It seems that Samsung got lost somehow with Galaxy S line before. From the first S line product, Galaxy S1, Samsung had made it not a flagship worthy bearing the standard for Android phones against Apple. However, with the launch of the Galaxy S6, the company has a chance to fight back.

Most of the criticism pointing at the Galaxy S5 have been fixed, the Galaxy S6 is just simply not as flashy as the Galaxy S6 Edge or other premium devices but it has its own attractiveness. Who said Samsung had lost its mojo?

Samsung Galaxy S6 – a glass design

Customers have been complaining about Samsung’s plastic phones for years. From the S1 in 2010 to the S5 in 2014, they were all plastic. Back to the old days, plastic phones were ok. But for now, why do we have to pay more than $500 (RM 1848) for a phone that itself looks cheap?

All thing has changed in the S6. Literally there’s no plastic on the outside of the phone. The front and back are covered with super-tough Gorillas Glass 4 and its sides are all aluminum.

While the Xperia Z3 also has similar glass and metal outlook, the curved glass makes it look softer and even narrower. The device bring a feeling of boxiness for users but the 6.8mm thickness is hard for adults.

Seeing this design and holding it in hands, we think Samsung should stop producing leather effect plastic phones earlier.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Storage

The S6’s unibody, which means you can’t dismount the back and take out the battery, makes it more premium, more expensive than any other Samsung phones launched last year.

That is ok but the company has also get rid of the memory card slot. This action maybe the response to Apple having success with selling 128GB iPhone. This is obviously a money-making move since many people are happy with a 32GB version anyway. If you want to upgrade into 64GB model, it will cost you RM 20 per month. There’s even a 128GB model available for those who want to spend RM 3180 on a phone.

Samsung Galaxy S6 – The thumb-lover

Not so many people care about the extra coming along with the phone when the basic is good already. Finally, Samsung has embed the fingerprint scanner in the home button, which is right under your thumb. Now instead of wipe over the home button, you just have to place you finger on it, like the iPhone Touch ID sensor.

The new scanner on Samsung Galaxy S6 works better than that on the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy S5. Should it not work, there is defenitely somthing wrong with your using.

Super AMOLED Display

The screen of the Galaxy S6 is quite amazing. Samsung did a leap up in the screen tech giving it qHD quality with density of 577 ppi stretching over the 5.1-inch screen.

Unless your eyes are as good as an eagle, you will not be able to see the pixels. However, the screen is not the biggest improvement on the Samsung Galaxy S6. The Galaxy S5 had that before. Both boast a Super AMOLED screen giving you flawless contract and deep black whether you are outside or in a cinema. You can also choose you a color palette for your phone: super vivid or more accurate and natural. This is not new but still a great feature anyway.

Android 5.0 Lollipop

The software seems familiar at first but some new stuff may cause some difficulties. The Galaxy S6 runs Android 5.0 Lollipop and has the latest version of Samsung’s custom UI.

On this Android 5.0 Lollipop, everything moves differently. When you tilt the phone, there’s a parallax effect on the wallpaper but the animation still don’t react towards them. It makes the phone better organized compared to older phones like Galaxy Note 4. It is a bit more business-like and that’s good.

Like HTC One M6, Galaxy S6 does adopt the themes. We can now change things such as the icons, wallpapers, widgets and system font. This is a full update. But there not much themes available. What Samsung can learn from from HTC One M9 is automatically creating a theme around a picture mechanism.

Other than that, the software is pretty good. The Samsung Touchwiz lags seem to have disappeared making the S6 a joy to use. There’s a couple of time when the phone paused for a second but it may be an early-software glitch rather than a standard performance problem.

Samsung Galaxy S6 specs: EXYNOS vs SNAPDRAGON

The processor power of Galaxy S6 can’t be beaten either. Until March 2015, Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge were condidered the most powerful phone in the market. Samsung uses its own Exynos 7420 CPU rather than a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip like the HTC One M9.

The top line Snapdragon 810 CPU is said to prone to overheat. That could possibly the reason why Samsung had such move. The Exynos turns out to be a good deal as well. We don’t really care much about it but the company had really done an amazing work.

Geekbench score shows that the Galaxy S6 is nearly 15% more powerful than its main rival at the moment, HTC One M9. The Exynos processor scored 4547 points while the top line Snapdragon only got 3959 points. This point can exceed some laptops.

The phone doesn’t get hot as well. That’s what impresses all of us. The phone just gets a bit warmer but it’s not as warm as what people experience using Sone Xperia Z3, another glass’n’metal phone. It gets hottest when charging as Samsung gives it turbo-charge.

It is alittle bit hard to explain how the company keeps it cool. The Galaxy S6’s Exynos 7420 CPU has transistors that are 14nm across, while the rival Snapdragon uses a 20nm process. The smaller the transistors are, the greater the efficiency is and the less energy waste as heat.

We are not sure how Samsung did it so far but it could create huge advantage with this phone generation.

Battery duration

It is undeniable that the more advanced the processor is, the larger the battery is needs. The Galaxy S6 has a 2,550 mAh battery, which is not much for 5.1-inch qHD display. But, endurance is spectacular overall. With one charge, the phone can survive 14hours video playing and a day and a half. Despite having a slightly smaller battery than the S6 Edge, it seems to last longer. Samsung’s fans have expected to have a 3,000 mAh battery on the S6 but perhaps the company had made a decision.

Samsung had upgraded the charger instead. Now you can get 70% battery capacity with 30 mins of charging. This is when the phone gets hottest.

Samsung Galaxy S6’s camera

In the race for higher megapixel in camera, where HTC has given its latest model One M9 a camera resolution up to 20MP, the S6 sticks with 16MP. The figure itself doesn’t mean anything. The camera is still great after all. Compared with the Galaxy Note 4, the sensor isn’t upgraded but the lens is all new.

It has an f/1.9 lens while most lens on smart phones are f2.0 (the smaller, the better). It’s not the biggest surprise yet as the low-light performance on th Galaxy S6 is way better. Night shots are clearer and brighter, and indoor shots will be far less noisy.

With a 16MP sensor, good light and great dynamic range, you will have wonderful shots. Samsung has recently become a master of HDR photos and it keeps offering even more options for the Galaxy S6. Auto mode is available as well as you can turn HDR mode ON/OFF. The purpose is to give you choices where needed. But nothing can compare with the full HDR shots. Without HDR engaged, you can take as fast as your finger can tap on the screen. Of course, it is in good lighting condition. At night, the speed slow down but still faster than Galaxy S5

The faster sensors gives you the ability to take arty effect pictures too. When shooting close subjects, you can have shallow depth of nicely blurred background. You can’t just get it with lower range phones.

The camera app interfere is awesome too because the HDR switch and other essentials are on the left side, while the shutter and mode selection are on the right side. It create a plain look as it should be.

One good news is that now, with Pro mode, you can manually choose focus, ISO and some other things for your shooting. You don’t to struggle with the auto-focus when taking macro shots.

The device has a 5MP front camera, which is now the standard of most smartphone. For indoor shooting, the phone does it well at managing brightness. Nevertheless, in lower light, details decrease. Honestly, HTC One M9’s UltraPixel camera does better work for selfie purposes.

Samsung Galaxy S6’s Sound

Without the Boomsound, does HTC still have the no.1 speaker? With so much effort, Samsung had made us surprised with the Galaxy S6’s internal speaker this year.

After having putting little speakers at the bottom of the phones for so long, Samsung has eventually put the Samsung Galaxy S6’s speaker to the bottom edge and put it on steroids. It’s louder and higher-fidelity than prior Galaxy phones.

The volume of sound of the Samsung Galaxy S6 is louder than that of HTC One M9 but the quality of sound seems equal. The HTC’s speaker (BoomSound) still rocks but Samsung’s is cool too.

Conclusion

For now, Samsung Galaxy S6 is considered the king among smartphones. Other than being an attempt to get us to hand in $500 or more, it’s an upgrade that fixes almost what is missing in the Galaxy S5.

It’s a new age of Samsung smartphones. One thing we are not pleased is its missing memory slot, where mediaholic may spend $800 to possess a 128GB version.

As for the camera section. The Samsung Galaxy S6 really crushes its opponents owing to screen tech and raw power. Sure there will be some part that HTC One M9 or other high-end smartphones will win but that’s just small number.

If you want to draw attention with flashy outlook and fashionable accessoried, the S6 Edge may be well fit, otherwise, a “flat” Samsung Galaxy S6 is acceptable, where almost every features are similar but the appearance.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 proves itself to be a strong competitor of the famous iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus or any other flagship phones.

After all, ranging from RM 2800 to RM 3400 is the Samsung Galaxy S6 price in Malaysia when releasing . This price is worth investing.