Samsung, naturally, is hoping to put the Galaxy S series back on people’s radar as a top device, and it’s doing so by starting afresh with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. Though it numerically follows the GS5, the Galaxy S6 bears little resemblance to the previous model, and marks a pretty significant change in the way Samsung designs phones. At the same time, the S6 edge picks up the fun parts of the Galaxy Note Edge and leaves behind the poor software experience.
There’s a brand new design philosophy in play with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, starting with the radical hardware change and flowing into a more considered software experience. These are the phones that Samsung’s hoping will change the perception of its devices in 2015 – let us show you what they’re all about.
After HTC, Samsung was up. Most of the information regarding the new Galasy S6 and Galasy S6 Edge were leaked before their official unveiling, so we already knew what to expect. I’m particularly pleased with Samsung greatly simplifying TouchWiz, and the simplified camera interface and performance are very welcome too. The all-metal construction is nice, and I personally really like the Edge’s curved display – not because of any software functionality, but because it just looks really nice and ergonomic.
During the unveiling event, one thing really stood out: confidence. Rarely have I seen Samsung personnel being this genuinely enthousiastic and confident about their new phones. They didn’t resort to crazy antics or heavy buzzword dropping – they showed the device, its strengths, and that was it. For the first time, it felt as if Samsung truly believes the S6 and S6 Edge can stand on their own merit, instead of being held up by marketing and similar tricks.
My contract renewal is up later this year, and the S6 looks quite intriguing, and I haven’t found any Samsung phone even remotely intriguing since the SII.
“ALL METAL” it’s a nexus 5 with the flesh of an iphone wrapped around the sides. IT PUTS THE ALUMINUM ONTO THE PHONE
“…meh.”
Another smartphone, nothing to get meh over. Least its not a watch.
No microsd slot is a deal breaker.
Non-removable battery is a problem for some people.
Type C USB connector would be nicer than Type B.
So the S6 has a glass back, and people are calling this an improvement over the quite durable plastic they used to have on previous models. As a former Nexus 4 owner, which was shattered after a very short drop, I can say with little fear of error that people are idiots.
It looks too much like an iPhone to me. I guess I’m alone on the internet, but the Galaxy S3 is my favorite Samsung design. It took a bit of getting used to, but it was distinctive. I feel like every revision since has been making the S series more generic.
I like the curve screen thing though, don’t care if it serves no purpose.
Disappointed that the dropped microSD support as I have tons of music I like to carry around.
Also disappointed that smartphone reviewers have redefined build quality to refer entirely to subjective impressions of how the phone feels in the hand, rather than an overall appraisal of how well it’s built. After the first ten minutes of owning a phone, I no longer think about or notice how it feels. Can’t help but think it only seems so overwhelmingly important to reviewers because they go through a lot of review phones in rapid succession, which emphasizes superficial elements like the hand-feel.
I LOVED my S3.
It was just the “right size”.
Too bad I ended up with a broken EFS partition, and only then learned about how precious it was (basically, it’s data on the internal memory that the 3G modem requires, and cannot be recovered when lost without specific hardware and software).
Now I love my Z3 Compact, its battery life is unrivaled, but the screen is just a tad too small.
Wait??
No removable batt
No SD card slot
No water proof
Headphone port moved to the bottom
Metal added.
Sounds like an ugly iPhone clone!
Funny! Lol!
Yep. All the features they used to laud over the iPhone they’ve gotten rid of. The features they were missing they added (TouchID, apple pay). No one likes a knockoff no matter how shiny.
Cause they know Apple figured it out a long time ago:
Removable batt? 99 percent of people will never remove it and will buy a new phone before the batt tanks.
Water proof? Who is crazy enough to put a $500 phone in the water, water proof or not?
SD card slot? You can’t encrypt that and it’s extra storage that you have to remember to save to, most people won’t use that ether.
Metal? Makes it feel more pricy even if it’s not.
Just funny how Sammy claims they never copied Apple yet they still are. Lol.
Minor correction: there is nothing stopping one from encrypting SD-cards.
True but the file system is normally FAT. So encryption is a farce. And out the box they are not encrypted like the local space so most people are not even gonna do that.
That’s still irrelevant, to be honest. You can encrypt the underlying device and create a virtual device where the FAT-filesystem then lies. LVM and dm-crypt, for example, have allowed this kind of setup for years and years and years for now. The filesystem that’s used on top of an encrypted device simply doesn’t really matter.
See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dm-crypt for more information.
Thank you, you proved my point. Just the way you explained it will go right over the head of 99% of people out there who will never use it.
Maybe 90 to 95% never remove batt. That’s still a lot of people pissed of by this new policy (me too)
IP is water AND dust. As for water many people keep their phone close to them when they take a bath, go to swimming pool or live it a country where it sometimes rain… I really appreciate a waterproof and dustproof phone.
I’m happy you don’t have the use of a SD slot. Others have. (once again… Me too)
In the same way iOS 8 copies many features of Android. Nothing new here
Luckily there are enough other chinese brands that make good phones with all the options I need ( <3 dual sim <3 ).
Car insurance? Who is crazy enough to damage their car?
Most people get car insurance cause they have to not cause they want to.
I’ll pass.
No removable battery, no SD card slot.
Many ask why the need for these two crucial items?
You pay $300+ for a technology device. 2 years from now, the battery won’t hold charge and you’ll be out of space.
Hey, at least those S5’s will be cheaper to get now.
Edited 2015-03-02 02:31 UTC
I was hoping they were going to have:
1) A removable long lasting battery.
2) A removable memory card.
3) Have a high IP rating against dirt and water.
4) A large display close to 7″.
5) Toss out all pre-installed software.
6) Be way faster than the Nexus 6. (I find myself pressing keys twice on the Nexus 6 because the GUI is so under powered. Like a throw back to the old blackberries.)
This new Samsung phone seems to have gone backwards on everything except CPU power and is not appealing in the slightest. Curves or no curves.
Edited 2015-03-02 03:07 UTC
“1)A removable long lasting battery”
If it’s long lasting, it does not need to be replaceable and if replaceable it does not need to be as long lasting…
Putting both in a phone would suck up their razor thin margin.
These top end devices have large margins.
I want something substantial. Like a phone whose screen can physically increase when i need it to be a laptop, at which point a physical keyboard presents itself.
Please?
Let me get this straight: they removed the edge on the Edge model?
The only part of the Edge model that made it stand out against all the other standard phones of all other manufacturers?
The first useful permanent notification display since the Nokia N9?
Anyone that manufacturers a modern phone and sticks with 32GB is high. WTH is 32GB good for, about a month in the life of a teenager? I got the kids iPhone 6’s with 64GB and now regret not going 128’s. Memory just is too small on phones right now.
And I guess that a built in battery is okay if you’re buying a $200 phone. The S6 is not bought at expendable price points. And then to turn around a remove the water proofing? That was the one cool feature of the S5 that set it apart from competitors. Let’s face it, Samsung will always be craptastic in raw performance. Their idea of cutting back on Touchwiz brings out nothing save sarcasm from me.
Wasn’t the only real use of the ‘edge’ display it’s notification? So that, you know, every other Android device requires the main screen on to show specific alerts over the generic flash. I miss a lot of notices when the phone is on silent mode and have to turn on the screen to see them. The edge made this unnecessary from what I saw in the store.
Alas, the assumption that you and those near you represent the whole of mankind isn’t always correct. I, for example, have the 32GB-version of LG G2 and I’ve barely used 4GB of space, and I know plenty of other people who don’t need much more than that either. This is to say, 32GB is perfectly fine for some people. Personally, I would get by with 16GB with no issues, I just don’t have anything to store there.
I dunno, I have the 16GB iPhone and it’s enough for me even though I use it a lot for photography. I was bumping up against the storage limits before, but I just turned on iCloud photos with optimized local storage and that freed up 7GB.
For me the future is cloud storage. Local is less and less important.
I hope that the “Note” series keeps the same style as 3 and 4. Their target is different than the S series.
Personally having recently bought a Note 3 at a considerable discount (and being very happy with it), I don’t plan on buying another phone in the near future.
Edited 2015-03-02 17:34 UTC