About the smartphone
At the annual Mobile World Congress 2020, Samsung presented two flagship Galaxy devices: the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Both devices received positive reviews from the press, and mere mortals were eagerly awaiting the announcement of prices and the start date of sales. And so, after some time, it became known that in Russia the first phones will fall into the hands of happy customers starting on April 16.
The price tag of more than sixty thousand rubles seems quite high, because the cool reviews from the owners of the previous flagship, the Galaxy S5, are still fresh in memory. And in this article we will dot all the E’s so that, after reading to the end, you can decide for yourself whether to go to the “Android” camp or remain a supporter of your native “Apple”. I am sure of one thing: there will be no indifferent people, because the devices turned out to be truly new and technologically advanced.
In my hands was a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge , Black Sapphfire , with 32 gigabytes of memory on board (of which 25.3 GB is available to the user). I find it more interesting than just the Galaxy S6 because of the curved screen on the sides. Whether this is good or bad, we will try to determine together with you in this review.
A box made of white, thick cardboard with a laconic design contains:
- the device itself;
- documentation in a separate box;
- micro USB cable;
- adapter for 220v;
- headset with remote control;
- one set of replacement tips for the headset;
- a paperclip for removing the SIM card tray.
There was nothing supernatural in the box: everything was needed and neatly packed. The brief user manual contains a minimum of information. It is assumed that the lucky owner of the gadget will be able to read the full instructions on the Samsung website.
When you first touch the device, you understand: the company has done a great job of rethinking the concept of a “flagship smartphone.” No plastic, only metal and glass . The aluminum frame gracefully curves around the edges of the device, and the electronics are reliably protected by Gorilla Corning Glass 4 on both sides.
There shouldn't be any scratches or abrasions, but such a coating will collect fingerprints (a criminologist's dream!). So you definitely need to buy an additional cover, or periodically wipe the screen and back of the device with a cloth.
In general, despite jokes about the two designers, the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S6 Edge have no similarities. It seems that someone in the depths of the management department of the Korean company slammed his fist on the table and demanded that all past complaints and customer dissatisfaction be urgently corrected. The team was executed perfectly. The device does not creak, there is no play, all the buttons are clear and pleasant to press.
The battery is now non-removable, and there are no memory cards (just the way we like it!). Particularly malicious people can compare the location and shape of the device’s elements on the bottom edge, but these are minor things.
The color of the device is a separate topic for discussion: indoors the smartphone appears blue-black, but when you hold it up to the light, you realize that the color is actually deep dark blue. I think that this is exactly the color scheme that the palantirs had in the trilogy about the hobbits, because such a transition of colors is fascinating: several times I caught myself just twirling the phone in my hands, watching how its color changed.
The SIM card tray is located on the top edge of the device, next to the infrared port (sic!). The S6 Edge “eats” a SIM card of the smallest format, the principle of removing the tray is simple and familiar: with the included paperclip, you need to press into the special hole until it stops. You can only insert one SIM card, no multi-SIM solutions. This is a premium smartphone, remember?
The screen is gorgeous. No, really, the screen is simply gorgeous! Super AMOLED technology, 5.1″ diagonal, with a resolution of 2560×1440 pixels, pixel density 577 ppi – this is no joke. For comparison, the Galaxy S5 had 432 ppi, the iPhone 6 Plus had 401 ppi, the LG G3 had 543 ppi (although the LG G3 had a larger diagonal - 5.5 inches). Black color is truly black, all other colors are bright and rich. In the sun, of course, readability is not very good, but it’s a solid four. There is no change in brightness or contrast when looking at the screen at an angle. The curved sides of the screen also do not distort the perception of the picture.
I wanted to include a description of the OS as a separate paragraph, because it is clear that the company has done a lot of work to change and optimize the software component. The operating system is Android 5.0.2 (Lollipop), on top of which is traditionally installed its own proprietary graphical interface - TouchWiz. However, little remains of the usual clumsy TouchWiz with a bunch of unnecessary software. All unnecessary animation has disappeared, and the controls and overall appearance are as consistent as possible with the canons of the new Android.
Several days of active use and AnTuTu tests confirmed that the smartphone’s performance is excellent.
This is understandable - eight cores after all. By the way, the Galaxy S6 Edge is the first smartphone in which the company used the Exynos 7420 processor, built on the new 14-nanometer technology. It consumes significantly less energy. The operating principle is no different from Octacore chips, where the processor is divided into two clusters of four processor cores: ARM Cortex-A57 with a frequency of 2.1 GHz and an energy-saving ARM Cortex-A53 with a frequency of 1.5 GHz. The overall performance was impartially shown by a test from Geekbench:
“Heavy” games just fly, there are no lags. The Mali-T760 processor is responsible for the graphics, there are no complaints about it.
The 3D Mark test confirmed: in graphic terms, the Galaxy S6 Edge is more than fine. Based on test results, the smartphone currently has no analogues on the market.
I got the phone with a SIM card from MTS, so I didn’t experience any problems with communication. The device operates in GSM networks 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz, and the data transfer speed via 4G LTE reaches 150 Mbit/s. I tested Internet connections in different parts of Moscow and everywhere the smartphone quickly loaded website pages and was able to use streaming radio. Of course, I didn’t see the ideal 150 Mbit/s, but the Speedtest service consistently showed data transmission and reception results at the level of 20-27 Mbit/s. I never experienced any problems with the Internet, which left me very pleased.
In addition, the device has Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, DLNA, OTG, MTP, Miracast and GPS/Glonass support modules. At the top end there is an IR port for controlling various home appliances (such as a TV) through a standard application.
Samsung also finally used wireless charging in its flagships of the most common standards - Qi and PowerMat. In addition, the company will release its own wireless chargers. Models in the colors “White Pearl” and “Blue Topaz” have already been presented. Judging by the photographs on the Internet, they look stylish, and during charging they are also illuminated around the perimeter.
In the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, engineers used a camera similar in characteristics to that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (the same 16 megapixels, with an optical stabilizer), but the f/1.9 lens makes all the difference - the camera is better in the dark than in the notorious Note. There are many settings in the application itself, for every taste.
In general, the camera is one of the strongest points of the Korean flagship: real-time HDR shooting is implemented (without the need to take several frames sequentially) and a special mode for photographing in low light. The camera starts up and is ready for use within 0.7 seconds. There is no dedicated button to launch the camera, but there is an option to double-click the center key (Home).
The comparison used was an iPhone 6, the difference in the photo can be seen below.
Design
The tablet comes in different colors; in addition to neutral black, there are also options in blue and pink. In any case, the case will be aluminum, thin and quite light, the dimensions are excellent.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. Photo: Alexander Pobyvanets / Wylsacom Media
The front part is generally featureless: no logos or mentions of Samsung, it looks simple and concise. The matte back part gets very dirty, this is especially noticeable on dark colors. The only thing that stands out is the camera lens.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. Photo: Alexander Pobyvanets / Wylsacom Media
iPhone 6
The device can shoot video in both Full HD and ultra-clear 4K resolution.
Full HD:
4K
Among other camera functions, an interesting 3D photo mode was discovered. You need to walk around the object of interest with the camera turned on, and the resulting three-dimensional image will be saved in the photo gallery. Subsequently, such a photo can be viewed from different angles using a gyroscope. This function is best illustrated by this animation.
The front camera with a resolution of 5 megapixels is simply created for self-examination and video communication. The quality is also excellent.
Bottom line : the camera in the new device from the Koreans is amazing in its clarity and number of additional settings. You can manually set the ISO parameters, white balance, focus, and various color filters. Objects photographed in motion are not blurred, continuous shooting produces up to 35 frames in 10 seconds. The resulting images can be immediately shared on social networks, sent by mail or saved in cloud storage.
I would like to give the camera a five plus. Well done.
One of the main features of the new smartphone is, of course, the screen rounded on the sides. In the notebook and browser, it is very convenient to scroll through lists and pages by sliding your finger along the side of the screen. In addition, an additional menu has appeared on the desktop, which can be called up by swiping from the right edge. In this menu, the user can assign up to five important contacts from the address book. Each contact is assigned a different color (your choice of purple, green, blue, yellow and orange).
If the phone is face down and one of these five contacts is trying to call you, the edge of the phone begins to glow in the color that was assigned to the contact. Convenient for meetings or in silent mode, and it looks very stylish.
The side edge can also inform you about missed calls and notifications regarding five selected contacts. There is an “Information Flow” function, when notifications are displayed as a line on the side when the screen is off, and a “Night Clock” function, when the current time is also displayed on the side if the screen is not working.
A dry language of numbers and facts for those who like this:
- SoC Exynos 7420 (64-bit), two clusters of four processor cores: ARM Cortex-A57 with a frequency of 2.1 GHz and ARM Cortex-A53 with a frequency of 1.5 GHz
- GPU: Mali-T760
- Operating system Android 5.0 Lollipop
- Touch Super AMOLED display, 5.1″, 2560×1440
- Random access memory (RAM) 3 GB LPDDR4
- Internal memory 32, 64 or 128 GB
- No microSD card slot
- Data transfer speed max 4G LTE up to 150 Mbps
- Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4/5 GHz), Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC
- Support DLNA, OTG, MTP, Miracast
- GPS/Glonass, IR port
- 16 MP camera with optical image stabilizer (OIS)
- Front camera 5 MP
- Barometer, fingerprint sensor, Hall and heart rate sensors
- Non-removable lithium polymer battery 2600 mAh
- Dimensions: 142×70×7 mm
- Weight: 132 g
Samsung listened to the complaints and wishes of its smartphone users. The company's engineers have created unique, original devices that will no longer be compared with Apple products. I think that you can really fall in love with the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, not because it is not like an iPhone, but because it is simply good. And this is great, because competition spurs progress.
A little more, and Samsung will start saying “one more thing” at its presentations instead of Apple, while it is busy releasing unfinished smart watches and low-performance gold laptops.
PS Thanks to MTS for providing the smartphone and stable connection during testing.
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