Samsung has bet very hard with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, a groundbreaking device with a very clear mission: revitalize the Asian manufacturer's mobile phone division.
The first impressions I had when testing it within the framework of the MWC could not have been more positive. Now, after showing you a complete analysis, it's time to give you my opinion of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge after a month of use as the main terminal.
The glass suits the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge very well
One of the most notable sections of the new Samsung flagship is its design and finishes. And after a month of use with the Galaxy S6 Edge I can tell you that it is not only a beautiful terminal, but also It is resistant and with quality finishes.
We already knew that Samsung was going to make a radical turn with the new member of the Galaxy S family, the manufacturer was going to bet on quality materials for the construction of its new phone, leaving aside the ubiquitous polycarbonate. Y the decision could not have been more successful.
The glass finishes have given it an air of exclusivity to the Galaxy S6 Edge that is appreciated. And the fact that it has a double curved panel, giving the phone a unique look, scores points.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is a very pleasant terminal to the touch. Not only does it have quality finishes, but it has a comfortable grip. At first the side edges make it strange to have the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge in your hands, but it doesn't take long to get used to its particular design.
After a couple of days of use I noticed a very interesting detail: fingerprint protection works wonders. At first glance you may think that the glass of the Galaxy S6 Edge will be a nest of fingerprints, but nothing could be further from the truth. Its oleophobic layer offers impressive results.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, a comfortable and handy device
To the touch the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is a very nice phone. While it is true that it does not have the same grip as a plastic phone, I don't have the feeling that I'm going to fall and, in this month, I have not had any problems in this regard. Quite the contrary, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is very comfortable to hold.
The only thing that doesn't quite make me laugh is the rear camera, which sticks out at the back of the phone. Samsung recommends placing the phone with the screen facing down to take advantage of the functionalities of its double curved panel, something we will talk about later, but I, and I am sure many of you, have always placed the phone with the screen facing up and now I am not going to change this aspect.
How to Live Aligned with the camera sticks out slightly the phone wobbles a bit. It is an advantage that when the phone shakes you notice it, but I do not like the fact that the camera is always in contact with the surface on which the phone is resting.
As for the Gorilla Glass 4 layer, it must be said that it more than fulfills its function. The phone has suffered the odd drop without suffering a scratch. In this month of use I have carried the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge without any type of protection, in my pocket with the keys, coins and any other element that could damage the device and it has not been scratched, something I appreciate.
We had already seen some resistance tests of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge showing the hardness of your screen. Now I can guarantee that these videos are not manipulated.
The best screen on the market
I can tell you little about the technical characteristics of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge that you may not already know: Super AMOLED QHD screen, Exynos 7420 processor, 3 GB of DDR4 RAM, 16 megapixel camera ... In short, what is expected in a high-end phone as we revealed in our initial analysis of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. But when push comes to shove, How is the performance of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge?
The answer is very simple: without a doubt the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is the best phone I have ever had in my hands. I'll start by talking about your screen. Samsung is betting strongly on virtual reality, the clearest proof is its Samsung Gear VR helmet, and it shows that it is one of the most cared sections of the Galaxy S6 Edge.
Its 2K screen is ideal for use in your virtual reality headsets, and when I tested the Gear VR headset on the Galaxy S6 Edge at MWC 2015, the quality was clear. it was far superior to that offered by the Galaxy Note 4.
And is that the screen of the Galaxy S6 Edge is simply magnificent in all respects: it offers crisp colors and great brightness as well as allowing you to customize some aspects of the screen.
The only one but comes with the outdoor visibility in direct sunlight, where the S6 Edge screen loses quality, more if we compare it with an IPS panel. While it is true that you can still read content, the quality drops a lot.
Logical if we consider that the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge integrates a QHD panel. Is such a screen worth it on a Smartphone? If we consider that Samsung is launching virtual reality headsets that use the screen of their phones, the answer is a resounding yes.
Too bad with such a good screen, the speaker is not up to par. While it is true that the speaker does its job, the sound is not of the best quality precisely and its position makes it very easy to plug it by mistake when watching any multimedia content or enjoying games. An unforgivable mistake in a phone with such exquisite finishes and design.
The other great but comes with its internal memory. The unit sent to me is a 6GB Galaxy S32 Edge and I currently have less than 5GB free. Considering that I have downloaded a few Spotify lists and four games, the truth is that it disappoints.
It is true that the downloaded songs are the ones that take up the most space, but if it had a micro SD card slot, like the P8 Lite that you can use the same tray as a SIM or Micro SD card, it would not have this problem. A slap on the wrist in this regard.
A battery that does the job
There has been much controversy over Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge battery problems, Even in the analysis of the Galaxy S6 Edge that my colleague Manuel made, he talked about the terminal's low autonomy. I don't know if it's because I've been very lucky, but the battery of the Galaxy S6 Edge that I've been testing has lasted like most phones.
In this way the phone has held me approximately an average of 16 or 17 hours with between 4 and 5 hours of screen on. It's nothing out of the ordinary but I haven't noticed any inferior performance either.
What I have noticed is that the fast charging system of the S6 Edge is a delight.Having your phone charged in just over 1 hour is priceless and the difference is noticeable. You just have to watch the video that we have prepared showing the differences between charging the Samsung Galaxy s6 Edge with a conventional charger to using a fast charging system to see that the charging time is reduced by half. In 15 minutes you have a battery for about 4 hours!
An attractive but very useless curved double panel
I appreciate that there is a double curved panel, especially considering that I am left-handed and thus I can take advantage of all the functionalities that this phone offers using the left side, but at the moment of truth I have to admit that I have not just used its curved panel.
To take advantage of a large part of its possibilities, you have to have the phone face down. And I am not going to deceive you, as nice as it is to see how the curved panel lights up when you receive a call, I am not going to change my habits for that detail.
Another function it has is ability to view notifications by dragging your finger on the side. With this gesture you can see the time, if you have received a message and little else. Another rather unhelpful feature since you can't read the notification from the side of the phone.
It also has a speed dial mode It allows you to configure up to 5 contacts to call them or send them a message quickly. I'm talking about an SMS, it does not allow you to send a notification through WhatsApp or any other instant messaging service. Or what is the same, another rather useless function.
The only option that is used is the clock. That backlit time appears seems like an excellent idea. You can also configure in what range of hours you want the backlit time to be seen.
My conclusion is very simple: are you going to use the curved panel? Do not. Is it worth paying 100 euros more to have the Galaxy S6 Edge? In my opinion, yes because of having a different phone with a spectacular design, but not because of its functionality.
Touchwiz, that great friend
As you can guess, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge can move any game without messing up, but how does the new flagship of the Korean manufacturer behave in general? Is Touchwiz still a drag? Luckily Samsung has managed to solve this annoying problem.
And it is that finally Touchwiz moves smoothly without the famous lag that weighed down on Samsung's custom layer. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge works like silk after more than a month of use.
To fix the Touchwiz issue, Samsung has focused on overloading the system less by not including so many of its own applications, in addition to simplifying some of the available options.
Yes, there are still some very cool shortcuts. One of the ones that I have used the most for its functionality is reducing the size of an application. You just have to slide your finger from the upper left edge to the lower right edge to reduce the size of the application you have open, allowing you to have several applications on the screen at the same time. You can also minimize this application so that a small circle appears with the minimized application. Useful and simple.
Sometimes we can see a response time slightly higher than normal when making a transition between different applications, but it happens rarely and the difference is minimal.
Another remarkable section comes with the keyboard. Y the keyboard of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is really good. In addition to remembering the words we use, the keyboard works precisely.
The Galaxy S6 Edge does not come with Swiftkey pre-installed, and he does not need to. Samsung's native keyboard perfectly fulfills its mission, so in this regard we are more than served without the need to use external keyboards.
As usual in Samsung terminals, Galaxy S6 Edge does not include FM radio. It's one thing I don't understand. Is it so difficult for Samsung to include an FM radio in their phones? It is not the same to use a downloaded radio that, in addition to broadcasting with a certain delay in the signal, has the consequent consumption of data.
A fingerprint sensor worthy of the best Android phone
Samsung has learned from its mistakes. The fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge looks nothing like the one on the Galaxy S5. In this case the biometric sensor works perfectly, quickly recognizing footprints that we have previously saved by simply placing your finger on the start button.
In the video you can see that when I use any of the fingers that I have previously linked, the fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge recognizes my fingerprint from any direction. What if someone picks up your phone? Rest assured that after several attempts the phone locks and requests a password that we have previously entered.
Now that fingerprint readers are becoming so fashionable, we can say that Samsung has nailed it to offer a solution that can stand up to Apple's iPhone 6 or any Android device that has a sensor of this type.
The camera of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge will delight photography lovers
The camera is one of the strong points of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. We have already talked about it in several articles in which we have shown the differences between the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge camera and the iPhone 6 Plus camera, and after a month with the Galaxy S6 Edge I couldn't be happier.
To begin with, Samsung has included a quick access system to the camera: We just have to press the start button twice to open the camera. Fast and effective. The speed at which it captures images is really fast, even in conditions where the lens has to capture as much light as possible before taking a picture.
Su multitude of modes it offers us a range of possibilities; Do you want a retouched selfie? The beauty mode of the Galaxy S6 Edge promises real images despite the retouch, nothing to do with the Chinese terminals that all they do is increase the size of your eyes disproportionately.
The way to record slow motion videos It offers spectacular performance, allowing you to record sequences and edit from the same mobile which part of the video to play in slow motion and at what speed.
Even taking night photographs I have noticed that the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge's camera is one step ahead of its competitors. We can come to the conclusion that in the camera section the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge has no rival.
Conclusions and opinion after using the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge for a month
Samsung has done an excellent job. The Korean manufacturer needed a product that would regain trust with its customers. And without a doubt the both the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and the Galaxy S6 have been a total success.
For my work I have had hundreds of phones in my hands and this has been the first time that I have a first Samsung sword with finishes of this quality, in addition to exceptional performance, the best camera on the market and a much more functional Touchwiz.
And if we take into account the recent reduction in the price of both terminals, if you are looking for a premium and durable phone, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge will not disappoint you. Of course, if you use a lot of services like Spotify, which require storing a lot of data on your phone, better search andl Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge 64 GB, which costs 799 euros. And those 100 euros can make a difference.
