Anadtech review is out

[oscarnyc]

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge Review

Typically thorough, technology heavy review. Summation "Taking everything together, the Galaxy S6 is the phone to beat right now". Note he said "phone" and not "Android phone".
Battery life came in around iP6 GS5 levels (which sounds right if there are no cell standby drain issues, which he didn't have - and interestingly he was using the T-mob version).
Also very interesting was that he felt with the advances Samsung has made in amoled, that by the next generation it will be clearly ahead of LCD and other makers will have to switch to amoled to keep up. Given the recent news that Samsung has formed a specific team to deal with apple on displays (they currently make iPad and MacBook displays for them), it looks likely the iPhone 7 ('16 release) will have an amoled display.

 

[tnt4]

Read this earlier as well. Anandtech is my favorite for reviews.

 

[atishc]

The most interesting thing I took from that review was how much better the benchmarks were on the stock browser than Chrome. I use Chrome on my laptops, but I always had a sense that the stock browser was overall better than Chrome on the phone - now I have pretty strong data to back up that impression.

 

[erasat]

The most interesting thing I took from that review was how much better the benchmarks were on the stock browser than Chrome. I use Chrome on my laptops, but I always had a sense that the stock browser was overall better than Chrome on the phone - now I have pretty strong data to back up that impression.

I'm playing with that idea on my mind for some time now but if I finally manage to see how to import all my Chrome Bookmarks to the stock Android I'd do it, I've been trying for more than a week on my Samsung Tab S 10.5 and now on the edge and nothing, other than one by one, and when you have almost 150 bookmarks like me, then it's not an easy choice.

 

[jcp007]

When you said tech heavy, you weren't kidding. Very thorough review. A bit more down in the weeds for me not being that tech savvy. Glad to see an article acknowledge the new direction that Samsung is taking and they have largely succeeded in setting the bar fairly high for upcoming flagship smartphones.

 

[Techno-guy]

...it looks likely the iPhone 7 ('16 release) will have an amoled display.

Great review...thanks for posting! If that last statement is true about the iPhone 7 transitioning to AMOLED, while it will be great for Samsung to sell an extra 50 million displays per quarter to Apple, it will only increase Apple's lead in battery optimization. The iPhone 6 Plus ran away with a number of the battery tests in the article (and in real life, there's nothing to compare it to) and if it was paired with Samsung's much better (and more efficient) screen technology, it will only get better for Apple.

Definitely a conundrum for Samsung. Great for selling screens to Apple but will likely hurt their own phone sales.

 

[flamingoezz]

I only quickly browsed certain sections -- but where did you get the impression that battery life was comparable to iphone 6? Charts seemed to show web browsing as comparable, but overall it trailed in many areas on battery from my quick perusing.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge Review

Typically thorough, technology heavy review. Summation "Taking everything together, the Galaxy S6 is the phone to beat right now". Note he said "phone" and not "Android phone".
Battery life came in around iP6 GS5 levels (which sounds right if there are no cell standby drain issues, which he didn't have - and interestingly he was using the T-mob version).
Also very interesting was that he felt with the advances Samsung has made in amoled, that by the next generation it will be clearly ahead of LCD and other makers will have to switch to amoled to keep up. Given the recent news that Samsung has formed a specific team to deal with apple on displays (they currently make iPad and MacBook displays for them), it looks likely the iPhone 7 ('16 release) will have an amoled display.

 

[Adranalyne]

Great review...thanks for posting! If that last statement is true about the iPhone 7 transitioning to AMOLED, while it will be great for Samsung to sell an extra 50 million displays per quarter to Apple, it will only increase Apple's lead in battery optimization. The iPhone 6 Plus ran away with many of the battery tests in the article (and in real life, there's nothing to compare it to) and if it was paired with Samsung's much better (and more efficient) screen technology, it will only get better for Apple.

Definitely a conundrum for Samsung. Great for selling screens to Apple but will likely hurt their phone sales.

I was under the impression they were going to start using the IGZO panels from Sharp because of their ridiculous efficiency. Apple will probably go that route because I'm not sure they'd need to go with AMOLED. The S6 display is already quite a bit better than their current displays and it doesn't seem to phase them.

What I loved about this review is the efficiency of the hardware making the battery life on par or better than the current flagships (outside of the phablet territory). The Note 5, with a larger battery, could be an incredible leap in battery life for Android.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

 

[jcp007]

I was under the impression they were going to start using the IGZO panels from Sharp because of their ridiculous efficiency. Apple will probably go that route because I'm not sure they'd need to go with AMOLED. The S6 display is already quite a bit better than their current displays and it doesn't seem to phase them.

What I loved about this review is the efficiency of the hardware making the battery life on par or better than the current flagships (outside of the phablet territory). The Note 5, with a larger battery, could be an incredible leap in battery life for Android.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

You would think that now that the phone has been released and are view like this mentioning comparable battery life to its predecessor would start to make some come around. It is quite a statement to introduce a higher resolution screen and a faster chipset as well as a host of other numerous improvements and added features to still accomplish this with a smaller battery.

 

[Adranalyne]

You would think that now that the phone has been released and are view like this mentioning comparable battery life to its predecessor would start to make some come around. It is quite a statement to introduce a higher resolution screen and a faster chipset as well as a host of other numerous improvements and added features to still accomplish this with a smaller battery.

Agreed. Wish more people would realize that, but it'll happen over time.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

 

[Jdroids]

Great review...thanks for posting! If that last statement is true about the iPhone 7 transitioning to AMOLED, while it will be great for Samsung to sell an extra 50 million displays per quarter to Apple, it will only increase Apple's lead in battery optimization. The iPhone 6 Plus ran away with a number of the battery tests in the article (and in real life, there's nothing to compare it to) and if it was paired with Samsung's much better (and more efficient) screen technology, it will only get better for Apple.

Definitely a conundrum for Samsung. Great for selling screens to Apple but will likely hurt their own phone sales.

Actually according to GSMarena test table, there are dozen of phones doing better than iPhone6+ on battery life. And again it's in phablet category competing with Note 4 and likes.

Battery life tests - GSMArena.com

 

[Love Divine]

Actually according to GSMarena test table, there are dozen of phones doing better than iPhone6+ on battery life. And again it's in phablet category competing with Note 4 and likes.

Battery life tests - GSMArena.com

You are absolutely delusional (not you in particular, just a "general" you) if you really believe that phones like the GS5, Butterfly S or G Flex have better battery than the 6 Plus, as the GSMArena chart states. I'ts better than the Note 4 as well - I owned both. I've said it a thousand times - GSMArena is generally garbage and blatantly anti-Apple. Anandtech is much, much better.

 

[atishc]

I'm playing with that idea on my mind for some time now but if I finally manage to see how to import all my Chrome Bookmarks to the stock Android I'd do it, I've been trying for more than a week on my Samsung Tab S 10.5 and now on the edge and nothing, other than one by one, and when you have almost 150 bookmarks like me, then it's not an easy choice.

Is this helpful? How to transfer bookmarks from Chrome to stock browser on Galaxy S4 ?

 

[oscarnyc]

I only quickly browsed certain sections -- but where did you get the impression that battery life was comparable to iphone 6? Charts seemed to show web browsing as comparable, but overall it trailed in many areas on battery from my quick perusing.

Hard to make an exact comparison as many of the tests were Android only, but otherwise they were about 50/50 on who outperforms. I don't even pretend to have an idea as to how meaningful these various tests are, or what they mean.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Adranalyne]

You are absolutely delusional (not you in particular, just a "general" you) if you really believe that phones like the GS5, Butterfly S or G Flex have better battery than the 6 Plus, as the GSMArena chart states. I'ts better than the Note 4 as well - I owned both. I've said it a thousand times - GSMArena is generally garbage and blatantly anti-Apple. Anandtech is much, much better.

That's actually a fair assessment. Anandtech is a much better resource for these things.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

 

[Jdroids]

You are absolutely delusional (not you in particular, just a "general" you) if you really believe that phones like the GS5, Butterfly S or G Flex have better battery than the 6 Plus, as the GSMArena chart states. I'ts better than the Note 4 as well - I owned both. I've said it a thousand times - GSMArena is generally garbage and blatantly anti-Apple. Anandtech is much, much better.

Yeah, there are some anomalies in their battery rating table and I also pointed out couple of times S5 is overrated after Lollipop update in their rating. But I can surely see G Flex (not G Flex 2) outlasting iPhone6+ easily. It's got 3500mAh battery and 720p screen. Note 4 is a little better too. Overall GSMarena rating is pretty close to real world comparison though there are some errors, inconsistency there sometimes. But I agree Anandtench is the best in terms of objective, thorough testings.

 

[Techno-guy]

Actually according to GSMarena test table, there are dozen of phones doing better than iPhone6+ on battery life. And again it's in phablet category competing with Note 4 and likes.

Battery life tests - GSMArena.com

Like many of you, I'm a true phone geek and the testing done by GSMArena and "real world" battery life are two different things. I have a Lumia 1520 (#1 on GSMArena's list) and I would say it is almost as good as an iPhone 6 Plus, but not quite there. My wife has the Note 4 which GSMArena ranks ahead of the 6 Plus in their "hours" ranking and while it's a good performer, the standby battery burn, though nothing horrendous, doesn't compare to the iPhone which can lose 1% over 8-10 hours in Standby. In the real world, when your phone is often in idle on a WiFi network, there is nothing even comparable to the 6 Plus.

When the screen is on, I'm sure you could probably find a few more efficient phones (Z3?) but, with light to moderate usage, the 6 Plus can run all business day on a WiFi network and easily end the day at 90%. Below is just my afternoon today on my 6 Plus. Still rockin' my S6 edge but today was an iPhone day for me.

I took it off the charger when I got back from lunch at 1pm and streamed music all afternoon to my Sonos, returned a lot of emails, texted a fair amount (maybe 50 texts), listened to the new AndroidCentral podcast on PocketCasts and was on Facebook when I got bored on a conference call (don't say anything!). I know there's no equivalent Screen on Time for the iPhone, but after 3 hours of all that activity and off the charger and a lot of WiFi idle, I'm still at 97%.

 

[imnjs]

Really impressed with this review. Definitely a reassurance that I made the right choice with this phone for my 2015 upgrade despite the battery conundrum. The biggest shocker for me (as previously stated) was the performance of the stock browser over Chrome. And it becomes extremely obvious on some websites (like the poorly optimized T-Mobile.com website, just check for yourself).

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[erasat]

Great review...thanks for posting! If that last statement is true about the iPhone 7 transitioning to AMOLED, while it will be great for Samsung to sell an extra 50 million displays per quarter to Apple, it will only increase Apple's lead in battery optimization. The iPhone 6 Plus ran away with a number of the battery tests in the article (and in real life, there's nothing to compare it to) and if it was paired with Samsung's much better (and more efficient) screen technology, it will only get better for Apple.

Definitely a conundrum for Samsung. Great for selling screens to Apple but will likely hurt their own phone sales.

Sony Xperia Z3 (5.2") and Z3 COMPACT (4.8", Basically same size than regular iPhone 6) both leave the iPhone 6 + in the dust in that department even in Standby, and both of them are great flagship phones, only problem for them is that Sony doesn't seems to make good decisions and business moves in a decade. Z3 was until now, that I have the S6 edge, the best all around phone I've had in my life. So yes, Android can compete toe to toe with iPhone 6+ right now, but in order to compare them it must be in orange to orange basis, same battery size and same display, but that won't be possible right now as the best Apple has given the iPhone is a 5.5" 1080p display where the comparable Android flagships now have either smaller displays, or smaller batteries with QHD.

Samsung decided to use a very small battery so they could get this great design that has been globally acclaimed and accepted as one of the best, if not the best looking phone outhere, the tradeoff? Battery size. People should know this before buying it, but even that, they have managed to make that this thin and beautiful phone with the best QHD outthere and one of the lightest phone right now, still gets 5-6 SoT when no Lollipop bug gets on its way, like is the case for a lot of us in this forum.

That my friends is a total wonder of technology, even when some people will never think the same way. Be a little more patient guys, in the meantime do a couple of our suggested tweaks and once Google and Samsung find and fixes all the bugs, I assure you, you won't regret it.

 

[erasat]

Is this helpful? How to transfer bookmarks from Chrome to stock browser on Galaxy S4 ?

Well, not exactly a perfect fit, but if I don't find anything better I can always try that later, thanks.