*** The Official Samsung Galaxy S6/Edge Thread ***

[estebanrey]

What happens to the "edge" when an app / game is launched full screen?

Can't imagine Samsung have overlooked something so basic as that like people are suggesting with it distorting etc.

The Note's edge is a 'proper edge' in that it is physically extra pixels added to the side of regular screen so from what I've seen in videos the edge just goes black when running a full screen app.

The edges on the S6 though are part of the screen itself, same number of pixels as the regular version so they're not extra and will be used in full screen apps

 

[ebilcake]

The Note's edge is a 'proper edge' in that it is physically extra pixels added to the side of regular screen so from what I've seen in videos the edge just goes black when running a full screen app.

The edges on the S6 though are part of the screen itself, same number of pixels as the regular version so they're not extra and will be used in full screen apps

Which means there will be some distortion. I was expecting a to see a slightly higher resolution display resolution for the Edge and was a little disappointed.

It's a very slight curve but it might be a little annoying when viewing some content.

 

[smokedog]

I was expecting a to see a slightly higher resolution display resolution for the Edge and was a little disappointed.

Ermmm... its already a 2k display, with a dpi of 577ppi. But a slightly bigger screen would have been nice, 5'5inch would be perfect.

 

[mrk]

Which means there will be some distortion. I was expecting a to see a slightly higher resolution display resolution for the Edge and was a little disappointed.

It's a very slight curve but it might be a little annoying when viewing some content.

Most likely but on the upshot, MKB has mentioned that thanks to Google's "card swipe" style UI language dominating the OS and apps now, that the curve feels natural as a part of it.

Media wise, videos especially, might be another matter however.

 

[this_is_gav]

Ermmm... its already a 2k display, with a dpi of 577ppi. But a slightly bigger screen would have been nice, 5'5inch would be perfect.

Indeed. It's like the pointless camera megapixel race (which is still happening in most smartphones ). A 1080p screen would likely look just as good, pixel wise, than a 1440p at this size of screen, and while I'm sure Samsung have done plenty of optimisations to ensure the battery life is just as good as before, there was the potential to have it much better, yet for no reason at all other than epeen, it has been compromised.

I do like the look of the S6, and Edge in particular, but grr.

Media wise, videos especially, might be another matter however.

It looked OK on the videos I've seen, but I'm sure it will look odd to the eye, but nothing you won't get used to.

 

[estebanrey]

Indeed. It's like the pointless camera megapixel race (which is still happening in most smartphones ). A 1080p screen would likely look just as good, pixel wise, than a 1440p at this size of screen, and while I'm sure Samsung have done plenty of optimisations to ensure the battery life is just as good as before, there was the potential to have it much better, yet for no reason at all other than epeen, it has been compromised.

What has been compromised exactly? The Note 4's 2K screen draws less power than the Note 3's 1080p screen so assumptions this new screen on the S6 is a 'compromise' when it comes to battery life is premature.

Let's wait until the tests come out before we see how the life is. Anyway, with a 10 minute charge time for 4 hours use battery drain is becoming a non-issue.

 

[Jabbs]

Based on that video, it trumps the Note 4 in speed and smoothness, I wasn't interested until I saw that, now I want the Edge in green! Arrrgghh

It's that and the edge part its very distinctive and the camera enhancement has me. Really like my note 4 but this the first S series that has my attention since my last I owned the s2

 

[thep02]

http://www.meenova.com/st/p/m3r.html

The above might be useful for those who wanted an msdc slot.

I've been watching vids and reading articles all day, I'm sold, my plan is buy the 32gb s6 then get myself a Note 5 for xmas.

 

[this_is_gav]

What has been compromised exactly? The Note 4's 2K screen draws less power than the Note 3's 1080p screen so assumptions this new screen on the S6 is a 'compromise' when it comes to battery life is premature.

Let's wait until the tests come out before we see how the life is. Anyway, with a 10 minute charge time for 4 hours use battery drain is becoming a non-issue.

So gaming at 1440p uses as much power as gaming at 1080p? Come on.

As said earlier in the thread, Samsung made optimisations to the Note 4's screen to sip less power, and I'm sure they've done more of the same with the S6, but it's surely not possible for otherwise identical displays to have similar power draw between 1440p and 1080p. That in itself wouldn't bother me, but there's zero benefit to it. Zero.

 

[IvanDobskey]

The whole edge thing just looks like a gimmick to me. Can't see any real advantage to it at all other than the first few minutes use where you think oooohhh neat.

 

[ebilcake]

I think anything below 5.5" should be 1080p, 1440p on a 5.1" display is just daff.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Portable power banks make this a non issue in my opinion. While I agree that being able to quickly swap out a battery to go from 0-100% in an instant is convenient, I also think having something which you can use to recharge your phone 2/3/4/+ times over is convenient. If you wanted to bring along 3 extra batteries with you on a trip, that'd be a bit cumbersome to manage, and having a swappable battery only lets you change that battery for that device, whereas power banks will charge anything that allows USB charging.

Not to mention for the price of one Galaxy S5 battery, you can get a 10,000mah power bank.

power bank is not official? not seen an official power bank from them or any otehr branded companies.

So if your comparing price wise only official products then its an unfair and unrealistic comparison

They sell a 'battery pack' which replaces the 'spare battery' for times like these.



'Little memory'? They do a 128 gb model, how is that 'little'?

My S4 only has 16 gb and I haven’t needed to add an SD card. I just move any files, photos or videos over 3 months old to my PC or cloud every now and then.



Read/write speed is very important on a mobile device. It reduces lag and lessens the need for memory to be loaded into RAM (if quick enough).

It's certainly more beneficial than being able to upgrade your already generous 128gb device to 256gb.



There are two clear ones. The improved ‘look’ of a unibody design, clearly the biggest criticism of the Galaxy S range was its ‘cheap feel’. The only reason the HTC One has done so well is because it gave people who preferred the functionality and performance of Android/Galaxy but wanted the premium feel of the iPhone.

The second advantage is space saving. If your battery is non-removal you save more space than you think as you no longer have to base your design around making the battery removal which has a knock on to everything else.

And how much does the 128gb version cost over say a s5/note 4 with a 128gb sd card?

And how can i simply remove the storage for quicker transfer,portabity or when my device needs to be RMA'd for whatever reason?

Mobile phones do not need fast read and write speeds. Thats just poor design and implementation of an app if it needs such a thing.

Your not transcoding/encoding large format videos. Compressing/uncompressing large files or even transfering large contents from one place to another on a damm mobile device.

No you dont need any of that. On a laptop/desktop yes but not on a smartphone who 9/10 users only use it to play monument valley and browse face/<insert the most popular social app out>

games dont need it. Camera certainly doesnt need it and overal OS doesnt need it especialy android L which has been optimised to run even faster.

You refer to the HTC but the HTC M8 has a SD Card slot....

This new design has limited choices for consumers not gain any..

 

[Qhorin]

Decent bit of hands on here, impressed with speed and smoothness.
http://youtu.be/WoArWt0BFpE

The camera launch speed, the slow multi-task button and the jittery side swipe to Flipboard are all things which irritate me about my Note 4. They look insanely fast here. I've got a serious case of gadget lust for the S6 edge right now.

It might upset a lot of people but I hope they just make a bigger S6 Edge with a pen slot for the Note 5. Never cared for the SD card slot in any of my previous devices and if the cost of having a nice slim unibody design is no removable battery then so be it.

 

[estebanrey]

And how much does the 128gb version cost over say a s5/note 4 with a 128gb sd card?

You just had a pop at someone else for making an unfair comparison yet compare native internal memory with an added SD card. As I've already said, the built in memory is far superior to the SD card. Try writing a 4k video on the fly to your SD card.....I'll save you time, you can't because it can;t write to it quickly enough.

And how can i simply remove the storage for quicker transfer,portabity or when my device needs to be RMA'd for whatever reason?

You can't, but you can't retrospectively put an SD card it and grab your data from an RMA'd phone either. If you're writing the data to the SD card as you go you've still got your data but an SD card is far more likely to fail/be put in the washing machine, snap in your pocket etc than a phone so how would you retrieve your data in that case?

Mobile phones do not need fast read and write speeds. Thats just poor design and implementation of an app if it needs such a thing.

If that were true phones wouldn't need RAM either then.

You know what RAM's job is right? It basically exists solely to overcome the problem slow read/write speeds from your storage memory.

This new design has limited choices for consumers not gain any..

Unless you're the type of person who thinks a £600 smartphone should look like it costs that much. Not a massive thing for me I admit but given negative comments on past Galaxy releases it seems important to many. There will be people who only didn't by the S2,S3,S4 and S5 because of the plastic so for them this is a whole extra phone option.

 

[mrk]

Having seen the Xperia Z3 official Lollipop video, I am wondering why Samsung has yet to employ the double pulldown on the notification bar. Even on the S6 the pulldown is classic Samsung which has not changed for several generations of Note and galaxy phone.

^Sony has gone even more stock Andorid than they did with KitKat and it looks beautiful and all the transition animations while it's happening are there.

I wish Samsung stuck to the double pulldown

That is about my only gripe so far with what I've seen of the S6.

 

[Kenai]

Because I genuinely don't see the issue with the S6 not having a removable battery.

I wouldn't, if I had any confidence that the phone wouldn't dump itself into a state only resolvable by pulling the battery out, as my S2 and S4 have both done.

What happens if the same occurs on an S6?

Besides that, good luck claiming warranty replacement for your knackered battery that only last 6-8 hours after 18 months of super fast charging.

The SD card thing I could maybe be swayed into being too bothered by but the flexibility of being able to take the card out to transfer data virtually wherever I am, using any machine is useful and there is no good reason to have removed it really. It also carries the advantage that having a dead phone wouldn't result in everything on it being lost, you simply remove the card and still have all your photos/videos.

 

[mrk]

There's an auto hard power down and restart on all Androids that I've used it on, just hold the power button for several seconds and it will force restart.

 

[Kenai]

That'd be nice if it worked, but it never has for me once the phone is completely unresponsive

 

[mrk]

Maybe you just got unlucky

 

[Kenai]

Multiple times on both the Galaxy S phones i've owned? That's incredibly unlucky surely?

The problem is, did they really need to kill off those two features? Was it actually necessary to remove them in order to produce the phone as they have? (Especially so when everyone will worry about their nice shiny glass backed unibody phone so much they put a cover on it so they'd never tell if it was glass, metal or plastic ever again until they take the cover off)