S Voice vs Google Now

[hysonmb]

The Galaxy S6 Edge is my first Android phone since the Epic 4G on Sprint. I say that because I really am not familiar with Android anymore and this is a serious question, does S Voice do anything that I can't do with voice using Google Now? I disabled it in hopes of saving some battery life but it would be nice if I could have the phone read texts and let me reply to them by voice.
I'm coming from Windows Phone and Cortana is probably the biggest thing I miss so far.

 

[SpookDroid]

S-Voice would let you do that, yes. That's probably the only thing S-Voice can do that Google Now can't. Obviously it's tightly integrated with S-Apps, but overall, Google Now is more powerful.

 

[hysonmb]

Thanks! I'll turn it back on and see how it compares to the battery life I'm getting without it.

 

[SpookDroid]

As long as you don't actively use it or have the 'always listening' command feature activated, it really won't make that much of a difference.

Some people like to disable the Home Button shortcut too because that does speed up the Home Button response a bit, but that's about it.

Same thing with Google Now, except that for it to work it's prediction magic, it has to rely on Location services, which means that it's polling for your current location very frequently. It's gotten A LOT better at power-efficiency while doing so, but if you want to see a significant increase in battery life, turn off Location services for Google Now and you'll see what I mean. BUT that means you won't get those handy Google cards that attempt to know what you need to know depending on where you are, like commute information before you have to go home, or start guessing that you usually go to lunch to Five Guys on Wednesdays... stuff like that.