I've often wondered how a brand like
Samsung could have messed up so
badly in the smartphone space. When I
saw the Galaxy S4, I sighed. When the
Galaxy S5 rolled around, my shoulders
sagged further.
How could a brand with so many
hyper-intelligent researchers and
well-paid designers make something
so bland yet complex time and again?
Both phones packed amazing power in
a boring case, with each element
somehow negating the other.
This year though, following a
reshuffle, things have changed. The
Samsung Galaxy S6 is a thing of
beauty, a complete redesign that
really works, but blended with large
swathes of power once again.
The key thing here though is, it
appears that power is not there for the
sake of it - each element has a
purpose, to ensure the Galaxy S6
works well under the finger while
finally being a phone you'd consider
alongside an HTC or iPhone.
Let's not get too carried away though.
TouchWiz is still on board, adding a
cartoonish feel to things where other
brands still feel more premium, but
Samsung has refined this again
(building on good work from the S5),
removed a lot of the bloatware and
cleaned up the icons.
It's easy to see the S6 is a great phone,
and one Samsung sorely needed - but
coming from so far back (its flagship
device was barely a top 10 phone last
year) it wasn't hard to improve
dramatically.
Design
Smartphones stopped needing more
power a long, long time ago - arguably
we could have called it quits with
2013's specs and spent the following
months optimising them to allow days-
long battery.
So with that race already run it
became a battle for the best design,
which meant that HTC suddenly rose
to prominence once more, with a good-
enough spec list sitting inside one of
the best phones I've ever held.
Apple managed the same thing with
the new iPhone 6, focusing on a
premium metallic shell while getting
the battery life just about tolerable.
All the while Samsung toiled in the
background, promising that we'd start
loving plastic at some point, showing
that it's more robust and scuff-free
and rugged... and it didn't work.
So Project Zero was born, a plan within
Samsung to completely redesign its S6
model from the ground up. Plastic was
out, waterproofing gone, and in their
place a fusion of glass and metal.
Put simply: it's a much, much better
phone, but again that's not hard when
you've got the Galaxy S5 to improve
upon. But the S6 does feel very well
packaged, the combination of metal
and Gorilla Glass 4 giving no hint of
creak or give when pressed.
It does sound a little hollow when
tapped on the back though, which does
diminish the effect somewhat -
however, at only 6.8mm thick, that's
kind of understandable.
Samsung's gone bold with this design
in more than one way. It's got rid of
two of the staples that users have
loved for years: the microSD slot has
been removed and the battery is
locked in.
The reasoning behind this is sound:
Samsung tells me the former is to
improve performance and speed
(something the S5 struggled with
terribly as it aged) and the latter is
clearly to allow for a unibody design.
I'm behind the loss of the removable
battery - after all, it's easier to carry a
battery pack than shell out for a
replacement power unit - but the
microSD card disappearance is a
shame. I appreciate the quest for a
better performance, and perhaps it will
turn out to be up there with the
iPhone when my full Galaxy S6 review
comes out, but other Android phones
seem to manage to tick along just fine
with expandable storage.
Samsung is offering the S6 in 32GB,
64GB and 128GB flavours to
compensate, but those latter options
are likely to be pretty expensive.
I'm hugely impressed with the way
Samsung has put this phone together
though - it's managed the incredible
feat of bringing the best screen on the
market (the brand's words, although
the combination of QHD resolution and
a 5.1-inch display with Super AMOLED
technology means I'm inclined to
agree) in a package that's barely larger
than the iPhone 6.
That means Samsung can offer a
phone with a huge, crisp display while
still being small enough to be
considered alongside Apple's non-
phablet and Sony's Xperia Z3 Compact
- both phones that I'll point to when
people ask 'I want a phone, but not one
that's massive'.
Considering the options from Sony and
Apple both have a 720p resolution, and
Samsung's packed in four times as
many pixels in the same footprint, and
you can see why I'm impressed by
Samsung's option.
Of course, this could all come at the
expense of battery - after all, more
pixels take more power, and the
smaller package means there's less
space for a battery (a 2550mAh pack is
smaller than the 2800mAh seen in the
Galaxy S5, which is a bit of a worry) so
I'm intrigued to see how Samsung has
managed to solve that problem.
Samsung needed to sort out the build
quality of the entire phone, but one of
the big issues was with the home
button, which was too soft to push.
The S6 has a really nice action now,
with a lot of effort put into the
satisfying click (useful for when you
need to activate the camera, which I'll
come onto later).
The phone is going to be unveiled in
four colours at launch too, with a
pleasant jewel-like exterior that
changes colour slightly as the light
hits it. It's got a nice translucent effect,
which again adds to the more premium
chassis.
Samsung could have messed up so
badly in the smartphone space. When I
saw the Galaxy S4, I sighed. When the
Galaxy S5 rolled around, my shoulders
sagged further.
How could a brand with so many
hyper-intelligent researchers and
well-paid designers make something
so bland yet complex time and again?
Both phones packed amazing power in
a boring case, with each element
somehow negating the other.
This year though, following a
reshuffle, things have changed. The
Samsung Galaxy S6 is a thing of
beauty, a complete redesign that
really works, but blended with large
swathes of power once again.
The key thing here though is, it
appears that power is not there for the
sake of it - each element has a
purpose, to ensure the Galaxy S6
works well under the finger while
finally being a phone you'd consider
alongside an HTC or iPhone.
Let's not get too carried away though.
TouchWiz is still on board, adding a
cartoonish feel to things where other
brands still feel more premium, but
Samsung has refined this again
(building on good work from the S5),
removed a lot of the bloatware and
cleaned up the icons.
It's easy to see the S6 is a great phone,
and one Samsung sorely needed - but
coming from so far back (its flagship
device was barely a top 10 phone last
year) it wasn't hard to improve
dramatically.
Design
Smartphones stopped needing more
power a long, long time ago - arguably
we could have called it quits with
2013's specs and spent the following
months optimising them to allow days-
long battery.
So with that race already run it
became a battle for the best design,
which meant that HTC suddenly rose
to prominence once more, with a good-
enough spec list sitting inside one of
the best phones I've ever held.
Apple managed the same thing with
the new iPhone 6, focusing on a
premium metallic shell while getting
the battery life just about tolerable.
All the while Samsung toiled in the
background, promising that we'd start
loving plastic at some point, showing
that it's more robust and scuff-free
and rugged... and it didn't work.
So Project Zero was born, a plan within
Samsung to completely redesign its S6
model from the ground up. Plastic was
out, waterproofing gone, and in their
place a fusion of glass and metal.
Put simply: it's a much, much better
phone, but again that's not hard when
you've got the Galaxy S5 to improve
upon. But the S6 does feel very well
packaged, the combination of metal
and Gorilla Glass 4 giving no hint of
creak or give when pressed.
It does sound a little hollow when
tapped on the back though, which does
diminish the effect somewhat -
however, at only 6.8mm thick, that's
kind of understandable.
Samsung's gone bold with this design
in more than one way. It's got rid of
two of the staples that users have
loved for years: the microSD slot has
been removed and the battery is
locked in.
The reasoning behind this is sound:
Samsung tells me the former is to
improve performance and speed
(something the S5 struggled with
terribly as it aged) and the latter is
clearly to allow for a unibody design.
I'm behind the loss of the removable
battery - after all, it's easier to carry a
battery pack than shell out for a
replacement power unit - but the
microSD card disappearance is a
shame. I appreciate the quest for a
better performance, and perhaps it will
turn out to be up there with the
iPhone when my full Galaxy S6 review
comes out, but other Android phones
seem to manage to tick along just fine
with expandable storage.
Samsung is offering the S6 in 32GB,
64GB and 128GB flavours to
compensate, but those latter options
are likely to be pretty expensive.
I'm hugely impressed with the way
Samsung has put this phone together
though - it's managed the incredible
feat of bringing the best screen on the
market (the brand's words, although
the combination of QHD resolution and
a 5.1-inch display with Super AMOLED
technology means I'm inclined to
agree) in a package that's barely larger
than the iPhone 6.
That means Samsung can offer a
phone with a huge, crisp display while
still being small enough to be
considered alongside Apple's non-
phablet and Sony's Xperia Z3 Compact
- both phones that I'll point to when
people ask 'I want a phone, but not one
that's massive'.
Considering the options from Sony and
Apple both have a 720p resolution, and
Samsung's packed in four times as
many pixels in the same footprint, and
you can see why I'm impressed by
Samsung's option.
Of course, this could all come at the
expense of battery - after all, more
pixels take more power, and the
smaller package means there's less
space for a battery (a 2550mAh pack is
smaller than the 2800mAh seen in the
Galaxy S5, which is a bit of a worry) so
I'm intrigued to see how Samsung has
managed to solve that problem.
Samsung needed to sort out the build
quality of the entire phone, but one of
the big issues was with the home
button, which was too soft to push.
The S6 has a really nice action now,
with a lot of effort put into the
satisfying click (useful for when you
need to activate the camera, which I'll
come onto later).
The phone is going to be unveiled in
four colours at launch too, with a
pleasant jewel-like exterior that
changes colour slightly as the light
hits it. It's got a nice translucent effect,
which again adds to the more premium
chassis.
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