While there seems to be an endless number of Android phones on the market, for those of you shopping for one this summer are most likely only going to be looking at just a few. The perennially popular Galaxy S lineup being at or near the top of that list. This year Samsung introduced the S6 with two models (and just recently announced a third), you can pick from the regular Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge. On top of wanting to see what the new Samsung phones had to offer, I also really wanted to take a closer look at the difference between the two phones. I spent a little time with the original S6 and then spent a bunch of time with the Edge to see what sets it apart and also to see what justifies its higher price point. So today I’m going to talk a little about my experience.

Product Name: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge

Review Sample Provided by: Verizon

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Amazon Link: HERE

 

Specifications
Dimension 70.1 x 142.1 x 7.0 mm (132 g)
Camera

Rear : 16MP OIS (F1.9)

Front : 5MP (F1.9)

Display

5.1” Quad HD Super AMOLED

2560 x 1440 (577 ppi),

Dual edge display

CPU

Exynos 7420 (64-bit, 14nm),

Octa core (2.1GHz Quad + 1.5GHz Quad)

OS Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Memory

3GB RAM (LPDDR4)

32/64/128GB (UFS 2.0)

Battery 2600mAh
Standby Time Up to 13 days
Usage Time Up to 20 hours
Charging Fast Charging, Wireless Charging
Connectivity

Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac HT80 MIMO

620Mbps, Bluetooth® v4.1 LE, IR-LED, ANT+, USB 2.0, NFC, Location (GPS, Glonass, Beidou)

Sensors Accelerometer, Proximity, Light, Geo-magnetic, Gyro, Fingerprint, Barometer, Hall, HRM
Audio Format : MP3, M4A, 3GA, AAC, OGG, OGA, WAV, WMA, AMR, AWB, FLAC, MID, MIDI, XMF, MXMF, IMY, RTTTL, RTX, OTA
Video Format : MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, WEBM
Colors Black Sapphire, White Pearl, or Gold Platinum

 

 


Packaging

The last few Galaxy S phones that I have taken a look at actually had a fake wood look for their packaging. For the S6 they changed things up with an all white box. Up in the top right corner you have the storage capacity of your phone, beyond that they kept it simple with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge branding on the front and that’s it. On the back they list out everything that you can expect inside of the box. The other half of the back is basically filled with all of the fine print and copyright information.

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Inside the Edge is right on top when we open everything up. It sits in a tray with a small pull tab to pull the tray out to get to everything else. For accessories you get a set of cheap white earbuds, a standard USB 2.0 charging cord, a white AC to USB adapter for charging, and a tool to gain access to the phones SIM card. For documentation you get a stack of Verizon books with information on support, warranty, consumer information, information on radio frequencies, as well as a get to know your phone book.

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Photos and Features

Ignoring the curved sides that are specific to the Edge, the front of the Galaxy S6 really didn’t change much at all compared to the Galaxy S5 or even the S4. The front of the phone has the same single button design with that button being oval with a chrome ring around it. The button doesn’t show it but it also has a built in fingerprint sensor as well. Up top the phone does still have the Samsung logo just under the earpiece. From the front facing camera you get an impressive 5MP camera. The phone is available in a few different colors but out sample is a dark blue, I would almost call it black but when you see it next to the black screen it does have some blue to it.

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What sets the Edge apart from the standard Galaxy S6 is its curved glass design that curves down to a thin edge on each side. Giving the sides a little radius to them doesn’t really curve the screen itself meaning the screen doesn’t face out at all, but it does give you a little bit of a peak at the screen from the sides.

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The bottom of the S6 Edge is mostly normal with the exception of the curves at the sides. Samsung did pack both the USB charging plug as well as the microphone/headphone plug as well. Also down here is a small pinhole microphone as well as a set of holes for the speakerphone. Near the corners the S6 has clear plastic reliefs in the metal frame that should help absorb a small drop if your phone lands on its corner. What is interesting though is the Galaxy S5 actually had an interesting USB 3.0 connection that also let you charge via a standard micro USB connector I don’t know why they would drop that. The connector is also not covered by a waterproof latch like the S5. That means the S6 is not waterproof, for some people moving from the S5 this could be bit of a shock.

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Up on the top edge of the phone we have the same plastic relief’s as the bottom. There aren’t any connections or buttons up here there. We do have a small window for the built in IR blaster meaning you can use the S6 Edge to change channels on your television or any other remote controlled device. This is also where Samsung slipped in the SIM card slot. Without the removable batter and with that the back cover they had to find a place to keep the SIM card.

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The S6 Edge does get extremely thin at its side edges due to the curved glass design. The phone does still have its metal outer frame though, only it is much thinner. The left side of the phone has he volume up and down buttons and the right side has a single power button that also locks and unlocks the screen. The buttons are machined out of aluminum as well and are a little thinner than normal to fit into the tight edge.

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The biggest physical change for the S6 was the back of the phone. With Samsung dropping removable batteries they didn’t need a removable back any longer. Because of that they went with a full glass back were the older models had that indestructible removable plastic back panel. The glass panel has both the Galaxy S6 Edge branding as well as the Verizon 4G LTE branding because this phone is on the Verizon network. I’m not a big fan of the rear facing camera being raised up though meaning when you put the phone on a table the camera is what is touching all of the time. There is an aluminum frame around the lens to protect it slightly, but I still think it is inviting damage. For the camera the S6 has a 16 MP. Also on the back next to the camera is the LED flash, a light sensor, as well as the heart rate sensor.

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With the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge next to each other we can better see how the curved front glass changes the design of the phone. They are both the exact same size both in thickness and footprint although the edge gives the impression of it being thinner. The S6 has a more rounded edge than the edge as well reminding me a lot of an iPhone.

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For the display the Galaxy S6 Edge has a 5.1 inch Super AMOLED screen. The display runs at an impressive 2560x1440p giving the phone a PPI (pixels per inch) of 577. For perspective the iPhone 6 has a ppi of 326 and the iPhone 6 Plus has a ppi of 401 so they are really packing in the pixels.

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Performance

For the Galaxy S6 Edge Samsung has takin a completely new route for its CPU. In the past they used Qualcomm processors like the Snapdragon 801 in the Galaxy S5. This time around they went with the Exynos 7420 SoC. Exynos is a series of ARM based SoCs made by Samsung themselves, so this time around they went in house. The Exynos 7420 SoC is built on a 14nm manufacturing process where the Snapdragon 810 was made on a 20nm process. The Exynos 7420 SoC is very similar to the Exynos 5433 that they used on the Galaxy Note 4. They both use four ARM Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores but the 7420 has a higher clock speed on all eight cores . The A57 runs at 2.1GHz and the A53’s run at 1.5GHz. For its GPU the Exynos 7420 SoC uses an ARM Mali-T760 MP8 running at 772MHz. This means the S6 moved to an 8 core setup from the quad core that the S5 had. For performance I think there are a lot of reasons to not get all that excited about the additional four cores though, in a lot of situations most cores go unused.

That said to get a better look at that I did make some big changes to our benchmark suite to make sure we are testing single core performance as well as multi-core performance. In addition to the Vellamo results that test the single and multi-core support, I added storage testing because slow storage can slow down an otherwise fast device. One of our graphics tests was updated and didn’t fit our testing any longer so I added BaseMark X for additional gpu performance testing as well as BaseMark OS II as another overall performance test.

So to start off my testing I ran the Galaxy S6 Edge through three different browser based benchmarks. I was really surprised to see just how wide of a range the results were though. For Google’s Octane V2 the S6 and the S6 Edge were both right at the top of the charts, well above anything else. In Browsermark 2.1 though the results were on the other end of the spectrum. Then for Sunspider they were near the middle of the phones tested.

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Next I ran through our two gaming performance tests. With BaseMark X I don’t really have enough of a pool of tested phones to be able to compare but in 3DMark both phones performed extremely well. In fact oddly enough the top three phones were all Samsung’s with the Note 4 that has basically the same but slightly slower SoC as the S6 tops the chart. This and the fact that our Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge had a decent difference does show that the performance does still range from phone to phone even when you have the same hardware.

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Our new storage benchmark uses AndroBench to do both read and write speed testing on the storage. The Galaxy S6 Edge pulled an impressive 322 for read speed, putting it up closer to the SSDs that we see for PCs than phones.

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In Vellamo where we test both the single and multi-core CPU performance I was impressed to see that the S6 pulled a nice lead on the Note 4 in both tests. The extra clock speed helped a lot here, especially with the single core results.

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For general all around benchmarks you can’t go wrong with PCMark. The results for the BaseMark OS II benchmark aren’t really helpful right now without other phones to compare too but in PCMark the S6 Edge and S6 were all the way up at the top of our charts, over all of last year’s hot phones as well as the recently replaced Sony Xperia Z3v that I tested earlier this year.

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The test benchmark brought us back to PCMark once again but this time for battery performance testing. Oddly enough, even though the two S6’s have the same battery capacity the results were surprisingly different. I think this is a great example of how different the battery results can be when you first get your phone and after every day use. The S6 was tested early on (when we sent it back) and the S6 Edge wasn’t tested until more recently. That said how do the results look? Well They are both a huge jump over what the previous Galaxy S phones have done but there is still room to improve assuming the real world results are closer to what we saw with the heavily used S6 Edge. I am impressed that Samsung was able to see so much battery life with a 2600mAH battery when the other phones with good battery life had much larger batteries.

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Beyond the performance numbers how did the Galaxy S6 Edge perform day to day? Well the biggest thing I want to mention is the huge difference between the normal S6 and the Edge in overall comfort. The curved screen and thin sides actually lowered my overall impression of the phone almost immediately. The Edge frankly feels uncomfortable in my hand in comparison to the S6. The thin edge also made me worry that I would drop the phone although I didn’t drop it at all in my testing. The curved screen does add a few interesting features. I say interesting because they are cool but when using the phone I almost never used them. The biggest is if the phone is flipped over and you get a call the edge of the phone will light up. You can set this to different colors depending on the person and it will get help get your attention. There is also a night clock feature that during the night the screen shows a small dimly lit cock along the edge that you can see from the side if you have your phone on your nightstand. This same feature also will show some notifications and news story’s if you set that up. The curved screen had a downside as well. Because the screen itself is flat behind the curved glass and also because apps aren’t designed for a curved edge there are a lot of apps that will need you to touch something right on the curve of the phone making it hard to touch what you are aiming for. If Samsung were to maybe have the normal screen stop before the curved glass and then add features on the curve I would be less bothered by it all.

 

 


Software

It’s no surprise at all that Samsung bundled in a few of its own apps with the S6. They have been big on bringing in their own experience for a long time now to help set themselves apart from all of the other Android devices on the market. The S6 Edge comes with Lollipop so when it comes to the basic features the phone is surprisingly pure. I love that they only add their touch on the apps, not big skins or other changes in the OS. This means updates will come quicker and if you have used a Lollipop phone in the past you will know your way around.

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For people like me who need to focus more on their health as well as people who are into fitness Samsung includes their S Health app. Here you can track your steps each day as well as your food intake, bike rides, stress, and even your heart rate. While it isn’t a new feature, I still love that Samsung includes the built in heart rate monitor, not only is it a quick and easy way to check your heart rate but the app actually tracks your results for you.

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With the built in IR Blaster Samsung once again included an remote control app. This app has evolved over the last few phones. They have done a great job of mixing the basic remote controls along with recommendations to watch based on your age and sex. You also have a nice way to browse what is currently on TV with easy to spot photos of the shows and channels. Oddly enough even my TV provider doesn’t do a good job of this. I was a little disappointed that they somehow dropped support for our Time Warner cable box though. In the past it was supported but they are down to two cable box options for Time Warner. I was able to get it to work by using a Comcast box but it did change the controls slightly.

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The other really interesting app included with the S6 Edge is called Milk. Milk is a Samsungs own music service that is powered by Slacker Radio. You can make channels just like in Pandora but what is unique about it is the wheel of music that is on the main page. You can basically dial into the exact type of music you are interested in at that very moment. Say for example you are feeling a mix of hip hop and rock, you can set the dial in between the two. Beyond that, you can even open up another options menu and actually set if you are looking for songs that are popular, new or old, and how much of the songs on the channel do you want to be from your favorites. As someone who loves setting up a channel on Pandora and just letting it run, I would love to have some of these options to be able to fine tune what I’m into right now.

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Camera

As always I took a few shots to show how the rear facing camera performs in different situations. I took a shot outside, one inside in normal lighting (our standard cat photo), and then shots using studio lighting and then no lighting at all. Considering my outside shot was actually on a very overcast day I was really happy that the photo picked up on the flower colors so well. Inside with our cat photo I have a chance to see just how well the camera adjusts focus when dealing with a moving subject that you cant control in none optimum lighting. I wasn’t impressed at all with how long it took to focus and I actually had to take a few shots to get one that came out in focus completely. Not to mention for once the cat wasn’t running all over the place, normally it is a much more mobile shot. The inside photos of the miniature quadcopter did show a nice focus on the front and back of the quad with good lighting (even though one of my bulbs went out when doing this). The low light shot on the other hand showed just how grainy the S6’s photos can get when taking low light shots. At the end of the day the camera was great in decent lighting but average at best in low light as well as focus time.  

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Overall and Final Verdict

Considering how popular the Galaxy S series of phones has been I had high expectations going into my testing of the Galaxy S6 Edge. In a lot of ways I was impressed with the phone. The performance day to day was great and that showed in the performance testing as well. The battery life on our Edge sample was worse than the standard S6 even though they have the same battery capacity but when compared to the S5 and S4 I was impressed with the S6’s improved battery life. As always Samsung impressed with their nearly pure OS and great exclusive apps. There apps take advantage of the phones features like the built in heart rate monitor and the built in IR Blaster to give features that most phones don’t have. All of the apps improve life and are better than any free and most pay options. I also love the high resolution screen.

The problem I had with the S6 is that it felt like it takes two steps forward and three steps back. They improved the batter life but dropped the removable battery and they dropped the waterproofing that helped make living with the S5 worry free. They improved the front facing camera but the rear camera was slow to focus for me and its low light performance was average at best. Then the biggest issue for me was how the Edge design created problems that the basic S6 didn’t have. The edge feels more uncomfortable in my hand and I always felt like I might drop it where the S6 was great in hand. The curved screen created issues with the touchscreen on some apps for me and the features it did add didn’t really end up being useful to me at all.

In the end I would much rather use/own the regular Galaxy S6 over the S6 Edge based just on the overall experience. Add in the S6 Edge actually costs $100 more than the regular Galaxy S6, making the decision even easier. That is of course unless you want to be trendy, a lot of people did ask about the Edge when using it. For me I still think the Galaxy S6 is a good phone although I don’t think it is that I have to have phone. In a lot of ways it is the Android equivalent to the iPhone. If someone was looking at the S6 I wouldn’t stere them away, but I am curious to test a few of the other recently launched phones to see if any of the others really blow me away like the Xperia Z3v and Droid Maxx did for me last year.

fv4

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #36736 26 Jun 2015 19:53
Today I take a look at the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge to see what the big fuss is all about with its edge design. Check it out, have a good weekend everyone!

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