There’s good news and frustrating news for fans of the Samsung Galaxy S6. Samsung, being the android powerhouse that it is—has finally unveiled its new flagship phone this past weekend.
Along with the reveal, they let on with some quite disheartening information about the new phone, and some fans don’t like it.
We’re going to compare the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S5 and let you be the judge. Based off of relevant facts and core information, you’ll decide if you wish to upgrade your device or not this upcoming quarter when the Galaxy S6 launches.
Design
Practicality vs style is something Samsung has always exercised in their designs and it remains true with the Galaxy S6. Comparing both devices, one can see easily where the Galaxy S5 shined:
Waterproof
Matte backing
Fingerprint reader
Clearer LCD Display
The Galaxy S6 is a breath of fresh air, having almost nothing about it leaked heavily leading to its reveal event. As far as specs go for the mobile devices, you can see where they differ when comparing their sizes and weights:
Galaxy S6—143.3 x 70.8 x 6.9 mm
(5.64 x 2.79 x 0.27 in) and 132 g
(4.65 oz)
Galaxy S5—142 x 72.5 x 8.1 mm
(5.59 x 2.85 x 0.32 in) and 145 g
(5.11 oz)
While it is taller, the Galaxy S6 is narrower, thinner, and much lighter than its sister phone. Even though its display is the same, the meat and potatoes lie in the body design of the phone. The Galaxy S6 has decided to go with a rounded edge display, and an aluminum body, leaving the plastic matte casing behind this time. The Galaxy S6 will also sport Gorilla Glass 4, and a unibody chassis—which is where the bad news begins to come into the picture.
Displays
Both phones are fantastic in display quality, but the Galaxy S6 has pulled out the cannons. Sporting a superior display that has been upgraded to include the 2K display from 1080p guarantees a better contrast ratio.
As for comparing the display’s to one another, the breakdown is a much easier tool to use for the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S5 let’s check it out:
Galaxy S6—5.1 in 2560 x 1440 px (577 ppi), Super AMOLED display
Galaxy S5—5.1 in 1920 x 1080 px (432 ppi), Super AMOLED panel
The color accuracy is a welcomed feature, however considering the practicality of 2K on such a small screen is unrealistic in all honesty. I couldn’t imagine how different it would be necessary for video quality other than Youtube, or perhaps Vimeo if you weren’t watching Hulu, or Netflix on your phone. Then again, with Youtube, and Vimeo adopting 4K upscaling it’s reasonable to have an updated display that will compare.
Performance and Software upgrades
This is the real reason you read this article isn’t it? We know! The performance upgrades are the real reason people want to upgrade their devices in the first place. Faster phones mean more social media, quicker texts, fewer dropped calls, and a stronger network. It also helps to foster camaraderie with the mobile phone developers and consumer base.
Galaxy S6—Exynos 7420, Quad-core 21.GHz and 1.5GHz CPUs and Mali-T760 GPU 3GB RAM
Galaxy S5—Qualcomm Snapdragon 801. Quad-core 2.5GHz Krait 400 CPUs and Adreno 330 GPU 2GB RAM
What this breakdown means to all who aren’t tech saavy is that the Galaxy S6 completely kills the S5 in terms of performance, speed, and uptime. It also represents a change of the times, and mindset of Samsung. For the first time since 2009, Samsung has ditched Qualcomm, and decided to finally start using a home based chipset in the Exynos 7420.
Camera differences
As silly as it sounds—this is an important factor that many buy phones for. Samsung knows this, and decided to give consumers something special: a Sony camera. That’s right Sony, one of Samsung’s biggest competitors is going to be shooting your pictures for you this time around. What’s more it’s not a bad camera in any way, it’s still the standard 16 megapixels, but it’s a Sony camera this time around. Even more they upgraded your front facing camera to 5mp Check it out.
Galaxy S6—16 megapixel Sony IMX240 F1.9 sensor, OIS, LED flash, 4K video. Front facing 5MP camera, 1080 video.
Galaxy S5—16megapixel Samsung ISOCELL F2.2 sensor, DIS, LED flash, 4k video. Front facing 2MP camera, 1080p video
Although the specs may look the same, let’s take a look under the hood and understand what this does for your pocketbook, and happiness. OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) minimizes shake when taking photos, a lot better in fact than DIS (Digital Image Stabilisation). Even better is the upgraded lens on the camera, the F1.9 lens.
This means that the camera shutter will be incredibly fast, and couldn’t be compared to any other phone on the market this season. Although over sharpening phones quality is a very dangerous thing to do, Samsung has already stated that it will be backing the intelligence of its camera software.
Having said all of this, there are some detractors for the Galaxy S6 that don’t have fans too happy at all, and we’re going to mention those as well.
Detractors for Galaxy S6
The first few things that Samsung let be known immediately was that the phone would be a singular unit. This means that the following will no longer be featured on the Galaxy S6 phone:
Expandable memory
Removable battery
Waterproof
Battery Life
While Samsung didn’t gut their battery, they didn’t show it any love either. They drastically downgraded the capacity of it, to suit the smaller body, and boost the phones performance.
Galaxy S6—2550 mAh capacity battery
Galaxy S5—2800 mAh capacity battery
That’s correct it’s over 250 mAh smaller than it’s sister. Samsung has encouraged consumers not to panic, as the TouchWiz is less of a hog on the phones system, and that the Exynos chipset is over 35% more efficient than its predecessors. And although we’ll be looking at the phone having a built-in battery, it will be using quick charge technology. This means that the battery will be able to have up to 4 hours of use time on it after a 10 minute charge.
Samsung will also be including built-in wireless charge which works on both Qi, and PMW. The Samsung Galaxy S6 will come in the following sizes—with pricing subject to change so we won’t list them here.
Galaxy S6 32gb
Galaxy S6 64gb
Galaxy S6 128gb
That’s correct we no longer have a 16gb option, obviously due to the non-expandable memory. With the phone on the horizon, and your decision hanging in the balance—use this guide to help you decide on the upgrade or not.
We’re looking forward to the phone, and all of its fantastic features, especially Android Lollipop 5.0 being the base operating system.
Shout out in the comments let us know your thoughts!
Kenay Peterson
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheDarkMage2
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Tags: Galaxy S5, Galaxy S6, Samsung, Samsung Galaxy S6, Smartphone