Samsung Galaxy S6 review

You’re not reading this. You’re in a different part of this virtuality reading about the more exciting and prettier Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.

But we’re going to continue with our S6 hands-on impressions as if you were here. Just to be polite.

Prior to Samsung’s MWC announcements about the two new phones, we spent some time in the cellar of a London hotel having a sneaky look. The executive brief was that the S6 and S6 Edge represented the endgame of ‘Project Zero’ – a return to the fundamentals of smartphone design and an opportunity to focus on innovation, rather than iteration.

By fortunate coincidence, the resulting design direction has more than a smidgen of iPhone about. But comparisons are the lowest form of flattery, or however the saying goes.

Hands-on video review

The prettiest galaxy yet?

Gone are the ‘nasty’ plastics of Galaxy past. No faux leather finish as with the Note here either.

Instead, the S6 has a metal chassis, and glass covering the front and back. The fit and finish makes you want to use words such as ‘chamfer’, ‘roundel’ and ‘drilled’, whatever they mean.

While the S6 Edge gets a racy green finish to itself, the S6 gets a surfy blue. Both phones alternatively come in charcoal, white and gold – the finish is described by Samsung as ‘jewel-like’. Fortunately it’s classier than that sounds. The metal edges are almost imperceptibly darker from the white version to the charcoal version.

The glass back and the front screen edges curve slightly into the chassis, and there’s a very thin bezel on either side of the 5.1in, QHD Super AMOLED screen. Yep, no 4K screen – but that was never the most desirable of the S6 rumours anyway.

Despite the addition of all this glass and metal, the new S6 is lighter than the outgoing S5, albeit by only an imperial smidge. It feels solid and balanced, with a more traditional hand feel than the S6 Edge’s sharp sides.

The power button is situated in the center of the right-hand side of the phone, above the pin-and-socket type SIM tray, and the volume controls are high up on the left side. The top has only a wee microphone hole and the IR sender.

There’s much action on the bottom edge, with the headphone socket, microUSB and a newly placed, power-boosted speaker. Samsung say it’s 1.5x louder, a fact that we were unable to verify having left our portable anechoic chamber on the train. It’s got a lovely drilling, that speaker, but we daresay that HTC’s twin front-mounted BoomSound setup will still be the choice of the boom-tish social misfit.

But what price beauty?

Of course the downside to that unibody shell, for Samsung fans, may be that there’s no removable back panel – a sacrifice for the new classy build. So no removable battery either, nor the ability to swap out your memory card.

It’s not like you get a much bigger battery either: capacity is 2550mAh, compared to 2600mAh for the S6 Edge and 2800mAh for the outgoing S5. But there’s wireless charging built in, compatible with an optional Samsung charger and, claimeth they, with the majority of wireless charge points in Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. Its cable charger apparently provides two hours of HD video playback for just 10mins of charging.

The lack of microSD card slot may be an issue for some too. Still, the S6 will come with 32, 64 or 128GB of memory built in, and it’s the new-fangled UFS 2.0 type too. ‘All the faster to fill it up’ a cynical wolf would say, using his sharpest claw to tiddly-wink his now-redundant microSD collection into the bin. Less doom-laden data hounds might look to a product such as the Leef Bridge to stay on top of their hoardage and backup needs.

Camera and software

The camera lens on the back of the S6 protrudes. Forgivable, if its optical image stabilisation and low-light-loving f1.9 aperture hold up in real-world testing.

The front camera is 5MP, compared to 16MP round the back, but it also gets the big eye. Both are made slightly easier to use by some camera app tweaks that add text identifiers to the previously inscrutable on-screen icons.

But, before you begin groaning about Samsung adding yet more depth to its Marmite-effect TouchWiz UI, there’s good news. It was at pains to point out that it’s taken out a lot of the unnecessary extra steps in the UI – there are now fewer confirmation dialogs, for example. That should make things faster. Or, more accurately, that should clear the way for the 64-bit processor to perform as it’s efficient 14nm architecture suggests.

Helped by 3GB of special LPDDR4 RAM, which Samsung says is 88% faster than the ridiculous RAM in the S5.

Tech specs

Screen: 5.1in, QHD, 1440×2560, 572ppi, Super AMOLED

Processor: 64-bit Exynos, 14nm process

RAM: 3GB LPDDR4

Storage: 32/64/128GB using UFS 2.0 tech – no microSD

Camera: 16MP, f1.9, Smart OIS, HDR (rear); 5MP, f1.9, HDR (front)

Battery: 2550mAh

Dimensions: 143.4×70.5×6.8mm, 138g

Colours: White, charcoal, gold, blue

Initial verdict

There are lots of ‘mays’ and ‘shoulds’ here, because while impressions can be formed about the look and feel of a phone quite quickly, OS and processor and camera testing take a longer look. And fewer Samsung execs peering over one’s shoulder.

We’ll be getting a review sample very soon. But as an answer to the criticisms thrown at Samsung phones for the past few years, the S6 is a success. It’s a desirable, flagship- feeling object.

Samsung Galaxy S6 review