But with the Galaxy S6, Samsung is finally changing the narrative. The new flagship phone is a bold departure from the detestable polymer-body hsets Samsung has been throwing at us lately. th the Galaxy S6, it feels like Samsung preserved all the previous flagship ingredients that actually worked, then stuffed them into a stunning new glass–metal body. ly, the S6 is the Samsung phone we should have had a year ago.
It looks like an ione
This is the last thing I want to admit as an Android user, but apparently it’s how you sell smartphones today: Make the product appear just as posh stylish as Apple’s ione, consumers will flock to it in droves. It worked for Xiaomi in China, now Samsung’s going to take a stab at it, too. I can’t help but notice the similarities between the Galaxy S6 the ione 6, especially with the white S6 version. That pearlescent white back? The brushed silver frame around the edges? The perforated speaker grill on the bottom? It’s uncanny. Even if the Galaxy S6 does sort of resemble something out of Cupertino, it’s evidence that Samsung has wised up to the basics of good design. ’re no longer living in a world dominated by basic plastic phones, if you’re going to be the big fish in the Android pond, you have to jump on the upmarket bwagon. ile the stard S6 merely catches up to respectable design, the curved version of the Galaxy S6—the Galaxy S6 ge—reminds us there’s still ingenuity left in Samsung’s mobile hardware division. It’s difficult to see in my photos, but the 5.1-inch display curves ever so slightly on either side. rhaps the company has been too timid to take such big risks until now. Or perhaps it’s finally figured out what works. This design certainly works for me. ok at those curved edges—the way they arc downward only slightly, without ruining the whole effect of holding a smartphone in the palm of your h, like the Galaxy Note ge did. I hated the Note ge, but I loved holding the Galaxy S6 ge. Both the flat curved versions of the Galaxy S6 are two of the most comfortable smartphones I’ve used in a while—even more so than the HTC One (M8), which was my daily driver for most of 2014. The One sometimes felt too tall too narrow, while Samsung’s Galaxy S6 felt good throughout the hour I held it—as if ilocks had finally found her perfect bowl of congee. Both the Galaxy S6 Galaxy S6 ge look good, too, like premium phones made for premium people—or at least, that’s the kind of lifestyle promise these smartphones will attempt to sell. There’s just one problem, though: Samsung will need to produce convincing marketing to go with its new flagship devices, because the upper echelons of society ( those who strive for that station) just aren’t aligned with Android. That said, the Galaxy S6 definitely has a story to tell beyond the fact that it’s just another Samsung phone.
A new phone, a new processor
Unlike a majority of its predecessors, the Galaxy S6 is powered by Samsung’s speedy new octa-core Exynos processor instead of a Qualcomm chip. The company says this new 14nm processor promises better power-consumption because it has four cores devoted to battery efficiency, four cores dedicated to processor performance. Now, that said, there’s been rumbling in the rumor mill that the processor switch-out is actually due to overheating issues with the Snapdragon 810. can’t confirm or deny either of those claims, but we can say that the phone felt snappy responsive. ’re excited to finally get some playtime with a Samsung SoC when it’s ready to review.
A llipop-y UI
Samsung may have overhauled its chassis design, but its software still needs a little work. Despite the llipop update, it’s not anything spectacularly new. I will give the company some credit, however. ile Touchz is still blue-hued in some areas its icons don’t really match alongside ’s suite of apps, the Material Design is there underneath it all. There are Cards in the app switcher, Samsung’s own apps feature bright, bold colors on a flat layout. Samsung also left in some of its own software additions, like Multi-ndow, which can be used from the multi-tasking screen. It also swears it has streamlined the interface, cut it down in a couple of places. From my brief time with it, however, all I can say is that the S6 still acts feels like a Samsung phone. Maybe I’ll feel differently after a week with it.
en can I get my hs on it?
You can’t run to your carrier store pick up a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 ge just yet, but you can expect them to hit stateside sometime this spring. en it does, we’ll have a full-blown review, complete with benchmarks, beauty shots, a lab test with the Galaxy S6’s newly refined 16-megapixel rear-facing camera.
