Samsung Galaxy S6 features and review

The Galaxy S6 is has been launched at MWC 2015 - and it looks really rather special. It's joined by the Galaxy S6 Edge: a curved screen variant of the phone which won't be sold in at that great a volume. Think Samsung Galaxy Note Edge to the Galaxy Note 4.

But enough about the others - how good is the new Galaxy S6? The short answer is: very good indeed.

We know why you're here though: you want to know everything there is to know about this new phone.

Samsung Galaxy S6 features and review

Design

We've been criticizing Samsung a long time for its uninspiring, all-plastic, cheap-looking devices, and that chant reached a crescendo in the Galaxy S5, where the company ignored all hopes and pleas for a more refined style, and stubbornly released the S5 with the same plastic design. With ailing financials, though, and a series of well-made, metal devices, Samsung might finally make a change and bring an entirely new style for the Galaxy S6. We've seen the leaked images that confirm a metal frame will indeed be present on the Galaxy S6, but the back seems to be made out of glass, with a protruding camera right in the center. Now we have seen multiple leaked schematics and all agree on the actual dimensions of the phone, so we know what the physical footprint of the Galaxy S6 will be like.

Screen

Samsung has stuck stick with the excellent Super AMOLED displays we've seen from the company for quite a while on the Galaxy S6. But this time things have become a lot more awesome: much like the Galaxy Note 4, the Galaxy S6 comes with a 2560 x 1440 pixel QHD resolution. It's a really clear and crisp display - although questions have to be asked over whether it will hurt the battery too much, especially as that power pack is actually a bit lower in capacity than in years gone by.

Battery

Here's what's worrying about the battery in the Samsung Galaxy S6; it's only 2550mAh, compared to the 2800mAh of the phone from last year. This means that either: Samsung was able to make the chipset, screen and operating system more efficient and could therefore get away with a smaller battery, or it realized that it HAD to make an amazingly designed phone, otherwise it would lose more ground in the high end smartphone game.

Camera

Samsung has made the camera one of the key features on this new phone, and has stuck a 16MP sensor on there - but massively overhauled it from last year. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 have identical snappers, with the South Korean brand looking to keep them as similar as possible - it's just the screen that's the differentiator. Let's get into the specs here: the rear camera has a 16MP sensor, with an aperture of f1.9 - this thing is going to be excellent for low light, and an improvement of 34% over the Galaxy S5. It still has the same Auto HDR mode as before, and will show how the pic will look in HDR mode before you take it - plus smart Optical Image Stabilization will keep the shake away.

The front facing camera has been upgraded too, with the same low light performance (which is a big jump from last year's model - plus the ability to balance the white levels using infra-red.

Operating system

While Samsung is cooking up its own Tizen operating system, the Galaxy S6 sticks with Android, and obviously Lollipop since that's the latest version. That's the good news, though the fact that it's still overlaid with Samsung's TouchWiz UI may not be met with much enthusiasm. There's good news there too though, as Samsung has slimmed down the UI quite a lot, taking out a lot of the annoying pop up menus and streamlining the apps to have fewer options littered around everywhere. It does still have the same look and feel though, despite flatter icons, so if you weren't a fan before this 'overhaul' isn't likely to change your mind too much.