Coming to Microsoft Stores across the United States today is a new range of Windows 10 laptops from a familiar brand. Better known to US consumers for its TVs, home appliances, and smartphones, LG is debuting its premium LG Gram Ultra PCs to an American audience, confident that it can capitalize on the momentum of Windows 10.
The main selling points of the Gram don't actually have much to do with Microsoft's new operating system — there's no touchscreen option or RealSense camera for Windows Hello. Instead, LG is relying on classically useful laptop features like compact dimensions and an attractive display. The 14-inch LG Gram is no larger than the 13-inch MacBook Air and Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, and its 1080p IPS display is much better looking than the one on Apple's ageing Air. I have one of the Gram laptops in for review and can attest to the visual upgrade it provides.
Weighs less than a kilogram, costs less than $1,000
The name Gram is derived from the LG computer's weight, which at less than a kilogram (980 grams / 2.16 pounds) is lighter than even the 11-inch MacBook Air. LG's pricing is also closely matched to compete with Apple's range, starting at $899 for the 13-inch Gram with an Intel Core i5 processor, 128GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM. That being said, LG's construction feels flimsy in comparison to Apple's unibody aluminum laptops, with flex on both the keyboard and the underside of the Gram.
Microsoft will sell the LG Gram laptops at its retail locations and online store, designating them with its Signature Edition label to signify that they come without any superfluous bloatware. Amazon will also be selling LG's machines from today, with the two 14-inch models coming in at $999 for the base Core i5 plus 128GB spec, or $1,399 for an upgraded Core i7 and 256GB combination. Unfortunately, the processors inside LG's new laptops are Intel's 5th-generation Broadwell, not the latest and greatest Skylake chips. That makes for rather underwhelming battery life, as my initial experience with the Core i7 Gram has shown it to last for markedly less than its advertised 7.5 hours, which in itself is a comparatively low number nowadays. There are also a couple of peculiar omissions on LG's part: the Gram laptop doesn't have a keyboard backlight or an SD card reader. It does come with an HDMI port and a microSD reader, however, to offset the absence of common features with the presence of uncommon ones.
MSI has announced the availability of its full arsenal of notebooks armed with Intel's 6th Generation Skylake Core i7 processors. Here's more info on the models and detailed specs on these gaming notebooks from MSI:
The new MSI GT72 Dominator Pro will deliver extreme desktop gaming performance with unlocked and overclocked 6th Gen Intel Core i7 K Processors paired with the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 desktop graphics
Available in a myriad of gaming and consumer models, Intel's Skylake processors increases system performance while decreasing energy consumption, resulting in more versatility and power versus previous models. MSI notebooks receiving the Intel upgrade include the flagship GT72 Dominator Pro; the ultra-slim and lightweight GS70 Stealth and GS60 Ghost; the perfectly balanced GE62 and GE72 Apache, and the design focused PX60, PE70 and PE60.
MSI's GE62/GE72 Apache Pro laptops will be the bread and butter of the G-Series line, striking the perfect balance between price and performance
MSI will also be the 1st to ship unlocked versions of the 6th Gen Intel Core i7 K Processors. Pairing this with the newly announced NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 desktop graphics that will also be available on the new GT72 Dominator Pro and you have the ultimate gaming machine delivering extreme performance for the hardcore gamers and enthusiasts.
The GS60 Ghost Pro and GS70 Stealth Pro thin and light gaming notebooks also makes its debut with the new Skylake processor, delivering advanced gaming performance with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M graphics, and stunning details with an optional 4K display
Select gaming notebooks, including the GT72 Dominator Pro, now feature Super RAID 4, the latest in multi-disk technology that optimizes hardware and software for extreme speeds; and Killer DoubleShot Pro, the ultimate lag killer that prioritizes network traffic to prevent lags. Select gaming notebooks also come with ESS Sabre HiFi Audio Dac for the crispest sound in a game, and SuperPort, a Type-C master connector that transfers files with speeds of up to 1,000 MB/s, supports up to dual 4K displays with daisy chain capability, doubles as a USB 3.1 port, and can charge mobile devices with a 3A current output.
All MSI laptops featuring Intel's 6th Generation Core i7 processors now come with Silver-Lining Print technology by SteelSeries, a unique feature that eliminates eye strain during long usage sessions and also increases brightness of the illuminated keyboard for an eye-opening experience.
The Prestige Series sports a stunning silver streamlined full aluminum chassis, white illuminated keyboard and the latest hardware fit for professionals and students alike
Series Flagship Notebook Specs:
MSI laptops with Intel's latest processor are now available through Newegg, Amazon, Tiger Direct, Fry's, and more. For more information on MSI's gaming solutions, visit us.msi.com
Outside of
Google’s Pixel Chromebook, Chrome OS powered laptops traditionally
feature fairly unassuming, plasticy designs and low-end internals.
The
Chromebook C201 is no different and features a dark blue plastic case
which, outside of its Chrome and Asus branding, doesn’t feature any
notable design features.
While the design does teater on dull, it ticks all the important boxes when it comes to connectivity and portability.
Measuring
in at 287 x 194 x 17.9 mm and weighing 0.98 kg, the Chromebook C201 is
perfectly satchel sized and light enough to carry around without
breaking your back.
It’s also pretty well built. Carrying it
around between meetings, the Chromebook managed
to survive more than a couple of hairy situations.
These
included an accidental drop onto a hardwood floor from a coffee table,
as well as an encounter with the a tube barrier while I was sprinting to
get the last train. In both situations the Chromebook survived mark and
chip free.
Asus' latest Chrome OS laptop is also reasonably well
connected by Chromebook standards. The Chromebook C201 features a
microSD, micro HDMI, audio jack and two USB 2.0 ports.
Putting
aside my grievances about there not being a single newer and faster USB
3.0, my only real bugbear with its design is the Chromebook C201’s use
of a proprietary charging port.
The 2013 HP Chromebook 11’s use
of a standard microSD charging cable was a serious selling point that
made it quick and easy to top up the laptops charge. I’m sad more
Chromebook makers haven’t followed suit, though with USB-C being
the new vogue item, I can understand why Asus hasn’t used the older
connector.
For those looking to video call or conference using
the Chromebook C201, Asus has loaded it with an HD front facing web
camera, which proved more than competent for chats on Skype and Hangouts
during my tests.
The keyboard and touchpad proved equally
competent, despite feeling slightly cheap. The plastic keyboard keys
have a reactive and snappy feel and are pleasant to type on. The
touchpad is also suitably reactive and picks up taps, pokes and two
finger gestures hassle-free.
Asus Chromebook C201 – Display
Screen tech is always one of the first areas sacrificed when companies create affordable devices.
This
remains true on the Chromebook C201, which features a 11.6-inch 1366 x
786 HD screen. While it matches the cheaper HD 13.3-inch Toshiba Chromebook 2’s
resolution, using the Asus laptop, I noticed a few issues with the
screen.
For starters, colours on the display are very cool, to
the point they look slightly dull and washed out. Reds are particularly
washed out and lack any real dynamism. Adding to the screen’s issues,
whites have a bit of a murky hue, which hints to me the screen hasn’t
been calibrated very well.
I’m also a little disappointed Asus isn’t offering a Full HD option, like Toshiba does with the Chromebook 2.
That
said, the Asus Chromebook C201’s screen is usable. While it’s not the
sharpest, text and icons are legible and I never found myself straining
to read web pages, or documents. Brightness levels, while far from
dazzling are also adequate.
Viewing angles aren’t great, but
being fair to Asus, the screen is on a par with most £200 laptops’ –
it’s just not as good as its main competitor, the Toshiba Chromebook
2.
With Windows 10 having released officially, we will be seeing a lot of Windows 10 based laptops in the coming months. The first laptop to sport Microsoft’s latest OS which graced our labs is the Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro – Black Edition. Acer is generally known for its budget oriented laptops, but with the Acer Aspire V Nitro we have a 4K display sporting gaming machine. And if Acer’s IFA presentation is any indication to go by, the Taiwanese computer maker will be going all out with its laptop launches across categories. So is the Aspire V Nitro really a laptop worth considering? We will find out in our review.
Build and Design: 7/10
Acer Aspire V Nitro comes in an all-black body with the hinge portion having a chrome finish. The top flap has a slightly rubberised textured design with the Acer Logo placed on the right hand side. A slight protrusion in the front portion eases opening the laptop. The laptop has a tapering design on all sides, which gives it a sleek look, but in fact the thickness is around 24mm and weighs around 2.4kg. It is not exactly the kind of laptop that you will carry around with you daily as it not portable by any yardstick.
The hinge mechanism stands out from the rest of black bodied V Nitro. It sports a dark gray colour and has the Aspire V Nitro branding along its length. On the other side of the hinge, you have the air vents for the laptop. The laptop rests on four sturdy rubber feet, which ensures that the laptop stays fixed in one position. The hinge mechanism isn’t the sturdiest as we noticed that the monitor wobbled on mild tapping.
On the right hand side, you have the power power at the top, followed by a retractable LAN port, an HDMI port followed by three USB 3.0 ports and an audio jack. On the front, you just have the SD card slot and on the left hand side, you just have the Kensington lock.
Keyboard and Trackpad: 6/10
The Acer Aspire V Nitro sports a 6-row full size keyboard with isolated keys which have a good feedback and travel. The keys have a red backlight which gives a nice red glow around them in the dark. Typing for long durations does not lead to fatigue, thanks to the respectable palm rest area, which has a slight rubberised finish on it. But as good as the the keyboard is, the trackpad is equally mediocre. You don’t really understand if your tap has been registered as a click or vice versa, when you are using the lower half of the keyboard. Since it is a single slab of plastic, on a lot of occasions we ended up right clicking when we wanted to left click and so on. Also thanks to the placement of trackpad, left of centre, in case when you just want to use the trackpad and your palms are in the typing position, you end up right clicking instead of left. It may seem like nitpicking, since the trackpad is placed in the centre, if you leave out the numpad area, it does take some time getting used to.
Features: 8/10
Acer has positioned the Aspire V 15 Nitro – Black edition, as a gaming laptop and it comes with impressive specs. For starters it has the Intel Core i7 4720HQ processor, which is a quad-core hyper-threaded processor clocked at 2.6GHz with the Turbo frequency reaching 3.6GHz. The processor is supported by 12GB of RAM which is one of highest RAM configs we have tested on a laptop in a long time.
On the storage front, you get a 1TB HDD. Since this is a gaming laptop, it has a dedicated Nvidia GTX 960M graphics solution. The Aspire V Nitro comes bundled with Windows 10 out of the box. Acer has refrained from adding its own software or bundling unwanted apps along with the laptop, which is a blessing considering there has been a lot of bloatware with its Windows 8.1 laptops. If you are new to the Windows 10 operating system, then there is a slight learning curve associated with it.
Display: 8/10
Acer has gone all out with the display giving you a 4K UltraHD display with a matte finish on the screen which really helps. The reflectivity if the screen is under control and thanks to the IPS panel, the viewing angles are quite good on the monitor. We did not observe any sort of colour shift when viewing sideways or from the top. The bezel on the monitor is thick, but the monitor section of the Aspire V Nitro is quite slim. The contrast levels are good for watching movies and the black levels are impressive.
In the Lagom.nl tests, the display performs quite well in the contrast test, gradient banding test shows a smooth transition from black to white level without any visible banding. While the white saturation test shows all the checkered boxes separately, the black level test tends to merge the top two rows of black boxes.
Performance: 8/10
The 3D Mark 11 benchmark gave a score of 5590 on the Performance preset. Asus’ G551JK was the only other laptop which came close with a score of 4557. In terms of gaming laptop Metro: Last Light gives around 34FPS and 38FPS for full HD resolutions on high (16X AF, High Tessellation, Adv PhysX activated) and low (4X AF, Normal Tessellation, Adv PhysX deactivated) settings. With 4K resolution, the gaming scores took a hit, falling to 12FPS and 22FPS respectively for high and low settings. Bioshock Infinite gave a more respectable 57FPS for Ultra settings and 81FPS on Medium settings on full HD resolution. For 4K resolution on Bioschock Infinite we got around 18FPS and 23FPS respectively for Ultra and Medium settings.
Battery Life: 5/10
Considering that the Aspire V Nitro comes with a dedicated graphics card and has a 4K resolution, we were not expecting great numbers in terms of battery life. And the laptop gives about 1 hour 35 mins on PC Mark 8 battery life test, which is certainly not impressive. Gaming continuously will naturally bring it down further. But then, the Nitro isn’t a laptop that is portable anyway, and if you are planning to go on the road with it, ensure that you carry the charger along.
Verdict and Price in India
Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro is priced at Rs 1,10,000 and going by the prices charged by gaming laptops the pricing is at par, considering you are getting a 4K display. Most gaming monitors offer a full HD display. The Nitro offers a good display with excellent viewing angles. Of course, the gaming performance at 4K resolution with heavy games such as Metro: Last Light was not impressive at maxed out settings. You will need to keep settings low to get playable frame rates at 4K resolution. Games such as Bioshock Infinite are playable with settings maxed out at full HD resolutions. The battery life could certainly have been better. Ensure that you always have a charging point around you. It is certainly a laptop worth considering if you are looking at a Windows 10 based work cum entertainment machine for your home or office, which also lets you play games every once in a while. In case you are cool with a full HD display and a generation older graphics solution, then you can check out the Asus ROG G551JK.
One of a new breed of gaming laptops, Asus' G751JY doesn't exactly roll off the tongue - but its G-Sync compatible screen certainly gives it a big talking point. It's a pivotal evolution for gaming notebooks, with the screen giving players the flexibility to target a frame-rate, and have it dynamically matched by the panel's refresh (in this case up to 75Hz). MSI and Gigabyte are also set to include G-Sync panels in their own top-end gaming laptops. But at a minimum price of £1,500, and close to £2,000 in this build, just how good is the Asus for high-end gameplay?
First off, let's talk about what you get for the price. It's a seriously hefty, but also reassuringly rugged piece of hardware - weighing in at 4.8kg, with an exterior built from hard matte plastics, and a brushed aluminium plate down its centre. It's not gaudy, as can be the case with so many 'elite gaming' products; its red back vents and colour backlit keyboard are the only real extravagances here. The rest is strictly utilitarian; connectivity including Thunderbolt, HDMI, VGA and four USB 3.0 ports, plus an SD card reader and Blu-ray drive.
Prising it open, a 17.3-inch IPS screen is revealed. While its maximum brightness is slightly wanting in broad daylight, the panel is still a very strong, vibrant performer indoors. At a resolution of 1920x1080, we have a pixel count that's well judged for its intended purpose too, aligned well with the onboard GPU. Bearing in mind the laptop sports an Intel Core i7 4870HQ processor, 32GB of RAM, plus Nvidia's GTX 980M GPU (with its own reserve of 4GB GDDR5), we can expect some serious gaming performance from this machine - and a native 1080p is a reasonable goal for most games that doesn't overstretch its specs.
As tested earlier this week, a full-fat GTX 980 is soon to be a fixture for the absolute high-end in the gaming notebook space. However, the Asus G751JY gets by well enough with the existing GTX 980M, using a similar, but cut-down 28nm processor. Compared to the original version, the 'M' variant drops the core clocks from 1126MHz to 1038MHz, while CUDA cores are cut by 25 per cent - from 2048 to 1536. Memory is also left at 5GHz effective, reduced from the 7GHz we see on the desktop GTX 980. It's a strong GPU regardless, but as is always the case with gaming-grade laptops, the onus is on Asus to make sure its chassis gives it sufficient airflow.
The Asus G751JY laptop with G-Sync given the full review treatment. We were impressed with the laptop in many ways, and the use of Nvidia's adaptive screen refresh tech is a perfect fit for top-end gaming laptops. Be sure to select the 1080p60 option for the best viewing experience.
The good news is, the laptop's heat is really well managed - and without resorting to overbearing fan speeds. Both GPU and CPU temperatures rest at around 50 degrees Celsius while idle, and playing intensive games like Crysis 3 causes the GTX 980M to stretch to a maximum of 76 degrees over an hour. It's a good turnout for a discrete GPU, and remarkably, fan noise is only faintly audible while playing at this peak processing load. On the CPU front, all four cores hit between 90-94 degrees Celsius during this test, but again, the unit runs surprisingly quiet regardless. It's easily among the most discrete gaming laptops we've reviewed in terms of acoustics.
The Asus G751JY's battery life is a bit of a moot point. As with other desktop replacements, gaming sessions are best played at the mains. Indeed, the integrated 6000MaH battery only services a game of Battlefield 4 for around one hour (at 50 per cent screen brightness and volume) before power levels hit the red. CPU and GPU clocks are automatically throttled to lower speeds at this point too, meaning frame-rates suffer in games running purely off the battery. It's only meant as a very last resort, and fortunately, the laptop gives three to four hours of web browsing and movie playback on the go - with two hours needed to fully recharge.
All of which leads us back to its real party trick; that G-Sync panel. In essence, its use in a laptop is a bit of a revelation on hardware so often bounded by its specs. The panel goes right up to 75Hz - a figure higher than most desktop PC screens in use today - meaning 75fps gameplay is your new performance ceiling (provided you can hit it with the game in question). Usually, having a monitor with this higher refresh is a blessing and a curse; players need to hit this target, or else face stuttering performance should the frame-rate fall shy. However, with G-Sync compatibility, we have more options to achieve perceptibly fluid gameplay - regardless of whether it hits 75fps or not.
For the most part, games that run at between 60-75fps, such as Battlefield 4 on ultra settings, give a very smooth sensation. This is despite the South China Sea stress test fluctuating between values, and it's thanks to G-Sync that we avoid the vast majority of the stuttering we'd usually see with v-sync play (or the heavy tearing without it). The Asus screen's refresh simply adapts on the fly to accommodate, giving us a complete frame as soon as it's ready to render - regardless of whether that frame arrived within the same time-frame as the last.
The results are superb, and it makes a big difference within the laptop space. Given that the G751JY can't hold a perfectly locked 75fps at entirely maxed settings in Battlefield 4 (largely owing to the use of MSAA), it gives us an option besides having to drop settings. It's a similar case for games like Tomb Raider (maxed with TressFX engaged), where wandering through forests pulls us down to 65fps at lowest. However, with G-Sync the variance in frame-time is too small for it to really distract.
Crysis 3 is a very different case though. Even G-Sync can't save the day, and running at between 40-50fps on very high settings means we get a sluggish, uneven motion from the game's set pieces. The cut-off point for G-Sync's efficacy is apparently here; though better than v-synced play, it's simply too jarring to leave the frame-rate running up and down this lower range. Dropping to the high graphics preset only pulls us up to 45-60fps, which is still not quite past the threshold where G-Sync is optimal. Fortunately, the solution is very simple.
Locking the frame-rate to a fixed number keeps motion consistent in these high-stress games. This is easily achieved with Riva Tuner Statistic Server, a free program bundled with MSI Afterburner, where we simply type the value we want and away we go. In the case of Crysis 3, running gameplay at a locked 45fps makes sense; it's the lowest point in its performance profile, and as a result we can side-step any fluctuations up or down - and remove the jarring motion that goes along with that.
If not for G-Sync, this wouldn't be possible. On a regular 60Hz monitor, fixing the frame-rate to 45fps with v-sync would still give us very uneven frame-pacing - but of course here, the Asus' screen ostensibly becomes a 45Hz panel for the duration of play. Having this option gives us far more room to experiment than before; pushing to a 50fps lock gets us a marginally smoother experience, but of course, this is more prone to hitches downward - though this is not a problem if you're satisfied with Crysis 3's high preset. However, for those striving for maxed out settings on the G751JY, 45fps is the sweet spot for this game.
The mobile notebook chips rarely match the performance of the desktop versions, so how does the GTX 980M compare to Nvidia's GTX 960, 970 and 980? We benched them all to produce this comparison.
1920x1080 (1080p)
i7 4790K/ GTX 960
i7 4790K/ GTX 970
i7 4790K/ GTX 980
i7 4870HQ/ GTX 980M
The Witcher 3, Ultra, HairWorks Off, Custom AA
48.1
56.0
65.8
48.3
Battlefield 4, Ultra, 4x MSAA
48.6
74.6
86.5
64.4
COD Advanced Warfare, Extra, Filmic SMAA T2x
86.4
117.8
128.1
84.1
Crysis 3, Very High, SMAA
47.0
71.4
81.5
59.8
Assassin's Creed Unity, Ultra High, FXAA
26.6
51.7
62.4
49.6
Far Cry 4, Ultra, SMAA
50.8
77.4
87.4
64.2
Shadow of Mordor, Ultra, High Textures, FXAA
53.2
80.8
91.7
64.0
Tomb Raider, Ultimate, FXAA
65.7
102.4
118.2
77.7
The logic follows for other demanding titles. Ryse at maxed settings gets us to 60-75fps during battle, but 45fps around the notorious forest mission. Again, it makes sense to lock at this lowest point here. Meanwhile, Shadow of Mordor gets us between 55-60fps during gameplay, meaning we can push the boat out with a 55fps lock in Riva Tuner. This gets us an unwavering refresh that's quite unusual in games (as if between PAL 50Hz and NTSC 60Hz standards), but the results are nonetheless fluid.
As a gaming machine, the GTX 980M acquits itself very well. Next to desktop GPUs, it ultimately falls below the standard set by the GTX 970, but coasts above the 960 across all our benchmarks - particularly so in the case of Assassin's Creed Unity, where the 960 struggles on its limited pool of 2GB GDDR5 memory and its 128-bit memory bus. Raw graphics power isn't the issue in the Asus G751JY. However, games like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare show signs of the laptop struggling on the CPU side, with sudden latency spikes suggesting an bottleneck as the engine defers to the laptop's four i7 cores.
This CPU limit also affects The Witcher 3 in areas such as Novigrad city, though to a far lesser extent. In this case, the laptop's GTX 980M and the desktop GTX 960 are often neck-and-neck, and performance rests at 40-50fps on high settings as a result. The bad news is G-Sync simply didn't seem to engage properly with this game during our testing on current drivers - the only instance where we had this issue. Even lowering The Witcher 3's presets to medium has us struggling to consistently meet a 75Hz refresh. Without G-Sync, we're back to square one with laptop gaming, and the compromises start to stack up.
Crysis 3 remains taxing for any desktop GPU, let alone mobile processors. But using a frame-rate cap of 45fps in Riva Tuner Statistics Server, G-Sync smoothes off the gameplay, producing slick, responsive, visually consistent gameplay without the need to drop down from the very high preset.
Asus G751JY laptop with G-Sync - the Digital Foundry verdict
Overall, the Asus G751JY offers something tangibly different to gaming laptops of the past. It shows that G-Sync is a match made in heaven for notebook gameplay, giving players more flexibility in the time-old tussle between visuals and frame-rate. With the screen's refresh able to adapt on the fly, gameplay stutter isn't a factor when frame-rates fall short in games like Tomb Raider. Even titles running at sub-50fps can run smoothly to the eye after a tweak in Riva Tuner; locking to 45fps in Crysis 3 is viable with G-Sync in tow - and the results feel great without compromising its visuals.
Is it worth between £1500-2000? This is a debate that often fires up around top-end laptops, and ultimately there's no arguing that you can buy better specs for the money in the desktop space. But if it's agility you want in a gaming setup, the Asus G751JY is a ruggedly built machine that sits between the GTX 960 and 970 in performance. Its GTX 980M pulls its weight, but crucially, the fact it's paired with a G-Sync compatible panel is something that adds to its value.
All told, Asus joins an interesting frontier in the gaming laptop space, and it's paying off handsomely with the G751JY. At this point, we'd settle for nothing less from a gaming-grade laptop of this price; a G-Sync panel simply makes the most of the components inside, power-bound as they are. It's a must going forward, and the fact that adaptive sync is built into Apple's new iPad Pro suggests that the technology could also expand out further into the mobile space sooner rather than later. So it's laptops today, tablets tomorrow - and we strongly suspect that adaptive sync will hit smartphones soon too, where the tech could be even more of a game-changer.
Samsung have pulled out all the stops for this iteration of their yearly Galaxy S series of phones. Gone are all the plastics that used to cover every inch of the phone in favour for glass and metal. These changes bring a new look and feel to what we’re used to, now we have a more premium device that actually matches its price tag and rivals the iPhone.
The S6 Edge still looks like a Samsung but now more elegant and with its curved screen that falls away on both edges we have a good looking phone and the curved edges are just the start for the screen. When you’re looking at the display, what you’re really looking at is the best display on a phone, yes the 2560×1440 QHD resolution helps but pair it with the colours that the Super AMOLED produces you have a great display capable of bring any image to life.
Along the rounded metal edges you get Samsung’s signuatre button layout of a power button on the right side, charging port along the bottom with speaker grill, 3.5mm headphone jack and volume up and down on the left. Up top you have the slot for the nano sim and the IR blaster.
On the back is the protruding 16 megapixel camera module with flash and the Heart Rate Monitor.
Software
Over the past few years Samsung have claimed that they have improved the software and cleaned it up significantly and while that may be partly true they still have a ways to go. For instance, a standard feature of any launcher is arranging your apps alphabetically but yet there’s no way to do this out of the box, the software arranges apps in the order you downloaded them.
To current Samsung users the UI and navigation will be no problem especially if you’re coming from a Samsung phone running Lollipop and while it is nowhere now near stock Android Samsung have done a good job updating their own apps to fit the material style.
The S6 Edge variant features a few tricks up its sleeve over the regular – People Edge lets you swipe from the edge and bring up a list of your favourite contacts and Edge Lighting lights up the edge portion of the display in a specific colour when the screen is face down to notify you of an incoming call.
Camera
Always one of the best parts about a Samsung flagship was the camera, Sammy have always competed with the iPhone for the best camera but never managed to topple Apples’s best in class imaging. From the 16 megapixel pictures the S6 Edge takes it can arguable take Apple’s camera crown away from them with it’s pictures.
Leaving the camera in automatic should get the shot you want 99% of the time with the right exposure and focus that is on point and that’s something you can’t say about the HTC One M9
If you’d like a bit more control for your pictures you can set the camera to full manual letting you control everything from shutter speed to white balance to let you fine tune your settings for advance users and with OIS, low-light and long exposure shots are a reality with the S6 Edge.
Battery life
Most people want and need a phone to last all day and no matter how much you want the battery to make it through the day the S6 Edge just can’t do it. Because of all the design changes made to the phone and its slim frame the battery had to be downsized to 2,600mAh, smaller than the battery in the Galaxy S5 and now it’s also non-removable.
For my usage the phone just about managed 3 hours of screen on time and on most days needed a charge at some point in the day to get through the rest of the day.
Two features that could help you keep your battery topped up are wireless charging and quick charging with quick charging being the more useful of the two, giving you up to 50% of charge in 30 minutes.
The Verdict
The Galaxy S6 Edge is one of the best phones out, it has the best display, quick performance, nice design and a high quality camera. All of those positives are almost useless if your phones dead and there’s a good chance it will be because of the bad battery life. If you rely on your phone and need it to last then the S6 Edge won’t be for you.
