Samsung Galaxy S6- Software and Hardware

This isn’t just any smartphone – this is the device setting the pace for Android smartphones and 2015 and it just might be the most exciting Samsung smartphone since 2011. Samsung calls the S6 a totally new design; this fact doesn’t really click until you pick it up. The S6 is exceptionally thin at 6.8mm and exceptionally lightweight at 138gms and while Samsung might have been content to stop there with previous iterations here it pushes the visual front as well.

The Gorilla Glass 4 covering the front and back sides is a haven for fingerprints but it is also quite striking with flowing rounded edges and the refracting layer that gives the illusion of depth and subtly changes the color tone depending on the angle at which you look at it. Samsung claims the metal frame is 50% stronger than its competitors. J.K Shin took an opportunity to make a jab at the iPhone while he was at it. But what is more significant is that it finally feels like a premium phone and not a cheap plastic plate, same goes for the new fingerprint scanner which is now a press and hold sensor instead of the cumbersome swipe pad. The Super AMOLED display is just what you’d expect 5.1” with a resolution of 2560×1440(Quad HD) and 577ppi, of course it looks fantastic but Samsung’s screens have looked great for a while.

The real story here is about the things displayed on that gorgeous screen, the new version of Samsung’s user interface. Once again the changes aren’t noticeable, those stock home screen icons still have reminiscence of the old Touch Wiz but Samsung went out of it’s way to promise a lag free user experience no less than 3 times in the MWC launch event.

A layer or two beneath the home screen some stuff has been tightened up. Themed color highlights give app categories a unified feel. The settings screen has been tightened up and classic shortcuts like double tapping the home key now lead to something useful like the camera instead of something useless like S-Voice.

Speaking of the camera, Samsung really impressed everyone with the NOTE 4 in this regard and it looks like they are primed to build on that here with 16-Megapixel sensors and F 1.9 lens, a start up time of less than a second and object tracking auto-focus. The software simplification extends to the viewfinder, you don’t need to scroll to get around the interface and the front facing camera gets a 5-Megapixel sensor with that F 1.9 lens as well, which could mean great things for your low light selfies.

To bring it all home Samsung hit us with a few nice surprises in the power department, a renewed and surprising focus on wireless charging with both PMA and WPC supported and fast wired charging inline with what we have been seeing on recent phones elsewhere. That’s good news! But with a non-removable battery of only 2550mAh those kind of charging options are also essential. The S6 also breaks with the long-standing Samsung tradition in another respect; there is no micro SD card expansion here. Samsung brings new storage technology for the three capacities available but you are struck with what you buy, you can’t expand it.

Despite these sacrifices breaking with tradition is just what Samsung need to free itself from the disappointing returns from last year’s S5 and it’s got me pretty excited for the potential of the Galaxy S6 as we head into spring 2015. Whether the phone lives up to that potential remains to be seen.

Samsung Galaxy S6 v/s iPhone 6

On one side we have Samsung’s latest and greatest for 2015 and the other we have the smart phone it is trying to beat. This is a short overview between the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6.

Samsung spent couple of hours comparing the Galaxy S6 to the iPhone 6 at MC 2015, and the reasons why are clear. Apple sold 75 Million iPhones matching all of Samsung smartphones for the first time ever last quarter. So Samsung really needed to do something about it. When you see them side by side there are just as many similarities as there are differences between these two looking at them it’s hard to tell them apart from the side or even from the bottom something which I know will gather mixed publicity for Samsung.

Even their aluminum construction, 64-Bit proprietary processors, Fingerprint Scanners, Non-removable batteries, lack of expandable storage could easily tell you that both these devices are siblings, but, the similarities end there. The Samsung Galaxy S6 has large 5.1’ display compared to 4.7’ inch on the iPhone 6 almost 200 more pixels per inch in its Quad HD display, three times more Ram, twice the mega pixel count in its primary camera, Optical Image Stabilization and a bigger lens aperture compared to the iPhone 6. It even has four times more pixels in the front facing camera with far better aperture compared to the iPhone 6 again.

The Galaxy S6 is almost 5mm taller, 3mm wider and barely 0.1mm thicker than the iPhone, something that makes all the sense in the world when you have a phone with wireless charging and a much larger battery as well. Even the construction of the Galaxy S6 looks more premium with its glass on glass aluminum act compared to the ugly antenna carvings on the back of the iPhone.

Samsung clearly raised the bar when it comes to design of the Galaxy S6 for the most part but that doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is positive the Galaxy S6 is the worst fingerprint magnet that I’ve ever seen by far, a problem that a iPhone 6 user doesn’t really need to suffer at least in the back. That being said both devices feel premium in the hand and only time will tell how the materials last in a long run. Overall you don’t seem to have a lesser phone on either side.

Probably the only disappointing part of the Galaxy S6 is that the Touch Wiz couldn’t look more similar to its predecessor. Surely, the company has invested in making it more intuitive but it looks like a rushed product where skew morphism is more predominant in the home screen and then gone in the settings menu a lot of inconsistencies. iOS 8 may not be everyone’s cup of tea but Apple’s flatter design is more consistent and available through out the UI even though that’s not necessary better. So far the first impressions of the Galaxy S6 are that it is a far better contender to the iPhone then any previous Galaxy ever was.