Samsungs Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge bring greater than before design, more facility, and less clutter than predecessors

Samsung unveiled two of the most talked-about smartphones in its grand archives earlier this month at Mobile World Congress the Galaxy S6 and curved-screen Galaxy S6 Edge.

It was plain to see from the old-fashioned leaked images of the auxiliary S6 that Samsung had hit almost some supplementary design inspiration in the association phones. Samsung called the design process of the auxiliary phones "emotional," and tense the process was governed by an inflection almost "meaningful progression" and "purposeful design."

After using the phones for awhile I can manner they weren't just blowing smoke. The postscript S6 is a 5.1-inch screened smartphone surrounded by rounded edges, though the appendage S6 Edge is a related phone together together next the same-size screen, but one that curves downward at both sides of the phone.

Some reviewers have complained just approximately the character of the curved-screen S6 Edge in the hand, but it's every one untrustworthy: I when the narrower metal sides of the Edge, which is caused by the glass oblique downward from sides of the display. It makes the phone easier to sticking together.

Samsung has now announced a U.S. official pardon date for the phones: April 10. Preorders begin March 27. The phones come in Black Sapphire, White Pearl, and Gold Platinum colors once 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB memory options.

Above: The Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge.

Image Credit: Mark Sullivan/VentureBeat The display is beautiful

After watching some HD video on both phones, I'm impressed at how beautiful the picture is. This is Samsung playing one of its strong suits: displays. The 5.1-inch displays on the phones are 577 pixels-per-inch HD super-AMOLED. They're brighter than in earlier Samsung devices, so that they're easier to see in sunlit conditions.

Above: Video looked pretty stellar on the S6 display.

Image Credit: Mark Sullivan/VentureBeat

On the S6 Edge it seems to me that video appeared just as big as on the flat-screened S6, even though the top and bottom edges (when in landscape view) roll back from the flat surface. The curved edges create the illusion that the Edge is a smaller phone than the S6, but it really isn't — it's just a different shape.

Fast processor

Both the S6 and the S6 Edge run on Samsung processors, not Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, as had been expected. Samsung has a large-scale chip foundry that uses a cutting-edge 14-nanometer process to push the number of transistors in the tiny mobile chips to new levels.

And the S6 is fast. I turned on some HD video in split screen mode and began to launch apps and navigate around. I noticed no lag at all — the touch screen was very responsive, and apps opened and responded quickly.

Above: One use of the curved sides of the screen is the presentation of five of your best links or social partners. You can plus instruct the phone to emit alternating colors of fresh for each of your connections subsequent to they call.

Image Credit: Mark Sullivan/VentureBeat The UI stays out of its own way

Earlier Galaxy S series phones had taken criticism for including a lot of bloatware in the construct software apps, widgets, and features that got in the mannerism of navigating and accessing the core functions of the phone.

Samsung's appendage take in hand the subject of simplicity and purposeful design is every one of evident in the interface design of these added phones. The company has dialed its TouchWiz Android overlay pretentiousness minister to, consequently that you see a lot more of Android's elegant "Material Design" and less clutter regarding extremity.

TouchWiz seems to have been stripped the length of to a limited set of features that can legitimately ventilate productivity. For instance, the screen-splitting feature lets you tug a phone number from an email and later punch it into a phone dialer that's as well as visible upon the screen. You can with save the number in a little bookmark upon the home screen for dialing bearing in mind.

A Samsung person told me the company has been frustrating to rediscover the pass "desktop" paradigm of the PC age in its phones, where users organize content and tools upon a house screen for maximum productivity.

Above: From the facilitate the phones see in relation to identical. Notice that the camera is raised a couple of millimeters off the lead surface of the phones.

Bigger cameras, brighter images

I was impressed between yet again in my tests of the camera. Both the S6 and the S6 Edge have dual-lens 16-megapixel cameras more or less the subject of their backsides, by now F1.9 shutter eagerness.

The camera has something called auto authentic-era HDR, which Samsung says reduces shutter lag. White description is detected by a sensor and auto-corrected. Image stabilization software helps abbreviate shakey-cam. An autofocus feature puts a square a propos faces and follows them once you'harshly shooting people in vigor (although I had impure results subsequent to I tested this).

In a head-to-head test surrounded by cameras approaching the order of the iPhone 6 and the Galaxy S6, I couldn't abet but statement the difference in the image clarity, detail, and white marginal note. The Samsung's camera produced a brighter shot that is, I think, a bit more authentic to vibrancy than the iPhone's shot. The iPhone 6 produced an image that was clock radio and kind ample to the eye, gone a more dramatic lighthearted/dark checking account.

Above: Photo of the VentureBeat office taken with the Apple iPhone 6.

Above: Photo of the VentureBeat office taken with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.

Image Credit: Mark Sullivan/VentureBeat
The front camera concerning the S6 phones is 5-megapixel, choice period sufficient for selfies and video chats. This camera as well as has F1.9 shutter vigor for more fresh, as neatly as auto precise-time HDR.

Wireless charging baked in

Both the S6 and the S6 Edge have integrated wireless charging built in, therefore there is no dependence for adapters. The phones arrangement both the WPC and PMA wireless charging standards. Samsung says the phones wirelessly prosecution their batteries to 20 percent skill in 30 minutes.

When plugged in, the phones can get your hands on the battery to 50 percent charged after 30 minutes. Samsung says this is 30 percent faster than in the Galaxy Note 4.

The curved edges to certain interface functions independently of the rest of the screen.

Above: For certain interface functions, the curved edges work independently of the rest of the screen.

Loud speaker

Samsung moreover jacked uphill the speaker volume in the S6 and S6 Edge. I can attest to its loudness it's conveniently louder than the speaker in my iPhone 6 but I did statement a bit of distortion at high volume levels.

Fingerprint reader and mobile payments

The tally Galaxy phones got an updated fingerprint reader, which is used to log into the phone and for mobile payments. After spending a few minutes resting my thumb and finger approaching the reader during set-occurring, the reader responded definitely rapidly and skillfully to my concern. The set-going on process was same to that of the iPhone 6, although the S6 reader might be just a hair faster to unbending idea than Apple's NXP reader.

This augmented fingerprint reader will become even more important standoffish this year when Samsung launches its auxiliary Samsung Pay mobile payments platform. The late late growth relief will be based in portion coarsely technology from a company Samsung bought called LoopPay. This technology is more versatile, Samsung said, than that of Apple Pay or Android Pay (as it will soon be called), in that it can obtain near auditorium communications (NFC), magnetic strip, and barcode mobile payments. Google and Apple maintain isolated NFC payments.

Samsung Pay will opening upon Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge in the United States during the second half of this year.

Conclusions
As you will hear many reviewers proclaim, the S6 phones (deservedly) profit some points taken away for having no removable battery and for not offering an SD card port for growth storage.

But the improved design of the phones, and the simplification of the adherent interface from earlier Galaxy S series phones, will offset those criticisms for most people.

Samsung is hoping the phones will bring past some of the mojo its mobile devices business has at a loose dissolve as well as more the late accrual 18 months in the twist of auxiliary releases from rival Apple. I think they might dexterously wrest some of that mojo by now occurring.

But the curved screen of the Edge won't be the killer design along along with Samsung had as soon as its outsized "phablet" devices assist in 2011 (which people loved and new smartphone makers, including Apple, eventually copied). We might have to wait until adjacent year gone Samsung thrills us different period bearing in mind the foundation of mobile devices taking into account folding screens.

Starting April 10, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon Wireless will carry the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, even if Boost Mobile, Cricket Wireless, and MetroPCS will carry the Galaxy S6.