With a glass and aluminum build, killer camera, curved screen and a totally usable build of
Android the new Samsung Galaxy S6 edge looks awesome on paper but is it worth it? The S6
is the biggest departure for Samsung since the original Galaxy S. Plastic and fake chrome
are nowhere to be found, instead we’ve got glass and real metal. The back is a single
sheet of Gorilla Glass 4 with a matching curved front fascia and while you do lose the waterproofing
from the S5 I’ll take the nicer design any day. My review unit is gold which is actually
pretty attractive however hands down my favorite color is Emerald Green which sadly isn’t
available in the US. Side by side with the normal S6 the edge has a much thinner well,
edge which helps to give you a bit more grip on what is otherwise a pretty slippery phone.
The curved display also helps to make the phone feel a bit smaller which is nice for
one handed use. There have been curved phones before like the LG G Flex but the edge is
much more subtle. Swiping gestures just feel cool and being able to scroll on the side
without covering the screen is a nice little feature. While the 1440p resolution might
be slight overkill there’s no doubt that the S6 has a crazy sharp screen and with this
latest AMOLED display from Samsung color accuracy is dead on. It even gets impressively bright
making it totally usable in sunlight which isn’t something I can say about most phones.
There’s really no competition, the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge have the best screens on any
phone period right now. Inside it's no slouch either. It’s rocking an eight core Exynos
processor, three gigabytes of RAM and storage options up to 128 gigabytes. You do lose the
MicroSD card slot but at least Samsung has upped the base model to 32 gigs. Performance
is solid for the most part, things like multitasking are no problem at all with Samsung’s neat
Multi Window feature. I did notice that the phone tends to run out of memory pretty quickly,
apps are forced to relaunch way too often for a phone with three gigs of RAM however
this should be fixed soon in a software update. Speaking of software, after years of shipping
builds of Android saddled with more and more TouchWiz Samsung has finally taken the axe
to a lot of the duplicate apps and dubiously useful features. What crapware that is left
is easily disabled giving the S6 a totally usable build of Android 5.0 Lollipop. Apps
like S Health are downright useful, tracking things like steps along with taking advantage
of the heart rate sensor on the back of the phone. The fingerprint reader has also seen
a big upgrade, it’s now a touch sensor on the home button like the iPhone and it’s
fast if a little inaccurate sometimes. Even small things like the keyboard are among the
best options I’ve tried on Android and the Quick Settings are customizable and nicely
laid out. I’d still prefer something a bit closer to stock Android but I’ve lived with
TouchWiz on the S6 with no real complaints. The good stuff keeps coming when we take a
look at the camera. It’s a 16 megapixel sensor with optical stabilization and this
is about as good as it gets for a smartphone. Samsung added a new shortcut to open the camera
by double tapping the home button and it launches quickly no matter where you are. Snapping
pictures is well, snappy and the images themselves are impressive. There’s tons of detail and
the white balance is impressively accurate. The app is nicely laid out with options like
Pro Mode which gives you a little manual control with options like focus and exposure but honestly
I just left it in Auto mode for the most part. On the other hand Pro Mode can be really useful
for video. So I’m recording on the Galaxy S6 edge right now and using Pro Mode I was
able to make a custom picture profile that with a little bit of color correction will
make the Galaxy S6 edge look like a much more expensive camera. The only downside is that
this only works at 1080p, if you want to record 4K video on the Galaxy S6 you’re going to
have to do it in Auto Mode but still, this is a really impressive video camera. Of course
no phone is perfect and battery life is where the S6 stumbles a bit. It will get you through
a moderate day of use but push it hard and it just can’t keep up. Overnight it lost
25 percent of the battery with the phone asleep which seems to show a serious lack of optimization.
The S6 does sport wireless charging and quick charging so it’s easy enough to work with
if you can drop it on a charger here and there but some people are definitely going to miss
the removable battery. Hopefully a software update can keep the battery from draining
so much in sleep but right now this is the biggest issue with the Galaxy S6. Samsung
has delivered a pair of seriously impressive phones but which one should you go for? There’s
really no downside to the edge besides the price and the curved screen is worth it in
my opinion but you’re getting essentially the same experience no matter which way you
go. It’s not perfect but the Galaxy S6 edge is hands down one of the best phones you can buy.