Samsung Galaxy S6 and Edge

Plastic.

Band-Aid.

Cheap.

Just some words that many have used to describe Samsung’s Galaxy line of phones in the past. This year, Samsung has changed that notion and flipped the tables on its design philosophy.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are made out of metal and gorilla glass 4, which wraps the front and back sides of the devices, with the metal around the sides where one would hold the phone. Obviously to most, the name isn’t the only difference between Samsung’s flagship variants, but two curved edges come with the S6 edge. Unlike the recent Galaxy Note Edge which was slanted on one side and took away button real-estate, the S6 edge also is only partway skewed, giving the user room on the sides to hold the device comfortably along the metal sides.

It’s not just the outside that changed though; Samsung has opted for their own silicon this time around using an 2.1 Ghz 14nm Exynos Octa-core processor (64 Bit of course). They’ve also become the first smartphone to include DDR4 memory and UFS 2.0 storage. Without getting nitty gritty in the nerd speak here, this means insanely fast storage with speeds never before seen in a smartphone’s flash memory, faster operations, and much improved battery usage overall.

Samsung has stuck with a 16MP shooter, but are now using Optical Image Stabilitzation (OIS) for un-shaking those photos and an F1.9 lens. Again, not getting down and dirty with specs, the low light quality on this should be insane, and the camera a noticeable improvement over the Galaxy S5. The same lens is also on the 5MP front facing wide-angle camera.

Real life battery usage will take time to see. The Galaxy S6 rocks a 2550 mAh battery while the S6 Edge a 2600 mAh, only a trivial  50 mAh difference. The big change this time around, Samsung has built in a competitor to Qualcomm’s Quick Charge technology. They are claiming 4 Hours of battery life in only 10 minutes on the charger, quite a claim to make! Another inclusion is Wireless Charging and not just one, but two technology are inside. What this means for the end user, is any wireless charging station is going to work just fine, and no more worrying about what a “Qi” is.

Some other additions are Samsung Pay, a serious competitor to Apple Pay and Google Wallet. Not only does it support NFC payments, Samsung Pay supports MagStripe Transfer. Any place that accepts sliding a credit card, will accept Samsung Pay. This is amazing news, with many locations blocking NFC payments for nefarious or unknown reasons. The other addition a new fingerprint scanner, now touch based rather than swiping. This is a key part of Samsung Pay, since it encrypts everything with your fingerprint stored locally on your device, never going to some untrustworthy server.

Overall, Samsung has made some serious strides, but as you may have noticed they have discontinued external storage, water resistance, and removable battery support. This may seem like a deal-breaker to some, but with new charging methods and 3 storage options the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge seem like the phone to want, as of today.

Specs List:

2.1 Ghz Octa-core Exynos Processer (14nm Process).
16MP F1 w/ OIS back facing. 5MP F1 front facing.
3GB DDR4 memory.
UFS 2.0 storage in 32GB/64GB/128GB configurations.
Wireless charging and NFC.
2550 S6/2600 edge mAh battery.
5.1″ 1440p SuperAMOLED display.
Fingerprint scanner (touch based).
Colors: White Pearl, Black Sapphire, Gold Platinum, Blue Topaz.

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are planned to launch April 10th, 2015 in 20 countries initially.