SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 EDGE REVIEW
Design
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.
Thanks goes to Vodafone for providing me with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge for this review.
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