PROS
- Excellent camera
- Quality look and feel
- Wireless and fast charging
- Superb screen
- Powerful performance
CONS
- So-so battery life
- Some App crashing issues
KEY FEATURES
- 5.1-inch 1440 x 2560 resolution screen
- Octa-core Exynos 7420 chipset
- Wireless Charging
- 3GB RAM
- 2,550mAh non-removable battery
- Android 5.0 L with TouchWiz
- Samsung Pay
- IR Blaster
- Manufacturer: Samsung
- Review Price: £599.00
UPDATE 08/03/2016:
Now that Samsung has released a successor to the Galaxy S6, with the Galaxy S7, the next generation of smartphones has started to arrive.
But the S6 remains one of the finest phones of last year. It was so good, in fact, that we gave the handset – and its curvier S6 Edge cousin – the Trusted Reviews Smartphone of the Year award.
Although the S7 packs in a number of new features and upgrades, including the return of the SD Card slot, the S6 still has a lot going for it. It's got a sharp screen, stunning camera, and slick build, all packed inside a compact design.
What's more, the S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge have both received an update in the form of Android Marshmallow, to coincide with the S7 launch. That means a host of new features for the S6, all of which you can check out on our guide to Android Marshmallow on the S6 and S6 Edge page.
- In brief, Android 6.0 brings the following to the S6:
- A new memory manager that allows you to check how much memory each app is using
- Battery optimisation on a by-app basis
- Better Google Now integration with Google Now on Tap
- More control over app permissions
- A new power saving feature called Doze
You can read our original review of the Galaxy S6 below.
SAMSUNG'S MOST IMPORTANT RELEASE TO DATE
First reviewed: May 2015
One of the finest phones of the year, we recently gave the Samsung Galaxy S6 – and its curvier S6 Edge .
Thanks to a more affordable price, the S6 is still one of the best Android phones you can buy right now. It's got a sharp screen, stunning camera, slick build and it's a lot more compact than most other similarly specced phones on the market.
If the S6 Edge+ is simply too big for you and you're not keen on going over to IOS with the iPhone 6S, the Galaxy S6 is a great choice.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 – DESIGN
Metal chassis; Gorilla Glass 4 rear; 142 x 70 x 7mm; 132g; Home button; Soft keys
Samsung has managed to make the Galaxy S6 a great-looking phone. The Galaxy S6 Edge is arguably the more stylish of the two, but you only need to spend more for it if you really want to. Smooth Gorilla Glass 4 front and rear, and aluminium alloy bands on the sides, means looks and feels like flagship phone. Unlike last year’s S5, the S6 feels like it’s worth over £500/$684.99. That’s important.
Less successful are some of the colour options, though. The "jewel tones" – as Samsung calls them – include White Pearl, Gold Platinum, Black Sapphire, Blue Topaz and Green Emerald. The brighter colours also tend to be fingerprint magnets so keep a spare cloth handy if you opt for one of those.
Some finishes have a slight dual tonality to them, so they appear to change colour depending on how the light shines on them. The effect is more subtle than the pink/gold combo on the HTC M9, but it can still look a little tacky, particularly in Blue Topaz and Gold Platinum.
The phone is light but still feels solid, and it’s slimmer than the Galaxy S5. In fact, despite its large 5.1-inch screen, it doesn’t feel that much chunkier or clumsier than the dinky, 4-inch iPhone 5S. Thin metal volume and power keys live on opposite sides, which helps avoid accidentally pressing power key as we experienced with the HTC One M9.
One move that doesn’t work so well is the speaker placement. It now sits awkwardly at the base of the phone, rather than the back as it did on the Galaxy S5. Neither placement is particularly helpful, as they’re easy to block when held normally. This muffles the sound in the natural way you'd hold it while playing a game or watching a movie. Another issue is that the home key is slightly raised, making it easy to press accidentally while it's in your pocket.
The S6 and S5 look very similar from the front
The rear of the phone is a less of a design success. The camera protrudes around 2mm making it look a little like a break-out on the face of an unfortunate teenager. Some people will be bothered less than others but the key point is that it slides in and out of your pocket easily thanks to sloped edges. The SIM-tray sits flush with the side and if you can keep hold of the annoyingly elusive SIM-ejector tool or use a paperclip, the tray pops out firmly without too much difficulty.
There are a couple more genuine drawbacks to the spanking new Galaxy S6’s design, though. Glass may be easy to grip but it’s so super smooth that the S6 dives off many surfaces like Michael Phelps at the first hint of a starting whistle – we've caught the S6 on the edge of possible destruction on numerous occasions during our time reviewing it.
Using a case or resting the phone on a textured surface reduces the frequency of these suicide dives, but a less slippery finish might have been better. It's swings and roundabouts though. We prefer the look of the Glass-backed Galaxy S6 but felt safer with the S5's grippy, dimpled back.
The S6 isn't waterproof like the Galaxy S5, so you need to take more care than before. Mind you, we’ll be surprised if Samsung doesn’t release an IP-rated Galaxy S6 ‘Active‘ variant in the coming weeks or months.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 – SCREEN
5.1-inch; 1440 x 2560 pixels (QHD or 2K); 577ppi; Super AMOLED; Gorilla Glass 4
The 5.1-inch screen on the Samsung Galaxy S6 is truly brilliant and definitely one of the best screens we’ve seen on a mobile phone. Only the LG G4 and Galaxy Note 4 can match it for sharpness, but the Super AMOLED panel on the S6 is cut above in every other respect.
Compared to most LCD-screened phones the Galaxy S6’s screen is more vibrant, though Full HD (1080p) screens look just as sharp unless you start looking at the screen from a couple of inches away. The S5’s screen is just as vibrant as the S6, but the S6 produces cleaner, more natural whites. Whites look slightly blue on the S5, while the S6 looks closer to the iPhone 6, which is the best in this department.
The S6 vs the S5 pixel density
But there’s no doubting which has the best contrast. AMOLED screens don’t have a traditional backlight, which means blacks appear perfectly black. This means videos and photos look fantastic, while the punchier colours outshine the iPhone 6 as well. It looks great indoors and holds up well even in direct sunlight.
Samsung’s TouchWiz UI allows you to adjust the display colours to fit the user’s preferences, and we found that the AMOLED Photo setting produced the most colour faithful results without heavily sacrificing vibrancy. Apple’s iPhone 6 is the benchmark for colour accuracy but the Galaxy S6 is closer to the iPhone than any other phone we've seen.
The screen looks good from every viewing angle, too, making it perfect for sharing videos and photos on. There really isn’t any department where this screen doesn’t excel. It’s brilliant.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 – CAMERA
One of the main selling points of the Samsung Galaxy S6 is its main camera. It uses the 16-megapixel Sony Exmor RS IMX240 sensor, which is the same sensor used in the Galaxy Note 4. But Samsung has made some improvements to the camera’s algorithms and lens. The benefits of the tweaks are most notable in low light and in the amount of raw detail the camera can capture.
Launching the camera takes less than a second and its autofocusing speed is impressive in good light, comparable to the iPhone 6, but not as fast as the LG G3. The Galaxy S6’s camera is so easy to use and so consistently good that it encourages you to take pictures of absolutely everything – I’ve taken more pictures in seven days with the Galaxy S6 than I have with the last three phones I’ve reviewed over the past six weeks combined.
The S6 really shines when you look at the detail it can capture
The camera has an f/1.9 lens, which is great for low light and shallow depth of field and it does do a good job of capturing a wide variety of subjects in all lighting conditions. On high contrast sunny days, blue skies are brilliant without being over saturated, with detail still clearly visible in the shadow areas.
Optical image stabilisation (OIS) helps the camera do a superb job of capturing nightscapes and parties, even without the flash. But if you do use the flash indoors when it’s dark, the results are impressive – people’s faces are evenly lit and well exposed.
In the 100% crop above you can see how little noise the S6 camera produces in low light
OIS also makes it easier to take pot shots while walking – I did this whenever I was out and about during the day and didn’t want to stop in my tracks to capture an interesting sight. As long as the phone managed to focus fast enough, I'd get good results. I did get the odd out of focus shot if I pressed the shutter too fast though. Taking pot shots with most other phones would result in regularly crap or blurred images - I had a better success rate with this one.
The Galaxy S6 shows it’s also a perfect phone for taking selfies. Modes like wide selfie, which helps you capture large group shots, and beauty shot that smooths skin, help you take self-portraits. The quality is excellent for a 5-megapixel unit.
If you’re a fan of video, the S6 can capture 2160p at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps and 720p in awesome ‘slomo’ at 120fps. The quality is, again, among the best any smartphone can produce at the moment.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 – BATTERY LIFE AND CHARGING
The Samsung Galaxy S6 has a smaller battery than its predecessor – down from 2,800mAh to 2,550mAh. It's also smaller than the battery in the S6 Edge by about 2% because Samsung used a slightly different circuit board structure in each phone. The SIM-tray on the S6 Edge had to be placed at the top of the phone, which allowed Samsung to include a slightly larger battery, but the difference is minimal.
In the mornings, the phone is off the charger by about 6am and then it’s used to check the news and weather, looking through social media feeds and getting transport updates. During a 45-minute morning commute to work the S6 is connected to public WiFi and is being used to read or for viewing media.
By the time I arrive at work, the battery can drop by as much as 20%. The battery depleted about 10% an hour when used actively, sharply declining during extended periods of game playing or video watching.
The battery can lose up to 20% from when you wake up to when you arrive at work
If you use the phone regularly and don’t take advantage of any power saving measures or actually activate one of the two power saving modes, it very hard to get a full day out of this phone. There’s no escaping that the S6’s battery life is inferior to the S5’s. Some people can manage with this, but if you’re a particularly heavy user then you might struggle to go a full day without a top up charge.
Alternatively, you can resort to the two power saving modes. The standard Power Saving Mode restricts background data and app usage, and Ultra Power Saving Mode replaces the phone’s colours with grayscale and limits functionality up to six selected core apps.
Used heavily, it often approaches critical by 8pm. Moreover, if you have a very early start. you’ll need both the power saving modes, or a top up charge, to make it home. But one of the phone’s other superb features really goes someway to negating its reduced staying power, and that’s the fast charging.
The steep peaks show how rapidly the phone charges, but you can also see how steadily and fast the battery can deplete
The Galaxy S6 charges exceedingly fast. When used with a compatible fast charger (one is supplied in the box), the S6 can charge up to around 35% in 10/15 minutes. That will give you about three-to-four hours of juice, which is really impressive. From 0% the phone will reach 100% in about an hour and 20 minutes – much faster than any of its competitors.
It’s unfortunate that the phone is so power hungry, especially given that Samsung no longer allows you to switch out batteries and is using a relatively average capacity cell in the Galaxy S6. Used sensibly most people won’t have issues with the battery, but people could rightly ask what good is it having bells and whistles of the most advanced phone on the market if you have to take them off?
This graph shows the wireless charging performance, it's much slower
The Galaxy S6 can charge wirelessly as well, which is part of the reason why the battery is no longer removable. Samsung has partnered with furniture giants Ikea to a release a range of home and office ware that has wireless charging spots built into them to compliment this new feature. While we don't have any snazzy electromagnetic furniture, we did get one of Samsung’s own branded wireless chargers made for the Galaxy S6.
It’s a stylish looking round pad, with a ring of rubber in its centre to try and keep the slippery S6 in place, but it doesn’t fast charge the phone – wireless charging technology isn’t that good yet. The charging efficiency is sluggish in comparison to using the supplied charger. Two hours of wireless charging will get the S6 to about 70% from critical.
The wireless charger can be purchased for around £39.99 and is best used as a battery maintenance accessory, left on your desk at home or at work. It allows you to use the phone freely while being productive and keeps it charging steadily throughout the day. This also helps you avoid having to revert to power saving modes if you are sat at a desk and out of your house for more than 10 to 12 hours a day.
The battery is probably the only weakness of the Galaxy S6 and for some it may prove to be its achilles heel. But fast charging and the wireless charging capabilities go far enough to make the battery less of an issue, even if it’s a disappointing step backward compared to the Galaxy S5.
Thanks for reading.
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