The Samsung Galaxy S5 was the company’s flagship for 2014, and even though it seemed like a successful release, fans did criticize more than appreciate the device. The Galaxy S5 design was the most criticized aspect of the flagship, due to its band-aid back panel and plastic chassis. Samsung design hasn’t been a shining example of premium ideas, but since the Galaxy S5 became sort of a flop the company has realized that they should have listened to fans earlier.
Since the Galaxy S5 was launched in Summer 2014, Samsung decided to listen to customers and give them the metal design they were craving for in the form of the overly expensive mid-range Galaxy Alpha smartphone. Even though the Galaxy Alpha price wasn’t the best that could have been in the mid range category, fans did appreciate the metal frame and sleek design of the phone, so Samsung decided to build a whole line around the phone. That’s how the Galaxy A line came into being, with the Galaxy A5 and Galaxy A3 launched last month and the better specced Galaxy A7 coming later this month.
Besides the Galaxy Alpha and the Galaxy A devices, Samsung reaped a lot of success with the Galaxy Note 4 design and features, which were highly appreciated by critics and fans alike. The Galaxy Note 4, unlike the Galaxy S5 flagship, quickly became a crowd favorite with the best smartphone screen you can find. The Note 4 isn’t the cheapest phablet you can find, but it is certainly at the top of the list when it comes to performance and design. Even so, the Galaxy S5 remains the official Samsung flagship for 2014, even though Galaxy sales this year have plummeted quite a lot, prompting the company to reconsider their marketing and manufacturing strategy. Samsung decided that it would decrease the number of smartphone models that it would make in 2015 in an effort to concentrate on the lines that are really selling.
Consequently, because of the design flop of the Galaxy S5 and the plummeting revenue reports, Samsung realized that it should start from scratch when it comes to the upcoming 2015 flagship, the Galaxy S6. The Galaxy S6 is appropriately being dubbed as Project Zero by the company, hinting at the fact that they would completely redesign the phone according to the new trends involving big screens and metal design. With that in mind, we expect the Galaxy S6 to be widely different from our current flagship, the Galaxy S5.
The Galaxy S5 price was pretty surprising when the phone was launched, bordering $800 for the unlocked version. While that price was pretty high, it has since come down thanks to new releases and other Android phones with more competitive prices like the OnePlus One and the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. Since the Galaxy S5 still turned out to be among the best selling mobile phones in ecommerce sites like Amazon and Best Buy, we can still understand that even though the phone might be called “butt-ugly” by some, it still has some powerful specs to boast with, which is what matters in a smartphone.
Even though Galaxy S5 specs are great and at the moment of its release were pretty high-end and unique, the phone now seems outdated. If it weren’t for the design element, the Galaxy S5 still would have been criticized for the bloatware and unattractive TouchWiz UI Samsung decided to slap on top of Android. That should be remedied now, since the Galaxy S5 is prepared to receive the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, which should do away with a lot of the cartoonish and childish menus and fonts of TouchWiz and give users a better, more user-friendly and mature UI to work with.
What turned out to be bothersome in a Galaxy S5 review was the fact that Samsung tried cramming in a lot of features into the phone, like the fingerprint scanner and the heart rate monitor. These features come off as bothersome for many Galaxy S5 owners because they don’t work as good as they are supposed to and many don’t even feel the need to use them. The fingerprint sensor is far from Apple’s TouchID in accuracy and speed, as well as practical use and functionality, not to mention a user friendly handling. Even so, the Galaxy S5 specs and performance, as well as battery life, demonstrate that the innards of the phone would have been better off in a better body designed by someone else.
Nonetheless, the Galaxy S5 has become one of the best selling smartphones of the year, but it was quickly surpassed by the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in October. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus release date marked the entry of Apple in the phablet market, which has proven itself one of the fast growing trends of technology and smartphones. Since many people were content with giving up Android and the unfamiliar, annoying TouchWiz of the Galaxy S5, the iPhone 6 Plus and even the 6 presented themselves as great options. Not to mention the fact that iOS 8 has been improved, bringing Android-like features to Apple flagships and devices.
Enough criticism, let’s talk about the successor. Since the Galaxy S5 was a design flop, the Galaxy S6 will certainly employ at least a metal frame, if not a full metal unibody like those of the iPhone 6, 6 Plus or HTC One M8. Metal seems to be the favorite when it comes to smartphone materials, so Samsung will surely choose this road since fans were noticeably satisfied with what the company did with the Note 4 and Galaxy Alpha. Compared to the polycarbonate chassis framed with faux-chrome that chips away a bit each day that we’ve seen on the Galaxy S5, the Galaxy S6 aka Project Zero will surely bring us innovation in terms of what Samsung is capable of designing.
There could be some delays of the Galaxy S6 release date since Samsung started from scratch with this flagship. That means that even though the Galaxy S6 release date should be set for March or April, we might see a delay because of manufacturing problems that might arise because of the unfinished process of designing and conceptualizing the new Samsung flagship. Nonetheless, the Galaxy S6 aka Project Zero is a real concept, even though Samsung hasn’t revealed a thing about the handset, save for its code name.
The Galaxy S5 display at launch was among the better ones, later to be dethroned by the LG G3 and its own sibling, the Galaxy Note 4. The Galaxy S5 display is a 5.1 inch Super AMOLED display with a 1080*1920 resolution adding up to a whopping 432 ppi pixel density. I think most of us already know that any ppi count above 350 is practically unnoticeable, so a higher ppi count doesn’t mean your screen will look any better. Still, the Galaxy S6 display will probably end up being a 5.5 or even a 5.9 inch one. Let’s go with the more reasonable one which would put the Galaxy S6 in direct competition against the iPhone 6 Plus. Consequently, the 5.5 inch Super AMOLED display of the Galaxy S6 will have a QHD resolution, as in 1440*2560, adding up to a staggering 534 ppi count for pixel density.
Corning Gorilla Glass 3 is currently the protector of the Samsung Galaxy S5 and it will supposedly make an appearance on the Galaxy S6, too, although we can’t exclude the possibility of the company choosing to put the brand new Corning Gorilla Glass 4 on their 2015 flagship. Galaxy S5 features include an IP67 certification, which means that the flagship is dust and water resistant and can even handle short photo sessions under water. That being said, we are sure that the Galaxy S6 will feature the same or better IP certification, because that’s one of the favorite features on the Galaxy S5.
A fingerprint sensor should also make an appearance on Project Zero, but if Samsung knows what’s good for them, they’ll improve the sensor’s speed and functionality so that people can actually use it as an unlocking tool, which most couldn’t do on the Galaxy S5. Updates have improved the fingerprint sensor accuracy on the Galaxy S5, but not enough to make it worthwhile using. Rumors say that the Galaxy S6 might have a Nano-SIM slot instead of the Micro-SIM we’ve had on the Galaxy S5.
The Galaxy S6 release date is set for April or March 2015, which is in the tradition of its predecessor, which was announced in Spring 2014. It should take retailers and carriers some time until they get the Galaxy S6 on their shelves, but by June we should have a global release for the upcoming flagship. The timing couldn’t be better, as we’re used to by Samsung, launching around Spring break and before the hot summer months, when most people are eager to upgrade their smartphones in the wake of a new season.
TouchWiz will surely be present on the Galaxy S6, but it should be a revamped, redesigned version of the UI to suit Android 5.0 Lollipop which should be the OS of choice for the flagship. We hope the cartoonish feeling of TouchWiz on the Galaxy S5 will be a thing of history by the time the Galaxy S6 is released. Some rumors say that Samsung might be endowing the new flagship with its own mobile operating system called Tizen. Tizen doesn’t have a lot of support at the moment, so it’s a bit unlikely that Samsung would take the risk of putting it on the Galaxy S6, but that remains to be seen.
The Galaxy S5 specs include a Snapdragon 801 CPU backed by 2 GB RAM and either 16 or 32 GB internal storage, expandable via microSD card. The Galaxy S6 specs should up the ante and bring us a Snapdragon 810 CPU backed by 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage, expandable via microSD card. Rumors say the Galaxy S6 will follow in the footsteps of the iPhone 6 and have a 128 GB storage variation available for purchase. At the same time, we should see multiple variants of the Galaxy S6, one at least sporting Samsung’s own Exynos 7420 CPU.
The camera setup of the Galaxy S5 is pretty acceptablet, with a 16 MP rear camera with phase detection auto focus and an LED flash and a 2 MP front camera. The Galaxy S6 camera should be upped to a 20 or 20.7 MP shooter on the rear with optical image stabilization and dual LED flash and either a 5, 8 or even 13 MP front camera to satisfy the current selfie-phone trend. The features on the Galaxy S5 camera should be ported over, with some added features similar to those included in the HTC Eye Experience camera app.
The Galaxy S5 battery wasn’t anything to write home about, but it did manage to score decently on battery tests and could go for more than a day with mixed use. Its juicer measures 2800 mAH, but the Galaxy S6 battery should be significantly improved and measure at least 3500 mAH to power the larger Super AMOLED display.
The Galaxy S6 design hasn’t been revealed and we don’t have any photo leaks to go by, but sources say we might have two new Galaxy S6 units to deal with next year. One Galaxy S6 Edge and one regular version of the flagship. As you can probably deduce, the Edge version of the Samsung flagship will have the edge display featured on the Galaxy Note Edge launched at IFA Berlin, on both sides possibly. While we have no confirmation on that, the good responses the curved and edge displays of Samsung have received this past year should be pointer towards what the company will be doing in the future.
Since the Galaxy S6 is in its incipital stages of design and manufacture, we sure hope that it can outdo the Galaxy S5 flagship by a wide margin. Even though the 2014 flagship wasn’t bad, Samsung could have done much more with the device. The Galaxy S5 is a powerful flagship with many mixed reviews, but overall a good device to have in your portfolio. Since we’re basing our comparison on rumors and trustworthy sources, you should still take the Galaxy S6 info with a grain of salt and understand that they are subject to change. What do you expect from the Galaxy S6 next year?