Samsung Galaxy S 6 and S 6 Edge: Preview
by Joshua Ho on March 26, 2015 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy S6
- Galaxy S6 Edge
Yesterday we received our Galaxy S6 and S6 edge review units. We’re still working on the final review but I wanted to share some early results from both devices. For those that are unfamiliar with these two phones, the Galaxy S6 range represents the result of Samsung’s “Project Zero”. In fact, the phones seem to have the internal name of Zero, which can be seen in terminal, and the build properties of both devices. For Samsung, these phones represent their attempt at completely rethinking how Samsung makes phones. There is a strong emphasis on a new unibody design, which has no visible gaps or screws. Rather than the plastic that previous Samsung phones have been known for, the new design is composed of metal and glass. Samsung’s design team has been given unprecedented control throughout the process of making this phone and the result of this is a Galaxy phone that looks unlike anything else they’ve ever released.
Even if design is important, it isn’t enough to make the phone. Samsung has also outfitted the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge with their latest technologies, from a new AMOLED display to a new camera module. The specs for both phones can be seen below.
Samsung Galaxy S5 | Samsung Galaxy S6 | Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge | |
SoC | MSM8974ACv3 2.45 GHz Snapdragon 801 | Exynos 7420 2.1/1.5GHz A57/A53 | Exynos 7420 2.1/1.5GHz A57/A53 |
RAM/NAND | 2GB LPDDR3 16/32GB NAND + microSD |
3GB LPDDR4-1552 32/64/128GB NAND |
3GB LPDDR4-1552 32/64/128GB NAND |
Display | 5.1” 1080p SAMOLED HD |
5.1” 1440p SAMOLED |
5.1” 1440p SAMOLED, Dual Edge |
Network | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Qualcomm MDM9x25 UE Category 4 LTE) | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6 LTE) | 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6 LTE) |
Dimensions | 142 x 72.5 x 8.1 mm, 145 grams | 143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8mm max, 138 grams | 142.1 x 70.1 x 7.0mm max, 132 grams |
Camera | 16MP (5132 x 2988) Rear Facing with 1.12 µm pixels, 1/2.6" CMOS size, 31 mm (35mm effective), f/2.2 | 16MP (5132 x 2988) Rear Facing w/ OIS, f/1.9, object tracking AF | 16MP (5132 x 2988) Rear Facing w/ OIS, f/1.9, object tracking AF |
2MP Front Facing | 5MP Front Facing, f/1.9 | 5MP Front Facing, f/1.9 | |
Battery | 2800 mAh (10.78 Whr) | 2550 mAh (9.81 Whr) | 2600 mAh (10.01 Whr) |
OS | Android 4.4 w/TouchWiz |
Android 5 (64-bit) w/TouchWiz | Android 5 (64-bit) w/TouchWiz |
Connectivity | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 + BT 4.0 (BCM4354), USB3.0, GPS/GNSS, MHL, DLNA, NFC |
2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1 (BCM4358), USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC |
2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1 (BCM4358), USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC |
Wireless Charging | N/A | WPC 1.1 (4.6W) & PMA 1.0 (4.2W) |
WPC 1.1 (4.6W) & PMA 1.0 (4.2W) |
Fingerprint Sensor | Swipe | Touch | Touch |
SIM Size | MicroSIM | NanoSIM | NanoSIM |
Both the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge have Samsung System LSI’s newest SoC, the Exynos 7420, which has a cluster of four Cortex A57s clocked at 2.1 GHz, and four Cortex A53s clocked at 1.5 GHz. Compared to the Exynos 5433 of the Galaxy Note 4, this brings a new 14nm LPE (low power early) process, an upgrade to LPDDR4 memory, and a Mali T760 GPU with two additional shader cores. Outside of the SoC, the new display is advertised to bring a higher 600-nit brightness and a higher 1440p resolution. The front and rear cameras are both different from the Galaxy S5 as well, although the rear camera sensor may be shared between the two as the camera sensors are of similar spec. For this preview, we’ll focus on the system performance and display of these new devices, but as one can see from the specification table there is far more to look at for the full review.
System Performance
For our system performance benchmarks we’ll start with our browser tests which can give a rough proxy for overall CPU performance.
The Exynos 7420 is about on par with the Snapdragon 810 in these benchmarks. Strangely enough both tend to do worse than the Huawei Honor 6 in these tests, which clearly can't be correct. As we've previously discussed, the stock browser will often give far better results due to OEM and SoC vendor optimizations. As a part of our updates to the benchmark suite for 2015, we'll take a look at Basemark OS II 2.0, which should give a better picture of CPU performance in addition to overall device performance.
The browser benchmarks seem to hide some pretty enormous variability as the Galaxy S 6 edge (which is comparable to the Galaxy S 6) sets a new record among Android devices. The only challenger is the iPad Air 2, which uses the A8X SoC with three Enhanced Cyclone cores and the semi-custom GXA6850 GPU.
This system test contains a floating point and integer test, in addition XML parsing, which means that this test mostly stresses CPU and RAM. Interestingly enough, the Exynos 7420 pulls far ahead of both the Exynos 5433 and Snapdragon 810 in this test, and approaches the A8X. The difference between the 5433 and 7420 is likely a combination of the higher clocks on both the A57 and A53 clusters for the 7420 (1.9/1.3 on the 5433, 2.1/1.5 on the 7420), in addition to the ability to stay at a high 'overdrive' clock due to reduced leakage from the 14LPE process. The One M9 likely falls a bit short here due to HTC's governor settings restricting the use of all 8 cores simultaneously.
While one might guess that the memory test of 'Basemark OS II 2.0 - Memory' is of RAM, this is actually a test of the internal storage. Once again we see the S6 edge come close to leading the pack due to the use of the new UFS (Universal Flash Storage) standard. Casual examination reveals that the S6 edge has a queue depth of 16, and that it identifies itself with the rather cryptic model name of KLUBG4G1BD-E0B1.
For the web test, it uses the built-in WebView rendering engine rather than Chrome and paints a distinctly different picture, especially because these tests are focused on HTML5 and CSS rather than JavaScript. Here we can see that the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 continue to hold their lead, but the Galaxy S6 is pretty much the king of the hill when it comes to Android devices.
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Zizy - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Yup, it is ironic, but understandable. Back then Anandtech only looked at brightness, contrast and number of pixels. No "advanced" stuff such as power draw, color accuracy, shift with angles and so on. Those OLED screens were competitive in those 3 tested areas but junk in everything else.According to displaymate, first OLEDs they tested finished in the last spot, behind every LCD. Current OLEDs are above any LCD out there.
The only thing current OLEDs might have troubles with is lifetime. But this is hard to test, buyers don't spot it and as phones get replaced every 2 years, not really an issue.
danbob999 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
AMOLED historically had much lower brightness and still, this web site and many others considered them to be good.Which leads to the real question: do these numbers really matters? I believe not all of them do. Color accuracy is not important to the average user. It won't change how you text or use GPS navigation.
danbob999 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Also where is the display power draw test?phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Guess you missed the "Preview" in the title, or the explanations at the beginning that they'll be posting a full review with all the gory details in the near future?mkozakewich - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
No, they went on and on about how they hated Pentile. Also, they say it's probably the best display for the current smartphones, which doesn't really speak on the objective qualities. Since then we've finally gotten a massive push for higher resolution and proper colour rendering across the whole industry. Their tune changed from "Well, I guess it's the best out there," to "This display is great!"danbob999 - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
This web site gave very favorable reviews to the AMOLED displays of the Nexus One and Galaxy S1. Then Samsung continued to improve AMOLED with Galaxy S2, Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S3 while LCD pretty much stalled since the iPhone 4 (iPhone 4S used the exact same display, 5 is only slightly larger). It's only during those year that they started bitching against Pentile. Somehow, even if they classed the Galaxy S1 display as equal in quality to the iPhone 4, the Galaxy S2 had a slighly worse display than the iPhone 4 (and 4S), even if it was a solid improvement over the Galaxy S1. They changed their minds over the years, there is no other excuse.jospoortvliet - Sunday, March 29, 2015 - link
Standards changed. Color accuracy went up for other displays - what was good back then against standards of that time is not today.casteve - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Does the S6 allow you to plug it into your PC and directly add/delete files or are we still stuck with using the dreadful KIES app or a third party workaround like webDAV?Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
It works as any other Android device nowadays, it connects via MTP to access the device's files.rd_nest - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link
Will you be doing any movie playback battery test for S6? Many of us watch a lot of movies in phones, and would like to see if there is any benefit of AMOLED in movie playback.