The Galaxy S6 was officially launched in India by the South Korean smartphone giant Samsung, a few months ago. It surfaced up with a beautiful design made from premium materials also had a camera that could probably replace your point & shoot and showcased top of the line specifications. But what actually came as a surprise to us was the Galaxy S6 Edge, which was a replica of the Galaxy S6 in terms of everything except for that highly hyped up and talked about curved display on both the latitudinal sides unlike the Note Edge from previous year that had a curved display on just one side. I got a chance to use the S6 Edge for about a week and here’s how it went.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: Specifications
If we talk about the specifications, Samsung literally has you covered. You’ve got an Octa-Core Exynos 7420 processor which has half the cores clocked at 1.5Ghz and the other half at 2.1Ghz. You also have 3GB of RAM so you won’t hang up. As far as storage is concerned you’ve got three options to choose from, 32/64/128 GB depending on your usage. Sadly you can’t expand the memory since the memory card slot does not exist anymore. It runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with a fairly heavy custom skin years that is Touchwiz. On the connectivity aspect, the S6 Edge comes with 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/(dual band), & the standard Bluetooth and GPS. It has a very polarising 2600 mAh battery with wireless charging inbuilt which is really convenient.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: Design & Build
As far as the design and hardware are concerned, the Galaxy S6 Edge is completely covered up with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 at the front and the back with Aluminum for the frame. It’s really very light weight and almost as thin as a 3 year old iPhone 5/5S. But talking about the looks & the feel, it’s not only the best smartphone built by Samsung but also one of the most amazingly built and beautiful pieces of hardware to look at as of now. The glass at the back reflects shades of blue and black which looks incredible but it does make the Edge a lot slippery. As far as the frame is concerned, it is constructed out of Aluminum and is plays essential part in providing grip to the device but it gets really hot in performance aspect. Also since the S6 Edge is curved at the front, I was a bit skeptical about holding the device properly and messing around with the screen un-intentionally, but it didn’t really happen with me. It somehow automatically adjusted in my hands & that’s what made me hold the phone just as like a regular one, no issues at all. But actually the front of the S6 Edge is basically the same we have been having for several years in a row now which comprises of two off-screen touch capacitive buttons beside the home button. Also one thing to note is that the home button is much more tactile and also is a highly improved fingerprint sensor over the S5. You don’t need to swipe anymore, just tap to go in. Although it is still not the best of the best. It’s not that accurate and fast when compared to other flagships so Samsung definitely needs to work on that.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: Display
But I guess Samsung has worked a lot on the screen aspect this time just like every year and it shows. It’s the same size from previous year, 5.1” but now boasts a Quad-HD resolution that means 2560×1440 pixels. If you do a bit of Math you’ll get whopping 577 pixels every single inch. So this thing does not know what’s pixelation at all. It has got some really good viewing angles & since it is also a Super AMOLED display, it has some of the best color reproductions with amazing viewing quality. It also gets pretty bright in direct sunlight so outdoor visibility was definitely not a problem for me. Oh and yeah don’t forget to watch a 1440p videos on this thing, trust me its amazing.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: Performance
Coming to the interesting part, just like the regular S6 the S6 Edge also features an octa-core Exynos 7420 processor which has half the cores clocked in at 1.5Ghz and the other half at 2.1Ghz. You have also got 3GB of RAM to not hang up. It handles day-to-day usage without any throttling. I was able to browse heavy websites, watch QHD videos, play graphically intensive games without any issues. And that’s really what you expect from a flagship. The only downside in the performance was that it got really hot at least the so very thin bezels holding the curved edges. It usually happened when I gamed or used cellular data network for a prolonged tenure. I definitely think this something Samsung needs to put it’s head on.
Now since the specifications are so freaking high, the software should be not be lousy. And although initially it came as a surprise to me, but it wasn’t, at all. You don’t really expect Galaxies to be smooth, do you ? But lately Touchwiz has been drastically improved with fairly less of bloatware and smooth performances. There are still various features but for me the best one out of those will be Multi-tasking which Samsung pioneered with the Note series. It’s still very innovative and ironically is my most used features of all time in a Galaxy. But actually Touchwiz is has got some extra added features on the S6 Edge than the regular S6, mainly because of that edge. Now the S6 Edge costs over $100 more than the regular S6 & in an attempt to make the edge practical for daily life, Samsung has built in some really cool features that are really very interesting but are definitely not the most useful in the daily life.
To start off, there is the People Edge that basically lets you choose your favorite contacts, places them in the one of the edges and gives you the option to communicate with them just by swiping from it’s card on top right corner of selected edge. Sounds pretty darn interesting & it’s quite fast and useful but make sure you don’t forget about this like I did. There is also a Night clock, which activates when you rub the selected edge. It gives you a clock and you can swipe to get all your notifications as well. It’s always dim because it is meant to be used during night as the name suggests. I completely forgot about this and instead ended up pressing the home button to check time & get all my stuff right on the lock screen which actually turned out to be way faster than rubbing the edge in the middle of the night. But probably the most interesting feature was Edge Lighting. When someone calls you and you somehow have your phone placed screen first on a surface, there is a really cool effect where the color you have assigned to the contact flows in and out of the edge. Looks really cool but not too sure how many people would actually keep there phone upside down. At the end of the day Touchwiz has definitely improved a lot and finally doesn’t hang like before. But as far as the extra added features on the S6 Edge are concerned, paying an extra $100 for them is surely not worth it. Samsung really thought hard on these unique and beautiful features but they are surely not the most useful for everyone.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge: Camera
If we talk about the camera, it would be really very easy to say that the S6 Edge has one of the best cameras I have used in such a long time. It’s got a 16MP sensor with a very wide aperture of f1.9 that can shoot videos in 4K. First of all, you can just double tap the home button to get into the camera app literally just under a second which is insanely cool. Talking about the camera app, it is really clean. You’ve got an wide array of amazing features but the most advanced one has to be the manual mode. It basically lets you manually focus, set the White balance, ISO and the shutter speed according to the circumstances. The camera is also really fast in taking shots and as far as the shots are concerned, they are the sole reason behind this camera’s excellent capability. It’s are hard to believe that they came from a smartphone. They have an incredible amount of detail, the colors are on point, have a fairly good dynamic range and although not so natural but do look crisp even on a desktop. The only nitpick that I came across while using the camera was the over sharpening of images which took away from the natural feel from the shots most of the times. If Samsung can fix that, it can definitely succeed in swapping the S6 Edge with my point & shoot.
Verdict
But at the end of the journey, for 577 pixels every single inch and such a power-puffed processor, would a 2600 mAh suffice? Unfortunately its a No, it won’t. I wish Samsung had also realized it. The battery life on the S6 Edge is really discouraging, probably the only thing that does not let me use the device without any limitations and boundaries. It’s hard to remember a day when i did not charge this thing before going to the bed. Also the screen on time is not at all impressive. Again definitely something Samsung needs to improve.
And so there you have it. If you are looking for something new and something that would stay on for a while, the S6 is definitely something you should consider but the S6 Edge is definitely the next level. It’s too good but you don’t really need it unless you really have to. It is something different that you should experience but you’ll definitely not be overwhelmed.
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