Samsung Galaxy S6 Reviews

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

Bring out the big dog reviews!

 

[Jdroids]

Re: Reviews

Phonearena review is up. They did both regular and edge model in separate review. Interestingly edge model does a bit better than regular model on battery, slightly edging out S5.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Review - Performance, Battery and Conclusion

 

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

Phonearena review is up. They did both regular and edge model in separate review. Interestingly edge model does a bit better than regular model on battery, slightly edging out S5.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Review - Performance, Battery and Conclusion

Nice, hopefully we see a lot today and this is the first of many. Can't believe how much better the battery on the S6 Edge is versus the regular S6. I personally don't think it's possible for the difference to really be that much. Even though they say the battery life is "average", it looks outstanding to me. Almost as good as the Note 4. Blows away the iPhone 6 and 6 plus. Pretty surprised they say this "Based on our usage, we feel as though the S6 edge eats up battery quicker than its sibling, resulting in mandatory sporadic charging throughout the day to keep a good level." Their chart basically says it's the best battery life of all phones except for the outliers like the Note 4 and Droid Turbo and other phones that are obviously out of reach.

I'm coming from a Galaxy S3 with a massive 4500 mAh battery pack on the back and didn't expect the S6 to be able to match that or even get close really. According to their chart, it has double the battery life of the S3, which means it should be pretty much the same. Incredible.

 

[stevelam]

Re: Reviews

anandtech has some initial benchmarks up

AnandTech | Samsung Galaxy S 6 and S 6 Edge: Preview

damn i thought this would blow the iphone 6 out of the water, but it really doesn't.

most of the initial browser tests have the iphone 6 way ahead.

one large margin is the speed of memory, which s6 has the advantage.

out of 4 graphics tests, the samsung only beats the iphone 6 in 2 categories so they're basically tied there.

screen tests show the max brightness is barely any different from the iphone 6 as well. while saturation, colour and grey and overall colour accuracy loses out to the iphone 6 as well.

not that impressed right now.

 

[Adranalyne]

Re: Reviews

anandtech has some initial benchmarks up

AnandTech | Samsung Galaxy S 6 and S 6 Edge: Preview

damn i thought this would blow the iphone 6 out of the water, but it really doesn't.

most of the initial browser tests have the iphone 6 way ahead.

one large margin is the speed of memory, which s6 has the advantage.

out of 4 graphics tests, the samsung only beats the iphone 6 in 2 categories so they're basically tied there.

screen tests show the max brightness is barely any different from the iphone 6 as well. while saturation, colour and grey and overall colour accuracy loses out to the iphone 6 as well.

not that impressed right now.

You do realize the difference in resolution is a huge factor here, right?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Alex_NJ]

Re: Reviews

Phonearena review is up. They did both regular and edge model in separate review. Interestingly edge model does a bit better than regular model on battery, slightly edging out S5.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Review - Performance, Battery and Conclusion

I am shocked at the benchmarks and battery life being far far superior in the edge... it's kind of weird?

 

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

I know it's just "Stuff.tv", but they are calling it "Galaxy S6 is the best phone in the world right now - and it’s hard to imagine a rival matching it any time soon"

Samsung Galaxy S6 review | Smartphones | Stuff

 

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

I am shocked at the benchmarks and battery life being far far superior in the edge... it's kind of weird?

Yeah, I don't really believe it. Hardware wise there is no reason for that. Software wise, they should be identical or the regular S6 should be better. 50mAh shouldn't add 1 hour of usage. Personally, I'm taking the average of the 2 results and considering that the actual number for both phones.

 

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

BGR: "Why can’t I find anything to complain about?"

Galaxy S6 Review, Part 2: Hands-on impressions of US Galaxy S6 | BGR

 

[Alex_NJ]

Re: Reviews

Video: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge review: edge of glory - Telegraph

If there was a single point I'd fault the Edge on, it would be battery life, or lack thereof. After using it to check emails and watch the odd video throughout the morning, within just a few hours the battery had fallen to around 60 per cent. Given this was only light to moderate use, it's not brilliant.

That sounds awful...

 

[Adranalyne]

Re: Reviews

Video: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge review: edge of glory - Telegraph

If there was a single point I'd fault the Edge on, it would be battery life, or lack thereof. After using it to check emails and watch the odd video throughout the morning, within just a few hours the battery had fallen to around 60 per cent. Given this was only light to moderate use, it's not brilliant.

That sounds awful...

She most likely had the phone for less than 24 hours. Take these early reviews, at least regarding battery life, with a grain of salt.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

Video: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge review: edge of glory - Telegraph

If there was a single point I'd fault the Edge on, it would be battery life, or lack thereof. After using it to check emails and watch the odd video throughout the morning, within just a few hours the battery had fallen to around 60 per cent. Given this was only light to moderate use, it's not brilliant.

That sounds awful...

While I don't ignore any reviews, I weigh certain sites more than others. Her review is pretty heavily on the "don't pay much attention to" side.

 

[cwise222]

Re: Reviews

The thing with battery life tests is, well, they are entirely dependent on the circumstances at that moment. Is there an app hanging in the background that is using GPS or eating things up? Are you on Wi-Fi or cellular data? How strong is the signal, is the phone having to search for a decent signal? How bright is the screen? Does streaming a movie for 8 hours really prove much of anything for average use?

There are a many things that can alter a battery test, so like always, it’s up in the air until it’s been in people’s hands for a good month or two. So far we’ve see a vast majority of the reviews show average battery life, so about a days ‘average’ use. I’d say the very few short battery life reviews are more an outliner and that Edge result may have been because screen brightness was lower and that extra 50mAh was just enough to eak out anther 50ish minutes.

 

[Jdroids]

Re: Reviews

Yeah, I don't really believe it. Hardware wise there is no reason for that. Software wise, they should be identical or the regular S6 should be better. 50mAh shouldn't add 1 hour of usage. Personally, I'm taking the average of the 2 results and considering that the actual number for both phones.

I didn't expect this much difference either. PA uses their own battery rundown test program. Maybe firmware driving the screen is different and/or edge screen has better power efficiency, etc. But yeah, I guess it's good idea to take average of two.

 

[Jdroids]

Re: Reviews

I am shocked at the benchmarks and battery life being far far superior in the edge... it's kind of weird?

Just one hour more and average puts it right in line with S5. Still quite better than M9 (more than hour) and far superior to iPhone6, S4.

 

[ramsv94]

Re: Reviews

Excellent review by Phonearena
Samsung Galaxy S6 Review

 

[stevelam]

Re: Reviews

You do realize the difference in resolution is a huge factor here, right?

Posted via the Android Central App

sure. but i got to try out the s6. theres definitely diminishing returns in resolution on a relatively small screen. the screen didn't blow me away compared to any other high density smartphone screen. exacerbated by the fact that its colours, brightness level, grey and accuracy are for the most part (s6 is slightly brighter) subpar to the iphone 6's screen.

 

[stevelam]

Re: Reviews

When you look at the rest of the smartphone field, only a select few offer removable batteries or SD card storage. I can't think of one that offers both outside of Samsung and the G3 (I can't remember if the G3 has an SD card slot, but I think it does). To say removing those things is a negative is subjective. Smart phones that don't have them don't get docked for not having them.

Posted via the Android Central App

i think the first thing a new phone is compared to is what the phone before it was like. when you take away features in a previous model, thats a negative (unless of course it didnt work that well in a previous model, like the swipe touch with the s5).

if a phone model NEVER had a certain feature before, then of course it generally doesn't get docked for it.

either way, i personally dont care about removable battery or SD card slot. i love the new form factor with the s6, coming from an iphone user.

 

[John Kar]

Re: Reviews

sure. but i got to try out the s6. theres definitely diminishing returns in resolution on a relatively small screen. the screen didn't blow me away compared to any other high density smartphone screen. exacerbated by the fact that its colours, brightness level, grey and accuracy are for the most part (s6 is slightly brighter) subpar to the iphone 6's screen.

Real on-screen graphics will render in 1080p, not 1440p, so Anandtech's benchmarks won't reflect real-life usage.
Also, those browser results are not on stock browser.

As we've previously discussed, the stock browser will often give far better results due to OEM and SoC vendor optimizations. As a part of our updates to the benchmark suite for 2015, we'll take a look at Basemark OS II 2.0, which should give a better picture of CPU performance in addition to overall device performance.

Also, I would trust displaymate over Anandtech when it comes to display performance.

 

[STEVESKI07]

Re: Reviews

I didn't expect this much difference either. PA uses their own battery rundown test program. Maybe firmware driving the screen is different and/or edge screen has better power efficiency, etc. But yeah, I guess it's good idea to take average of two.

Actually after reading it more thoroughly, they state the difference. "the S6 edge's screen brightness couldn't be manually set to 200 nits (our standard benchmark brightness), so it had to go through the test with brightness set at 180 nits. This has most probably caused the difference in the battery life results of the two Galaxies. In real life, though, we expect both phones to exhibit almost the same battery longevity."

So I think it's safe to assume that the S6 battery life is more accurate when it comes to comparison with the other devices. Really makes me realize how much of a difference a little screen brightness can make though.