The good The upscale Samsung Galaxy S6's smooth glass-and-matte-metal body, improved fingerprint reader, and convenient new camera shortcut key make the phone a stunner. Samsung's decluttered take on Android 5.0 brings the beauty inside, too.
The bad Longtime fans will bristle at the Galaxy S6's nonremovable battery and absent expandable storage. The phone has an intensely reflective backing and looks embarrassingly like the iPhone 6. Battery life, while good, falls short of last year's Galaxy.
The bottom line Worldly looks and top-notch specs make the impressive, metal Samsung Galaxy S6 the Android phone to beat for 2015.
CNET REVIEW
Summer '16 update
Anointed by CNET as the "first great smartphone of 2015," the Galaxy S6's attractive aesthetics, first class components, and wireless charging support made it stand out from the field. Since then, Samsung introduced its successor, the Galaxy S7, to rave reviews -- and the Galaxy S7 Active, which was subverted by some inconsistent (but now improved) waterproofing.
Though the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edgedon't look dramatically different than theGalaxy S6 and S6 Edge, the newer models have expandable storage, are water-resistant, and come with bigger batteries and more powerful processors. To get a feel for how Samsung's current top models stack up against their predecessors, check out ourcomparison of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge vs the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, Note 5 and S6+.
Bottom line: the fast, powerful, beautifulGalaxy S7 is 2016's all-around phone to beat. But the Galaxy S6 (and its plus-sized siblingS6 Edge) remain affordable, competent, full-featured Samsung phones that are well worth the money.
Also worth noting: Samsung has released the Galaxy Note 7, a phablet that comes equipped with an array of hot features including a 5.7-inch curved screen, USB-C port, and iris scanner for unlocking the phone with your eyes. And of course, there's theforthcoming iPhone 7, expected to come in early September, and rumored to include three models -- an iPhone 7, an iPhone 7 Plus, and an iPhone 7 Pro -- all of which may (or may not) include a new waterproofing feature.
Editors' note: What follows is the original review of the Samsung Galaxy S6, which wasupdated regularly after its publication on March 26. In April 2015, CNET designated the Galaxy S6 an Editors' Choice Award winner. We have since lowered the rating to account for the better features and faster performance of the newer Galaxy S7 phones discussed above.
The Galaxy S6 leaves much of its Galaxy S5DNA behind. Perhaps even more shocking than this materials about-face are the decisions to seal in the battery and leave out a microSD card slot, both choices made in service to staying slim. These arecommonplace omissions in the smartphone sphere, but Samsung has been a die-hard defendant of both the removable battery and the extra storage option, until now. It's a move that makes a difference, too, at least on the power front. The S6's ticker ran down faster than last year's S5 did on a single charge.
In many ways, Samsung had no choice but to adopt this svelte, metal chassis and a pared-down, less "bloated" variation of Android 5.0 Lollipop. (Note that in February 2016 Samsung begun to roll out Android 6.01Marshmallow to the Galaxy S6, bringing with it a number of new features including Google Now on Tap, "doze" mode for automatic extended battery life, support for Android Payand more.) These moves silence customer complaints about the Galaxy S5's (and the S4's and S3's) plasticky build, while also girding Samsung against staggering iPhoneprofits and an army of decent low-cost rivals from Lenovo, Xiaomi and Huawei.
Luckily for Samsung, the S6 is good enough to win back straying fans while also surpassing the all-metal HTC One M9 in extra features, battery life and camera quality.
On top of that, Samsung's S6 follows Apple's mobile payments lead with Samsung Pay, and takes a chance on its sturdy and home-made Exynos processor (versus the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 that will be found in most of its high-end Android rivals). The S6 also bakes in wireless charging support and compatibility with a new version of the Gear VR virtual-reality accessory -- two features you won't find on any iPhone.
Does the new phone have enough in the way of looks and specs to reverse Samsung's sagging smartphone sales? Without a doubt. Samsung continues to build on its camera strengths while also offering interesting extras its Android rivals don't have. The only real danger is in longtime fans of microSD cards and removable batteries punishing Samsung by finding vendors that do. Samsung's hardware has long stood up to the iPhone; at long last, its physical design does, too.
Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge: Two devices, one family
If straight-sided phones are too vanilla for your tastes, check out my review of Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge and its wraparound display. While the two share nearly identical specs, the Edge kicks the S6's premium feel up a notch.
Design: Metal and glass; plastic be damned
With a matte aluminum alloy frame andGorilla Glass 4 on the front and back, the S6 lives worlds apart from the plastic construction of five generations of Galaxy flagships. It's obvious that this is a different beast, and one for which fans have been crying out for years.
Samsung didn't get here overnight. It built on the metal-framed Note 4 and more midrangeGalaxy Alpha, before experimenting with all-metal chassis in the youth-focused Galaxy A5 and A3.
So, let's talk about this silhouette. The S6 has Samsung's familiar pill shape, with rounded tops and bottoms and straighter sides. The power button and nano-SIM card slot sit on the right spine. A micro-USB charging port and headset jack live on the bottom, and the left spine houses separate up-and-down volume buttons, just like the iPhone 6.
A central, metal-ringed home button joins two capacitive keys for calling up recent apps and paging back. A terrific new feature lets you double-tap the home button to launch the camera at any time, even when the phone is locked (though that takes a little longer). Samsung has also improved the fingerprint scanner, which you can use to securely unlock the phone; instead of dragging your digit down across a sensor, you now just rest it on the home button. It's fast and reliable on the whole.
On the back, you'll find the 16-megapixel camera (same as the Note 4), and a sensor array that includes the camera's LED flash and heart-rate monitor. Up top, the IR blaster beams out infrared for folks who want to use their phones as a TV remote.
A few niggly negatives: the camera protrudes a bit from the back, which some may not like, and the phone's glass surfaces become a smudge gallery for your finest fingerprints. And unlike the S5, the S6 isn't waterproof.
In-hand feel
The Galaxy S6 feels far more fluid and thin than it looks in photos, especially compared with the slightly chunkier Galaxy S5. Next to its designer cousin, it's the S6 Edge that feels much slimmer than the S6, despite its being a hair thicker at its chubbiest point.
SAMSUNG GALAXY S6, S6 EDGE DIMENSIONS
| Galaxy S6 | Galaxy S6 Edge | |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions (inches) | 5.6 x 2.8 x 0.27 | 5.6 x 2.8 x 0.28 |
| Dimensions (millimeters) | 143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 | 142.1 x 70.1 x 7.0 |
| Weight (ounces) | 4.9 | 4.6 |
| Weight (grams) | 138 | 132 |
Because of its straight edges, the S6 isn't as smooth or seamless as the iPhone 6 with its rounded sides, but without a case, the S6 is easier of the two to grip. Keep in mind that the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 is also smaller all-around than the 5.1-inch S6.
While we're on the topic, the S6 looks too much like the iPhone 6 to ignore. Its footprint may be larger and it sides might be straighter, but the shape and placement of things like the headset jack, speaker grille and volume buttons are shockingly similar when you see two devices side by side. Even the color of the white phones is matchy-matchy, with nearly indistinguishable shades of matte silver trim.
Notably, the S6 packaging includes tear drop-shaped in-ear headphones that look like the next evolution in the iPhone's Apple EarPods.
Some color, lots of flash
Although the colors are fairly staid -- both models comes in platinum gold in addition to sapphire black and white pearl -- Samsung injects shots of color into the lineup with topaz blue, which is really pretty if it catches the light, and just looks black or generically dark if it doesn't. (The S6 Edge, meanwhile, tries on emerald green.)
The incredibly reflective rear surface flashes color and throws back light. Samsung says this is to add depth and warmth, but the skeptic in me notes that relentless reflectance gets annoying to look at. (The white version minimizes this effect, but it's still apparent outdoors.)
Display so crisp it hurts
Even though Samsung hasn't bumped up the screen's 5.1-inch size, it has spiked the resolution of its AMOLED display to 2,560x1,440 pixels, a density of 577 pixels per inch (ppi), currently the best on the market. Now come the inevitable questions: can the human eye really appreciate detail that fine, and is the higher resolution worth the likely impact on battery life?
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