It’s more or less official – Samsung is bound to show off its next generation of flagship phones, the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge soon. In fact, we’re about 2 weeks away from the reveal, set for the Mobile World Congress that kicks off on the 2nd of March and lasts until the 5th of March. Several leaks are already suggesting that the new phones from the Korean giant will be launched to the general public either at the end of March, or during April. There’s nothing surprising about these reveals, after all, Samsung has been launching its new S-line models during this time-frame for several years now.
What is interesting is what the new S6 and S6 Edge will be bringing to the table. For one, Samsung is ditching Qualcomm processors and using its own Exynos 7420 chipset. The company claims the chipset is much more efficient in terms of battery drain, and is considerably faster. For the latter part, we can probably agree – benchmarks popping up on Korean websites indicate that the S6 is likely to be the fastest Android-base smartphone on the market. That sounds good, and Samsung certainly has confidence in its chipset, giving that the new flagships will carry a smaller capacity battery (a 2600 mAh one instead of the 2800 mAh one found in the Galaxy S5). If this is true or not remains to be seen, but one thing is certain – both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will come with wireless charging.
The biggest changes seem to be happening on the inside, with various updates to the phone’s specifications and hardware. The new high-end models from Samsung will also come with an improved fingerprint sensor, with the Edge bringing the anticipated and not at all surprising curved screen. Now, this is where my skepticism kicks in – I was expecting a lot more in terms of design changes from Samsung this year. The extremely detailed and well-researched render video (seen below) shows off a very familiar looking phone. It’s not unattractive, but it’s more of the same, and I was really looking forward to a significant design change. Alas, it looks grim for this year, but who knows – this is a render after all, and the end product might actually look different (although it’s doubtful).
In any case, we’ll get to see the new Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge early in March, and we can give a verdict then. The Korean giant did not reveal pricing for the two models, but expect to pay around the same amount you’ve shed out last year for the S5, which is around $800 for the starter models. AndroidPit has shed light on possibly more specific and steep prices, with the 128 GB premium model costing well over 1,000 Euro, which translates to about $1,200.