a lot more time with them to see.
The sotware has an array of pre-installed apps, but there doesn’t seem to be as many as there used to be. The rumour that Samsung would ‘tone down the bloatware’ hasn’t come completely true – S Voice, S Planner and S Health are all present – but it’s a pretty solid effort. The biggest note is that there’s three Microsoft apps pre-installed: One Drive, One Note and Skype – but given Skypes general acceptance for VOIP and video chat, it’s fairly forgivable.
Overall, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge appear to be great handsets, or at least have the potential to be. A long time using the handsets extensively will tell. Samsung plans to launch the Galaxy S6 and the Edge variant in 20 countries in April, and we hope that Australia is one of them. We’ll have more information on local availability soon.
Daniel, if Ausdroid is attending the Barcelona show as a guest of any company – be it Sony, HTC or Samsung – then you should have a declaration of this at the end of any report filed from Barcelona.
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing up a Sony device but are an all-expenses paid guest of HTC for example, it’s all about the transparency. SMH, AFR and News do this, shouldn’t Ausdroid also be transparent in the same way?
Dear Transparency Rules, I see the irony in posting a comment from a non-transparent account. And we made it clear when we posted the HTC post that we travelled there as a guest of HTC.
Next is now….except it actually comes to us on the 10th April with bits to come to some a bit later
I wish they just put fingerprint sensor on back and reduced the top and bottom bezel.
More info on the wireless chargers and that metallic looking bumper case for the S6 Edge please Dan! Loving your pics btw.. you’ve really captured the atmosphere at the event – and not just the phone!
So you didnt actually get hands on with the australian model?
No, unfortunately not, these were all the international versions. We’ll see an Australian version at the local launch.
Ok just curious if they will allow auto rotate in gallery yet.
That S6 Edge in green is beautiful.
It’s like British Racing green. I agree it looks very nice.
It looks even nicer in person.
The hardware looks really nice. With an f1.9 lens the camera, on paper, sounds great and it’s fantastic to see a fingerprint sensor that doesn’t require a swipe. TouchID is one of the few things Apple has going for it over Android so hopefully Samsung’s upgraded fingerprint reader works consistently. I’m still not happy about TouchWiz. It’s looking better than it used to and I have to admit it looked nicer in person on my friend’s Note 4 than it does in pictures. But the icons still look amateurish and it sounds like there’s even more bloat, not less, with… Read more »
Just for info, they have removed all the S-apps (down to 40%) and MS apps are only shortcuts, u can download if u want to, they are not pre-installed. There is no S-voice for example. the app drawer now has only few apps with a folder that has shortcuts to download the s-apps. this is as per WSJ. please have a look at the video if possible, will give u better idea 🙂
Hmm not according to the Verge. They claim Skype, One Drive and One Note come pre-installed in a Microsoft apps folder.
As for S-apps, the article above says “The rumour that Samsung would ‘tone down the bloatware’ hasn’t come completely true – S Voice, S Planner and S Health are all present”.
When was the WSJ article you are referring to published? It sounds incorrect.
sorry, s-voice is present. but rest are less, rever to gizmodo
Will Loop pay work in Australia with any retailer that supports paypass?
The only thing we know about Samsung Pay wrt launching is that it’ll launch in the US this year.
:'(
So even though we have paypass everywhere here in AU almost, we can’t leverage it with our phones still.
I’m sure Westpac and CommBank will still make their paypass apps available. From what I’ve read it’s just the Samsung App that won’t work.
Maybe I’m wrong.