Samsung Officially Unpacks Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge At MWC

MojoKid writes Today, at Mobile World Congress, Samsung took the veil off of its much-anticipated Galaxy S6, and also the Galaxy S6 edge. As has been heavily rumored, the S6 foregoes the plastic shell of its predecessor and integrates metal and glass instead, resulting in a far more premium feel, a thickness of 6.8mm, and a weight of 138g on the normal S6 and 132g on the edge. Samsung made it a point to mention that the metal it uses in the S6 is 50% stronger than other smartphones- a Apple bendgate jab, perhaps? Both the S6 and S6 edge share the same hardware, which includes a 5.1-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display. That gives us a resolution of 2560x1440, and a high pixel density of 577 ppi. The new phones also include an octa-core processor (2.1GHz quad + 1.5GHz quad), 3GB of DDR4 memory, and LTE cat 6 (300/50Mbps) support. Also of note is the phone's rear 16 megapixel f/1.9 camera, which Samsung says will launch in less than a second (0.6 seconds, to be exact). The front camera is no slouch either, also boasting an aperture of f/1.9, and coming in at 5 megapixels. The company says that the phone can add 4 hours of battery-life after a mere 10 minutes of charging, and when compared to the iPhone, it charges up to full in half the time. The S6 also has built-in wireless charging as well.

Comments

Nope

[ledow]

Non-user-replaceable battery, and no SD expansion.

Stick it up your backside, Samsung, and stop emulating the WORST features of your competitors.

Re:Nope

[ganjadude]

the funny thing is how all the bloggers and reporters are calling this a step in the right direction. for me it pretty much sealed their fate, no more galaxy line for me.

Everyone talking about how "premium" it feels and is... well a premium phone IMO has expandable storage. It has a removable battery. It can take a fall from a few feet up (glass back???? really??? all my friends who had iphone 4s had cracked backs

to top it all off i dont want to spend money on a "premium feel" when all im gonna do is wrap it in an otterbox anyway!

does anyone make a top tier phone, with an SD slot and a removable battery anymore? because that is who will be getting my business when i buy my next phone (it sucks too because I was putting off buying a new phone for a few months waiting on this one)

Re:Nope

[ganjadude]

5 years ago that was true. Im still using my GS3 which works fine to this day. it gets a little hot, but after replacing the battery i could see me getting a good 2 more years out of it (longer if i wasnt using a bunch of apps)

Re:Nope

[ganjadude]

as for thinness, I dont want that! Gimme a phone 2x as thick as current top tier phones (or about 1/2 as thick as old nokia candy bar phones) and give me 4X the battery life. I want some heft in my phone. not zach morris phone thick, but old candy bar phone thick

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-user-replaceable battery, and no SD expansion.

A replaceable battery costs more upfront and is incompatible with thinness. Most people get a new phone long before the battery dies.

1)
You do not speak for anyone but yourself, despite the fantasies you so obviously entertain.

2)
Some of us want a battery which can be removed so the phone can be powered off without
any question. A non-removable battery is a deal-breaker for those who want this.

/

Re:Nope

[ganjadude]

i dont want to carry around a charger on me at all times just in case

The only reason to remove SD slots is to force people to buy higher level storage phones. On a business level, i get it if i can make someone buy the 64 instead of the 32 gig model, its more money in my pocket. Me on the other hand, I use multiple SD cards depending on what im doing (blank if going to a concert, a few with different genres of music, a few with movies for long trips etc) i dont have ton constantly move things around, i just pop in the card.

keyboards. how I long for a slider like my droid 3

Re:Nope

[msauve]

I bought a battery for my S4 for $12 shipped. Every bit as good as the OEM. I carry the charged original in my backpack as a spare, no need to find a power source for an immediate "recharge." When the one in use stops holding a full charge, I'll buy another $12 replacement. I could have bought insurance from Verizon if I wanted - but I take care of my phones and over 25 years have never broken or lost one, so I'm still ahead even if I have to buy one at full retail someday in the future.

It looks like AppleCare+ is $99, and only covers out to 2 years (and another $79 if the phone is replaced due to damage). Are iPhones really so unreliable that that presents value?

$12 battery shipped to my home which I can easily replace in less than a minute myself, or $99 and a trip to the store. I'd say I have a better level of service than you - less expensive, too.

Re:Nope

[MastarPete]

The only reason to remove SD slots is to force people to buy higher level storage phones. On a business level, i get it if i can make someone buy the 64 instead of the 32 gig model, its more money in my pocket.

There are many ways to look at this, including a conspiracy theory I heard summer of 2013 that Samsung was sitting on a stockpile or memory chips and just wanted to milk selling 16gb models for as long as possible by not offering the higher storage models. That one seemed really plausible when you consider the Galaxy S5 32gb never arrived in the US and signs pointed to Samsung themselves completely withholding it from US carriers.

In this case I think you're looking at the wrong end of the sales chain. If Samsung and the carriers were really intent on selling higher storage capacities you'd think they would do a better job marketing them and get employees at all levels better training. I talked to a Samsung sales rep that happened to be in Costco one time and he only seemed to be interested in getting me to just buy the 16gb model, even though he himself had a 64gb.

The carriers stand to make far more money than the manufacturer by getting their customers to use cloud services so they have to sign up for larger, overpriced data plans. So I'm far more inclined to believe that Samsung's previous attempt at selling the S3 32gb in the US failed because of the carriers who largely only sold them online. When asked why they weren't sold in-store they sited inventory logistics as the reason, meanwhile carriers had no problem stocking higher capacity iphones in-store. Don't forget to factor in that the in-store employees are all on commission so why would bother trying to up-sell the device with higher storage when they can't get commission from an online sale.

Re:Nope

[EdwardFurlong]

I chose my phone based on the removable battery and sd slot. I have lots of information stored on sd cards, some of it reference, some of it sensitive. I like to be able to read it off multiple devices. Phones in my house tend to get passed down. They go beyond the two years.

Re:Nope

[unrtst]

SD expansion is only an issue if you don't get enough memory in the first place.

Maybe most people don't care, but there are many very very good reasons to have this feature.
My personal favorite is that, with recent android builds, you can no longer plug your phone in and have it show up as a mass storage device (without rooting/etc). If you want to actually access the filesystem where your data is stored, then you have to take out the SD card and use a reader - at least that workaround is available.

A few departures from the S3/S4/S5

[DanTheManMS]

No removable battery. Less space than an SD card. Lame.

In all seriousness, it does look like a very nice phone. And Samsung has gotten better about pre-loading less bloatware on their more recent releases. We'll have to see how the general public receives it though.

What?

[SternisheFan]

No removable battery, no SD card. The best things about Samsung phones have been removed from this version.

what about this rarely-considered feature?

[Anonymous Coward]

megapixels, GHz, bus speed, blah blah blah...I may be the only person on the planet who actually cares about this esoteric feature, but I'll ask anyway: How well does it function as a telephone? Are calls clear & loud? How much does the microphone collect sound? Is it sensitive to wind (noise)? etc. etc. etc. I ask because most cell phones sound dreadful -- like a 3rd generation mp3 played through an AM radio.

In these days of feature checklist pissing contests over most pixels and CPU power, it'd be good to know if a $700 phone can make a decent phone call.

Re:what about this rarely-considered feature?

[AbRASiON]

Mod anon up, important question.
Also often overlooked

Audio quality from headphone port
Speakerphone quality
Mic quality
Time to charge (addressed in this case)
Shock resistance
Warranty period
Quality of service from provider (hate to tip the hat to Apple but holy crap good service)
Screen brightness in the sun
etc.

Re: they have to compare it to the iphone 6,

[unami]

i don't get it why they drop differenciating features like water resistance, sd-card slot or removable battery instead of making them better. that were the features that made samsung-phones stand out. i can understand samsung wanting to go for the premium market. but they need more than an iphone with android and purportetly better features (in the end, it's still the software, stupid) for a piece of the iphone's cake

No SD card = major weakness

[dwheeler]

One reason I bought an earlier Samsung is *specifically* because it supports a micro-SD card. Nice specs, but no micro-SD is a weakness to me.

Going overboard while falling short

[WaffleMonster]

Oh come on 2560x1440 AMOLED is just insane and pointless. 1080 is ridiculous as-is nobody is ever going to benefit from or notice any difference.

More importantly I won't buy a phone with an AMOLED display. IPS is more reliable, lasts longer, no burn-in issues and easier to see in daylight.

Also no SD card? WTF were they thinking?

No replaceable battery in a device that costs hundreds of dollars... Don't think so - not that rich/stupid.

The good news is

[denisbergeron]

The older S5 with a removable battery and a SD card will see the price down.