Just four months after the Galaxy S6 was announced Edge Samsung decided to release an updated version of the smartphone. The Galaxy S6 Edge + is designed to compete not only with the iPhone 6 Plus and its successor Paroli, but also with its own Galaxy Note line. Should we wait for the next generation of stylus phablets? Or will the "+" add to the satisfaction of phablet fans?

At first glance, the Galaxy S6 Edge + appears to be a larger version. In direct comparison, the first impression is confirmed. But Samsung has not only increased the display - the larger body has allowed for a larger battery. In almost every other respect, smartphones are very close, with a few exceptions. The new model has exclusive software functions, but the version with 128 GB of internal memory is no longer there, you will have to be content with the versions with 32 and 64 GB. In Russia, the 32 GB version can be purchased for 55 thousand rubles, in Europe - 799 euros. The 64 GB model will cost 84 thousand rubles.

Display

The new display, judging by the specifications, has changed in only one parameter. The original model had a diagonal of 5.1 ", now it has increased to 5.7". The resolution has not changed, we got the same 2.560 x 1.440 pixels, as a result, the pixel density has dropped from 577 to 515 ppi. A drop of 11% seems like a big deal, but in practice users are unlikely to notice it. You will still get a display with excellent detail and clarity. Some users criticized the Galaxy S6 Edge for being too high resolution - even Full-HD would be enough for most scenarios, but for the Galaxy S6 Edge +, high resolution is better. If you compare the Galaxy S6 Edge + and iPhone 6 Plus next to each other, you will notice differences in detail.

As for the two curves of the display, the weak points of the original model remain. When typing, the external keys are bent, which degrades accuracy. Also, the display adds distortion in some applications and scenarios. This also applies to viewing videos in 16: 9 format and photographs in full screen.

There are no serious complaints about the basic quality of the display. Brightness in manual mode is up to 341 cd / m², in automatic mode it is increased to 542 cd / m², which gives a very bright picture, and thanks to the Super AMOLED panel, black remains black. White color is displayed without extraneous shades, since the color temperature of the white point is at the ideal level of about 6.500 K. But this color rendering mode is available after manually selecting "AMOLED Photo". Blue tint is noticeable in AMOLED Movie and Adaptive Display modes. Not happy that the color rendition depends on the choice of brightness. If you leave the automatic brightness control, you will have to put up with lower quality color reproduction. But only in this mode you will get maximum brightness. Why Samsung took this step is unknown. Perhaps the reason lies in the high power consumption of the screen with maximum brightness.

Housing

The enlargement of the display has led to an increase in the dimensions of the case. Samsung has increased the body to 154.4 x 75.8 x 6.9 mm and weighs 153 grams. So the smartphone is larger and heavier than the Galaxy S6 Edge (142.1 x 70.1 x 7.0 mm, 132g), but still more compact than the iPhone 6 Plus. From competitor Apple we get 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1 mm and weight 172 g. The new Samsung smartphone is large, but it will fit in most pockets.

There is no need to wait for a new design. However, in appearance and the original design was quite good. The Galaxy S6 Edge + looks stylish too, combining straight lines and curves. The thin sides to the right and left of the display, the bezel of the Home button and the panel with the front speaker also look good. Of the shortcomings, we again note the protruding camera lens.

The thin side frame looks nice, but the thickness of about 3.5 mm is still too narrow, holding the smartphone by the sides is not very pleasant. But Samsung has been able to improve ergonomics. The standby button on the right panel is now better positioned so you won't be able to press it by accident In addition, the display now occupies about 76% of the bezel, while the Galaxy S6 Edge had a lower percentage at 72%. But in general, in terms of ergonomics, we rate the smartphone as average, as well as the “younger” model. We didn't get the ideal.

If you look closely at the case, you will notice an improved workmanship. The "younger" Edge model was not perfect in everything, but there is nothing to complain about. We found no uneven gaps, button play, or other flaws. Samsung has opted for quality materials, a durable metal frame and glass, so that the look of the smartphone will attract attention.

On the incredible strength of a new generation of protective glass Gorilla Glass 4 rumors circulated long before the presentation of new flagships, to which, naturally, the marketing specialists of Corning had a hand. Now is the time to find out - are Korean smartphones really the strongest on the market thanks to innovative materials?

Of course, we are not talking about special devices like Caterpillar, but Samsung's main competitors in the premium class are iPhone 6. Htc one (M9), LG G3 and others like them. In this case, the release Galaxy S6 / edge was accompanied by unambiguous statements from company representatives - the smartphone does not bend and is resistant to household damage. As expected, even before the official start of sales, there were many who wanted to test this statement in practice.

The first video is a selection of classic drop tests Galaxy S6 edge and. The author dropped smartphones from the height of his trousers pocket and his own height, imitating real situations that happen to hundreds of users every day. Then the devices were tested at a more serious three-meter height and were finally hit by a car. The result is unambiguous - the flagship of the South Korean company is far superior iPhone 6 in strength. An interesting nuance lies in the fact that when falling on the back panel, the apple smartphone even broke the protective glass of the camera, made of the notorious sapphire, while Galaxy S6 edge held out to the last and received the first serious injuries only after falling from 3 meters.

However, Gorilla Glass 4 is announced for two models, and the author of the following video decided to test a cheaper smartphone Galaxy S6, featuring a classic version of the display module. The result was not so optimistic - the glass could not stand the fall from chest height.

To understand the situation, the human factor should be minimized as much as possible. So the author of the following experiment reasoned. For strength comparison Samsung Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6 he used a special drop machine. Similar devices are used by the manufacturers of consumer electronics themselves and such a comparative test looks much more objective. And this time iPhone 6 and turned out to be the winner at all - he received much more serious damage to the display, but continued to work properly, while Galaxy S6 was hopelessly flawed.

However, this does not mean at all that every fall of a new Korean smartphone will lead to its breakdown - a matter of chance. At the same time, the strength, resistance to scratches and even heating of the new protective glass from Corning is truly amazing. You can verify this by watching the last video in our selection.

As a conclusion, it can be noted that despite the refusal of the majority of modern premium-segment vendors from waterproof and dustproof cases, the shells of the models released in recent years are clearly superior in their technical characteristics to obsolete devices, even despite the increase in the average display diagonal and the decrease in the thickness of the cases themselves ...

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@ lock1, Support is completely different. Accordingly, obsolescence and real terms of comfortable operation. Apple's glands have a firmware update and associated software support for at least three years.

PS
The same ancient Yablophone 4 is still in use for me, competitors from gnusmas and others have long been in the trash. Accordingly, questions arise - why is the production of gnusmas better than good Chinese with exactly the same support?

@CodeByte, otherwise they have. Let's ask the people, how does 4s work there on the latest firmware? Are there any "onroed" lags? But, what is most interesting, how awesome has the functionality of this device expanded, well, compared to the "firmware from birth", that it has become so "android-like"?

@ stepkin2, Why do people ask? I only have them not 4s, but even the usual four, as I wrote, if you have not read it. ;)
"Android-like" is how and why? : o) I have enough default features even without the Jail, which is the main thing with a bunch of other things - the brain does not fuck. I have more resource-intensive tasks on the iPad and laptop, perhaps that's why I'm not so picky about smart performance.
Moreover, for debugging and optimizing something, it's more convenient for me to torment on the most resource-limited, but this is already a working moment, not a user one.

@CodeByte, “android-like” is in the context of “android laggy guano, iphone is incomparable”.

@ stepkin2, Well, in three years I did not - and this is up to iOS 6. If you put a seven, of course, the fours do not plow so smoothly on it, but he is already 5 years old - you have to think. :)
And with the seven, even though the apple phones plow not so smoothly, but almost all applications can be installed and they will work, and maybe not everything is so fast, but they will. Other offices have no such thing.

@ stepkin2, The key point here is the very fact of updating and support during these three years. It is clear that the new ones will be faster and higher. And at the end of his life span, the old man will noticeably lag behind, after which he will die out altogether, even at Apple. But during these three years it will still be updated and all software will work on it.

Well, in general, everything is of course relative, but optimization, if you don't mindlessly jump to the new very first version of the axis, is still better on iOS, and not only at the axis level, but also the application due to the native nature and limitations of the zoo, too in this regard, they work better on average in all plans. Although Apple of course does it, others just stupidly hammer and throw their users. ;)

@CodeByte, once again. What is so uncombed from the features that appeared in 4s with the upgrade to 8? Well, to kill "incomparable smoothness" like that? And yes, about "Apple is screwing too." Already the 5th update both hangs and hangs. As worked through the ass "the most native in the world" safari and works, I mean reloading tabs. But, on the other hand, the digits of the firmware version click only on the way.

@ stepkin2, And here it also played that 4s and 5 without s devices are at the junction of the transition to 64-bit architecture. Licking firmware for devices that are more than 3 years old with such a noticeable difference in architecture is problematic and not logical. Here the desire to force a somewhat more accelerated transition to new devices than usual for quite objective reasons is just understandable.

@ stepkin2, there are a lot of changes for 4s over the years, of course it is difficult to remember what year what appeared, but for me, the obvious plus was:
1) new laconic interface of most applications, information is better perceived;
2) keychains for storing passwords and auto-filling forms;
3) counteracting theft by blocking the phone's flashing capabilities;
4) voice messages and the ability to share geo-location;
5) built-in photo editing capabilities (namely editing properties, and not stupidly adding a filter);
6) iCloud Photo library for organizing photos between all devices;
7) Continuity in terms of integration with iPad and Mac via SMS messages and calls;
8) closer integration of applications with each other and with iOS);
9) control center for phone settings;
10) convenient control of swipes in mail saves a lot of time

Samsung decided to try again. The curved display first appeared on the Galaxy Note Edge smartphone. But now another Galaxy S6 edge smartphone has been released in the S line, which allows you to choose the standard model or pay extra for a curved display. But how justified is such a surcharge?

Of course, this step is not accidental. In December, the curved display of the phablet did not fully convince us. In some applications, its potential could be assessed, but apart from a measuring tape and a panel with control icons, there were no significant benefits. The manufacturer is with the Galaxy S6 edge, and early tests have confirmed progress in some areas.

But the smartphone is good not only for the display. Its design was developed from scratch, as was the equipment. From the SoC to the internal memory to the display, Samsung has made improvements everywhere, including to address heat dissipation issues. In the past, there is a case made of durable plastic, you will have to part with the possibility of expanding memory and a removable battery.

Display

At first glance, the display attracts attention. Samsung remained committed to the previous 5.1 "diagonal, but now you get a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels instead of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. So the pixel density has increased by about a third from 432 ppi to 577 ppi. In this regard, we have come to the level that came in last year with a qHD display, but because of the larger display, the pixel density was "only" 538 ppi. For everyday use, such a difference is unlikely to matter, it is not noticeable with the naked eye. But to one degree or another this is true about the transition Full-HD to QHD: Galaxy S6 display seems more detailed only in direct comparison, if you don't look closely at fine structures such as letters of text and don't play video in native resolution, then the increased number of pixels at such a diagonal does not matter ...

But since the basic quality of the display does not deteriorate, we see no shortcomings. In terms of brightness and color rendering, the smartphone showed quite convincing results. With manual brightness control we get a maximum of 335 cd / m², in automatic mode - up to 542 cd / m². Not only this is interesting: not only the brightness is automatically adjusted, but also the color temperature, which depends on warm or cold lighting. Why the maximum brightness adjustment in manual mode is not available to the user - Samsung keeps a secret.

But then there is the ability to adjust the color of the display. Four modes are available, which are optimized for different scenarios such as displaying video or photos. The native mode of the Galaxy S6 edge has a white point temperature of over 7,700K. So, the photos appear bluish. In AMOLED mode, the temperature of 6.700 K is already closer to neutral level.

Good color reproduction is ensured thanks to the Super AMOLED panel. Samsung's own development has left overstated "advertising" specifications in the past, we get natural color reproduction. However, OLED technology provides very good contrast. According to our measurements, it is not infinite, but is above 30,000: 1.

The display relies on the much criticized Pentile matrix, which, given its very high pixel density, has left its main disadvantages in the past. The differences from the RGB matrix in terms of pixel layout are not so noticeable to the naked eye.

SoC

Even before the announcement of the smartphone, detailed information about the SoC appeared. Initially, it was assumed that the manufacturer of the Galaxy S6 edge (at least the European version) will be Qualcomm, but then that Samsung will do differently. Among the reasons, among other things, high energy consumption was named, which the South Korean giant did not like. In any case, the real reasons were not disclosed. Instead of Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, the smartphone has its own Samsung Exynos 7420 chip.

Interestingly, the main characteristics of the two SoCs are very close. Samsung uses the ARM Big.Little concept based on Cortex-A53 and -A57 cores with 64-bit support. Both "systems on a chip" are equipped with two quad cores of each type, except that the clock frequencies are slightly different. For demanding scenarios, the Cortex-A57 cores are designed, which operate up to 2.1 GHz, the "minor" cores operate at a maximum of 1.5 GHz. We got more serious changes in the integrated graphics. Samsung used ARM's Mali T760 core at 772 MHz. But the Qualcomm SoC had a slower Adreno 430 core at 600 MHz. In addition, Samsung has been able to achieve lower power consumption. While Qualcomm's SoCs are still being manufactured using the 20nm process technology, the South Korean company is pleased with the new 14nm process technology.

There is no disagreement about the memory interface in modern smartphones, the memory works with high performance. In each case, LPDDR4 memory is used; the Galaxy S6 edge has a capacity of 3 GB.

Since there are many similarities with the Snapdragon 810, the performance of the Exynos 7420 is at a similar level. In 3DMark - Ice Storm Unlimited we got about 21,000 points, in AnTuTu the performance is also high. In 32-bit mode, the smartphone showed more than 48,000 points in the test, in 64-bit mode - more than 55,000 points. The advantages of the powerful architecture are also evident in the performance of the CPU. In 32-bit mode, the performance of computations with integers and floating-point numbers was 5.300 and 5.100 points, in 64-bit mode - 9.300 and 5.600 points; but for the leading position this value was still not enough in both cases. The situation was similar in terms of graphics performance. In AnTuTu we got 1,600 points in 2D mode and 12,000 points in 3D mode - a high level, but not a record one.

The two browser benchmarks SunSpider and BrowserMark 2.0 showed an average level of performance, but in practice we did not notice any shortcomings while surfing. The same goes for the system interface, which ran smoothly and without jerks. Switching between Home screens and applications was fast, and the programs themselves were fast too.

But as it turned out during our tests, the Galaxy S6 edge has problems with consistent performance levels. In five runs of AnTuTu, we got different performance results, it ranged from 55,000 points to about 70,000 points. The reasons for this behavior are unknown, but they are unlikely to be related to overheating, since we performed test runs in a row. The diagrams show the minimum values.

Additional hardware

Benchmarks benefit from the new internal memory. As a rule, manufacturers rely on eMMC solutions, they are cheap, but performance is not always enough for high-end smartphones - let's note the same 4K content. With UFS 2.0 (Universal Flash Storage), Samsung wants to bridge the gap between eMMC memory and SSD solutions. UFS 2.0 memory chips are less expensive than SSD memory, but in many cases they provide performance above regular memory. Samsung promises SSD-like sequential transfer speeds, but most likely referring to mass market drives.

Such a base for comparison is visible in the number of operations per second: the South Korean company promises performance up to 19,000 IOPS, modern SSDs exceed this level by four or five times. Compared to existing solutions, the new technology offers advantages: Samsung has equipped the entry-level smartphone with 32 GB; there are versions with 64 and 128 GB. As in the case of the iPhone, customers should choose their own storage space before buying a smartphone, there is no expansion via micro-SD cards, although the memory card slot has long been a serious advantage of the Galaxy.

The rest of the equipment is also made at a decent level. The LTE modem supports Cat 6, that is, the download speed is up to 300 Mbps, the WLAN module can work with networks of the 802.11ac standard, MIMO and dual-band technology is supported, for short distances, Bluetooth 4.1 and NFC are provided, and there is also an infrared port. There are also important sensors for fingerprint and heart rate that have appeared. The latter is at the back next to the camera, the former is integrated into the Home button below the display. Moreover, the sensor has improved recognition: instead of rolling your finger over the button, it is now enough to simply attach it to the sensor, like in. In terms of recognition reliability, the sensor proved to be no worse than competitors, including a wet finger or with an applied cream is well recognized. Disadvantage: simply placing your finger on the sensor does not bring the smartphone out of standby mode - it is still in the lead here.

Changes have also been made regarding the USB port and SIM card slot. In the first case, we went back to USB 2.0 in Micro-USB format. Cards are now only supported in nano-SIM format. So far, Samsung hasn't implemented the new USB Type-C connector, which would give the smartphone some uniqueness. But, most likely, the development cycle could not be completed on time.

The new function is not visible to the user externally, but it is not yet supported in Europe and Russia. The function relies on MST, instead of reading the magnetic stripe of a plastic card, the payment terminal can receive all the necessary information from a smartphone. But, unlike NFC systems such as Apple Pay, the store does not need to separately add support for the service. However, payments via NFC are also supported by Samsung smartphones.

In normal scenarios galaxy phone The S6 edge performed well. The interlocutor was heard well, thanks to the system for suppressing external noise, the owner's voice is also transmitted clearly. Except that the speakerphone didn't quite convince us. The speakers located on the lower panel are limited to high and medium frequencies, even listening to music through them is not entirely pleasant - in terms of sound quality, the same HTC One is one step higher.

One of the most attractive and powerful models of the new season

Along with the updated model of the flagship smartphone Galaxy S6, the Korean company Samsung introduced last spring its more unusual modification called the Galaxy S6 Edge. This model is unusual precisely for its screen: developing the theme begun once in the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, there is also a side bend of the display and, accordingly, of the front glass itself. Only, unlike its predecessor, here the curvature is present on both sides, the glass in this case is symmetrical. At the same time, the back side, also covered by a glass panel, remains absolutely flat, which introduces a slight dissonance, but at the same time, some freshness in the design.

In addition to its eye-catching design, the new flagship Galaxy S6 lineup boasts Samsung's industry-leading in-house hardware platform, delivering unmatched performance yet unmatched by competing solutions. All in all, the new Galaxy S6 series smartphones are a great combination of beauty and power. We have already analyzed the basic and more familiar "flat" version in the corresponding review, now it's time to carefully examine its "curved" modification. It should be noted that the two Galaxy S6 models are similar in most parameters and characteristics, so a lot in this review will seem familiar to our readers who have not missed the Samsung Galaxy S6 review.

Video review

To get started, we suggest watching our video review of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone:

Now let's take a look at the characteristics of the new item.

Main characteristics of Samsung Galaxy S6 (model SM-G925F)

	Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge	HTC One M9	Meizu MX4	Lg g4	Nexus 6
Screen	5.1 ″, Super AMOLED	5 ″, S-LCD 3	5.36 ″, IPS	5.5 ″, IPS	5.96 ″, AMOLED
Resolution	2560 × 1440, 577 ppi	1920 × 1080, 441 ppi	1920 × 1152, 418 ppi	2560 × 1440, 538 ppi	2560 × 1440, 493 ppi
SoC	Exynos 7420 (4x Cortex-A57 @ 2.1GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (4x Cortex-A57 @ 2.0GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz)	Mediatek MT6595 Octa-core (4x Cortex-A17 @ 2.2GHz and 4x Cortex-A7 @ 1.7GHz)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 (2x Cortex-A57 @ 1.8GHz + 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz)	Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (4 Core Krait 450 @ 2.7 GHz)
GPU	Mali-T760	Adreno 430	PowerVR G6200	Adreno 418	Adreno 420
RAM	3 GB	3 GB	2 GB	3 GB	3 GB
Flash memory	32/64/128 GB	32 GB	16/32/64 GB	32 GB	32/64 GB
Memory card support	—	microSD	—	microSD	—
operating system	Google Android 5.0	Google Android 5.0	Google Android 4.4	Google Android 5.1	Google Android 5.0
Battery	non-removable, 2600 mAh	non-removable, 2840 mAh	non-removable, 3100 mAh	removable, 3000 mAh	non-removable, 3220 mAh
Cameras	main (16 Mp; video 4K), front (5 Mp)	main (20.7 MP; 4K video), front (2 MP)	main (20.7 Mp; video 4K), front (2 Mp)	main (16 MP; 4K video), front (8 MP)	main (13 MP; 4K video), front (2 MP)
Dimensions and weight	142 x 70 x 7 mm, 132 g	145 x 70 x 9.6 mm, 157 g	144 x 75 x 8.9 mm, 147 g	149 x 76 x 9.8mm, 155g	159 x 83 x 10.1 mm, 184 grams
average price	T-12259971	T-12259334	T-11036319	N / A	T-11153512
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (32GB) offers	L-12259971-10

• SoC Exynos 7420 (64-bit), two clusters of four processor cores: ARM Cortex-A57 at 2.1 GHz and ARM Cortex-A53 at 1.5 GHz
• GPU Mali-T760
• Operating system Android 5.0 Lollipop
• Touchscreen Dual Edge Super AMOLED display, 5.1 ″, 2560 × 1440
• Random access memory (RAM) 3 GB LPDDR4
• Internal memory 32, 64 or 128 GB
• No microSD card slot
• Communication GSM 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
• Communication 3G WCDMA 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz
• Max 4G LTE Cat6 data rate up to 300Mbps
• Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4 / 5 GHz) HT80 MIMO, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth 4.1, NFC
• Infrared, USB OTG
• GPS / A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
• Position, proximity, lighting, barometer, fingerprint sensor, Hall and heart rate sensors
• Camera 16 MP (F1.9), optical stabilization, autofocus, LED flash
• Camera 5 MP (F1.9), front
• Battery 2600 mAh, non-removable
• Wireless charging support
• Dimensions 142 x 70 x 7 mm
• Weight 132 g

Appearance and usability

You can praise or scold new design the updated line of top-end smartphones of Koreans, someone liked it (and there are really a lot of such people), someone is not happy with such drastic changes (and they can also be understood), but the fact remains: the company's designers have made a giant qualitative leap and managed to raise the image component of their products to a completely different level. According to their clothes, as they say, they are met, and this very "clothes" of the new smartphones of the Korean company is now, if not chic, then expensive and catchy for sure. From glossy and metal-like plastic, the developers have finally moved on to truly respectable premium materials such as tempered glass and real metal, and I must say, they did it.

Aside from the obsessive thought that the design option, which implies two glass halves of the case, connected by a metal rim, is not that new, but even very beaten and worn out (before Samsung, most manufacturers, it seems, had time to try it in their products from Sony to Huawei), then such changes in the appearance of the popular line of smartphones can only be welcomed. Smartphones Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge definitely began to look more solid, expensive, impressive, and even somewhere noble. In any case, now these devices look quite decent in any, even the most expensive environment.

As for ergonomics, in this case it fades into the background and modestly falls silent - now they did not give her a word. Against the backdrop of admiration for the beauty and quality of workmanship, users somehow try not to think that glass is a fairly fragile material that easily cracks when dropped on a hard surface, and that thin metal edges, coupled with smooth glass panels in Samsung Galaxy The S6 Edge is so slippery that it's even scary to take your smartphone out of your pocket on the street. Perhaps it is the S6 Edge with its rounded glass and refined sides that can rightfully be called the most slippery smartphone of our time.

In pursuit, it is also worth noting that everyone who first picked up the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (in the off state) wanted to turn it over in his hand, turning the device upside down, and take the curved front panel with sloping sides in his palm, because it would be more convenient.

Otherwise, there are no complaints about the external structure of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge case: the smartphone is not so large in size, when compared with many modern tablet phones, it easily fits in a hand of an average size, the weight and thickness of the case are comfortable. The assembly raises no objections, everything is well-fitted, although perfectionists have already noted the fact that all the elements on the case, such as buttons, microphone holes, speaker grilles and connectors for cards, the developers managed to place crookedly relative to the central axis. Nor is it delightful that most of the surface, apart from the thin metal side frame, turned out to be extremely brand - glasses on both sides are instantly covered with fingerprints, which annoys many. On the other hand, hiding such beauty in a case is somehow blasphemous, you have to put up, at least at first.

As for the aforementioned hardware controls, their location on the case is as follows: the power and lock button has logically taken its rightful place in the upper half of the right side edge, the volume keys are symmetrically located on the opposite edge. It should be noted that for the first time in Samsung, they threw away the last constraints and broke the same volume rocker into two separate buttons - now, on this point, Korean smartphones are indistinguishable from Apple iPhone.

The grill of the main speaker is made in the form of an array of round holes and is logically placed at the bottom end. This part of the case is loaded with elements to the eyeballs: in addition to the speaker grill, there are also Micro-USB connectors and an audio output for a headphone minijack (3.5 mm). These elements, as mentioned above, in contrast to the iPhone, for some reason turned out to be displaced relative to the central longitudinal axis, which looks somehow sloppy and unfinished.

On the opposite upper end, in addition to a small IrDA window and an auxiliary microphone hole, there is a slot for a Nano-SIM-card. Card sleds, which are somehow undignifiedly made of plastic, are habitually removed by pressing a secret button with a key or paper clip. A slot for a second SIM card, as well as for a memory card, is not provided in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone.

The front of the smartphone is completely covered with Gorilla Glass 4. To the left of the earpiece grill you can see the notification LED, its large dot shines in different colors, notifying about the charging status and incoming events. The indicator can be controlled through the corresponding section of the settings.

In the lower part under the screen, there is an oval mechanical key and two touch buttons on either side of it. The touch buttons have a bright white backlight. A fingerprint scanner is integrated into the center key, which has undergone some changes for the better. Now you do not need to slide your finger over it - a simple touch is enough, it is more convenient than the option implemented in previous models of the series.

The device has support for wireless charging, compatible with WPC 1.1 (output power 4.6 W) and PMA 1.0 (4.2 W). The smartphone has no protection against dust and moisture, there is no strap attachment on the case either.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, like its "flat" sibling, the regular S6, comes in several vibrant body colors, and unlike the regular S6, only the curved version has a green color scheme in the assortment, branded as "Noble Emerald" ... Perhaps the element of novelty and surprise plays a role here, but it was this iridescent greenish hue that attracted the most public attention. Many of those who prefer the regular version of the Galaxy S6 even regret that the green version is not available to them. In addition to green, the Galaxy S6 Edge is available in black (dark blue), white and gold color options.

Screen

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is equipped with a Super AMOLED touchscreen protected by Gorilla Glass 4, which has been specially shaped with curved edges (Dual Edge). It should be noted that despite the physical curvature of the screen, here, nevertheless, there are no separate side matrices on the bevels, as was the case with the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. That is, the display here is a single whole, although with the help of software, the curved edges of the screen can really carry additional load, acting as separate side mini-displays.

The physical dimensions of the display are 63 × 113 mm, the diagonal is 5.1 inches. The screen resolution in dots is 2560 × 1440, so the dot density is very high at 577 ppi.

The bezel around the screen is rather thin: the distance from the edge of the case to the edge of the screen from the sides is about 3 mm. It should be noted that it is this frame that accounts for most of the curved surface of the glass - the screen itself bends quite a bit, only a couple of millimeters around its edges. The concern of some users about accidentally clicking on the curved edges of the display that are right under the fingers has not been confirmed. You can feel some inconvenience and achieve accidental clicks only during special experiments, and in everyday life, unintended clicks were practically not noticed.

The brightness of the display has manual and automatic adjustment, the latter is based on the operation of the light sensor. There is also a proximity sensor that locks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear. Multi-touch technology allows you to handle 10 simultaneous touches.

Alexey Kudryavtsev, editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, conducted a detailed examination using measuring instruments. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the test sample.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface, resistant to scratches. (However, in addition to the bend towards the edges, we also note some smoothed unevenness of the outer surface.) Judging by the reflection of objects, the antiglare properties of the screen are not worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the turned off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, then they can be distinguished by their size):

The screen of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is slightly darker (the brightness in the photographs is 93 versus 96 for the Nexus 7, the glare curved edges of the tested screen are excluded) and does not have a pronounced shade. Note that reflections from bright objects on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge screen have a faint bluish halo more pronounced laterally. The doubling of reflected objects on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge screen is very weak, which indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen. Due to the smaller number of boundaries (such as glass / air) with greatly different refractive indices, screens without an air gap look better in conditions of strong external illumination, but their repair in case of cracked outer glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be changed. The outer surface of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (effective, but seems to be slightly worse than the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are much easier to remove, and appear at a slower rate than in the case of regular glass ...

When the white field was displayed in full screen and with manual brightness control, its maximum value was 340 cd / m², the minimum was 1.4 cd / m². You also need to take into account the fact that in this case the smaller the white area on the screen, the lighter it is, that is, the actual maximum brightness of the white areas will almost always be higher than the specified value. As a result, readability in the daytime in the sun should be at a fairly good level (we did not have the opportunity to check the possibilities). The reduced brightness level allows you to use the device without any problems even in complete darkness. Automatic brightness control works according to the light sensor (it is located to the left of the front speaker slot). You can make adjustments to the operation of this function by moving the adjustment slider. Further, for three conditions, we give the screen brightness values \u200b\u200bfor three values \u200b\u200bof this setting - for 0%, 50% and 100%. In complete darkness in automatic mode, the brightness decreases to 1.4, 6.5 and 15 cd / m2, respectively (the first and second are too dark, the third is normal), in an office illuminated with artificial light (about 400 lux), the brightness is set to 50 , 130 and 250 cd / m2 (darkish - just right - a little bright, which corresponds to the specified correction), in a brightly lit environment (corresponds to illumination on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or slightly more) - increases to 340 cd / m² regardless of the position of the slider. This value is equal to the maximum with manual adjustment. If you increase the brightness of the ambient light (in the area of \u200b\u200bthe light sensor) somewhere up to hundreds of thousands of lux (corresponds to direct sunlight), then the screen brightness rises to 550 cd / m². This brightness should definitely be enough for the image on the screen to be well distinguished in any natural conditions. In general, the result of the automatic brightness control function is as expected. At any brightness level, there is significant modulation at 237.5 Hz. The figure below shows the dependence of brightness (vertical axis) on time (horizontal axis) for several values \u200b\u200bof brightness adjustment:

It can be seen that at the maximum and close to it brightness, the modulation amplitude is not very large, as a result, there is no visible flicker. However, with decreasing brightness, modulation appears with a large relative amplitude. Therefore, the presence of such modulation can already be seen in the test for the presence of a stroboscopic effect or simply with rapid eye movement. Depending on the individual's sensitivity, this flickering can cause increased fatigue.

This screen uses a Super AMOLED matrix - an active matrix on organic light-emitting diodes. A full color image is created with subpixels of three colors - red (R), green (G) and blue (B), but there are twice as many green subpixels, which can be referred to as RGBG. This is confirmed by a fragment of a micrograph:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of photomicrographs of screens used in mobile technology.

In the fragment above, you can count 4 green subpixels, 2 red (4 halves) and 2 blue (1 whole and 4 quarters), while repeating these fragments, you can lay out the entire screen without gaps and overlaps. For such matrices, Samsung has introduced the name PenTile RGBG. The manufacturer considers the screen resolution for green subpixels, for the other two it will be two times lower. The location and shape of the subpixels in this version is close to the case of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and some other newer Samsung devices (and not only) with AMOLED screens. This PenTile RGBG version is better than the old one with red squares, blue rectangles and green subpixel stripes. Nevertheless, some uneven contrast borders and other artifacts are still present. However, due to the very high resolution, they have minimal impact on image quality.

The screen is characterized by excellent viewing angles, although the white color, when deviated even at small angles, alternately acquires a light blue-green and pinkish tint, but black is just black at all angles. So black that the contrast setting is not applicable in this case. The uniformity of the white field is excellent when viewed from a perpendicular view. For comparison, here are the photos on which the screens of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (profile AMOLED movie) and the second comparison participant, identical images were displayed, while the brightness of the screens was initially set to about 200 cd / m2, and the color balance on the camera was forcibly switched to 6500 K. White field:

Note the excellent uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field (except for darkening and changing the hue towards the curved edges). And the test picture (profile Main):

The color rendition is good, the colors are moderately saturated, the color balance of the screens is slightly different. Note that in this case the picture occupies in height (with this screen orientation) the entire area available for image display and goes over the curved edges of the screen, which leads to darkening and color distortion. Also, in the light, these areas almost always glare, which further interferes when viewing images displayed in full screen. And even the picture of films with an aspect ratio of 16: 9 goes into the folds, which greatly interferes with watching a movie. The photo above was taken after selecting a profile Main in the screen settings, there are four of them:

Profile Adaptive display differs in some kind of automatic adjustment to the type of displayed image and the surrounding conditions, which is obtained by selecting the two remaining profiles shown below.

AMOLED movie:

Saturation and color contrast are noticeably increased.

AMOLED Photo:

The saturation is still high, but the color contrast is closer to normal. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen (profile AMOLED movie). White box:

The brightness at an angle on both screens has noticeably decreased (to avoid strong darkening, the shutter speed is increased compared to previous photos), but in the case of Samsung, the drop in brightness is much less pronounced. As a result, with formally the same brightness, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge screen visually looks much brighter (compared to LCD screens), since the screen mobile device often you have to look at at least a slight angle. And the test picture:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens and the brightness at Samsung is noticeably higher at an angle. The switching of the state of the matrix elements is performed almost instantly, but at the turn-on front there may be a step with a width of about 17 ms (which corresponds to a screen refresh rate of 59 Hz). For example, this is how the dependence of brightness on time looks like when switching from black to white and vice versa:

In some conditions, the presence of such a step can lead to plumes trailing behind moving objects. However, dynamic scenes in films on OLED screens are distinguished by high definition and even some "jerky" movements.

For profiles AMOLED Photo and Main the gamma curve plotted at 32 points with equal intervals by the numerical value of the shade of gray did not reveal any blockage in either highlights or shadows, and the exponent of the approximating power function is 2.39, which is higher than the standard value of 2.2 (so the image is slightly darkened) , while the real gamma curve deviates little from the power-law dependence (the captions in parentheses show the exponent of the approximating power-law function and the coefficient of determination):

For profile AMOLED movie The gamma curve has a pronounced S-shaped character, which increases the visible contrast of the image, but in the shadows the distinguishability of shades is preserved.

Recall that in the case of OLED screens, the brightness of image fragments dynamically changes in accordance with the nature of the displayed image - it decreases for generally light images. As a result, the obtained dependence of brightness on the hue (gamma curve), most likely, does not correspond a little to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential output of shades of gray on almost the entire screen.

Color gamut in case of profile AMOLED movie very wide, it almost covers Adobe RGB coverage:

When choosing a profile AMOLED Photo coverage is compressed to Adobe RGB boundaries:

When choosing a profile Main coverage is compressed almost to the sRGB borders:

Without correction, the spectra of the components are very well separated:

In case of a profile Main with maximum correction, the color components are already noticeably mixed with each other:

Note that normal sRGB-optimized images appear unnaturally saturated on screens with a wide gamut without proper color correction. Hence the recommendation - in most cases, watching movies, photographs and everything natural is better when choosing a profile Main, and only if the photo was taken on the Adobe RGB setting, it makes sense to switch the profile to AMOLED Photo... Profile AMOLED movie, despite the name, the least suitable for watching movies and anything else.

The gray scale balance is good. Color temperature in profile AMOLED movie above 6500 K, in the other two it is close to 6500 K, while this parameter does not change very much in a significant part of the gray scale, which improves the visual perception of the color balance. The deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) on most of the gray scale remains below 10 units, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device, but the fluctuations in this parameter are already large:

(In most cases, the darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since the color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

Let's summarize. The screen has a high maximum brightness and has good anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable value. It is permissible (and in bright light it is necessary) to use the mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works quite adequately. The advantages of the screen include a good oleophobic coating, as well as a color gamut close to sRGB and an acceptable color balance (when choosing the appropriate profiles). At the same time, let's recall the general advantages of OLED screens: true black color (if nothing is reflected in the screen), excellent uniformity of the white field, noticeably less than that of LCDs, a drop in image brightness when viewed from an angle. The disadvantages include modulation of screen brightness. Users who are particularly sensitive to flicker may experience increased fatigue due to this. However, the overall screen quality is very high. Separately, we note that from the point of view of image quality, there is only harm from curved edges, since this design find introduces very noticeable color tone distortions and reduces brightness at the edges of the picture, and also leads in ambient light conditions to inevitable glare at least along one long side screen.

Sound

The sound of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is more than decent, the device sounds like a true flagship of the highest level should sound. Despite the absence of stereo speakers, the sound, nevertheless, the device emits very loud, saturated with the entire spectrum of frequencies, including low. At the maximum volume level, distortion was almost not noticed, wheezing too. The smartphone sounds really nice, there are no complaints at all. The speaker grill is brought out to the bottom end, so that the sound does not block out when the smartphone is lying on a hard surface. In the conversational dynamics, the voice of the familiar interlocutor, timbre and intonation remain recognizable, the conversation is quite comfortable.

With headphones, the smartphone also sounds at the level of modern flagships; for playing tunes, a branded player with the maximum number of settings is used as standard. All sound effects are united by a technology called SoundAlive - although some of them are available only with connected headphones. The same goes for the sound optimization function. For manual adjustments, an equalizer with preset values \u200b\u200bis available, as well as separate controls for bass and treble.

Traditionally, there was no FM radio in the standard configuration of the smartphone, but there is a dictaphone. In addition to the standard mode, the dictaphone also has specific "interviews" and "voice notes" - all of this is already familiar to us from the previous models of the series. The smartphone cannot record telephone conversations from the line.

Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is equipped with two 16MP and 5MP digital camera modules. The front camera is equipped with a 5-megapixel module with a lens with an aperture of f / 1.9, video shoots at a maximum resolution of QHD (2560 × 1440). You can shoot with the front camera without touching the screen, using an outstretched palm gesture or a voice command. You can also take your own self-portrait by tapping your finger on the heart rate sensor on the back of your smartphone.

The main 16-megapixel camera has an f / 1.9 aperture lens, tracking autofocus, optical image stabilization (OIS) and a single LED flash. There is an opinion that sensors from different manufacturers can be used in different copies of the same model - both Sony IMX240 and Samsung ISOCELL. Quick launch of the camera is possible by double-clicking on the central hardware key under the screen.

The camera settings are combined into a long scroll, in addition to the usual automatic mode and manual settings, you can also select panoramic, selective focus mode, as well as fast and slow motion video modes. Added an unusual so-called virtual shooting mode to create a multi-angle view of objects.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge video camera can shoot in resolutions up to 4K (UHD). As always, the option of shooting at 60 fps is very interesting, while the resolution is 1920 × 1080 (Full HD). The camera copes with any options perfectly, there are no complaints about the quality of the resulting image. The quality of the video can be judged by the test clips.

• Movie # 1 (31 MB, 1920 × 1080 @ 60 fps)
• Movie # 2 (54 MB, 3840 × 2160 @ 30 fps)

	Good sharpness across the entire frame.
	The camera works well with shadows.
	Sharpness practically does not decrease with the removal of the plan, but a certain soapiness of the image as a whole becomes more noticeable.
	Not a bad working out of details, although the aforementioned soapiness spoils them a little.
	The colors of the sky and the building are fairly even.
	Shadows worked well. In the background, the blur of small details becomes clearly visible.
	Due to the soapiness, the numbers of the remote cars are hardly distinguishable.

As in many modern smartphones, the HDR mode can be turned on automatically, without turning it on forcibly. In this case, the time taken to create the picture does not increase, but the images often look more interesting.

Auto mode	Auto HDR

We also tested the camera on a laboratory bench using our method.

The pictures look very decent, although they were not without a little disappointment: many images are slightly soapy, due to which detailing suffers, and noise is not always handled neatly.

It would seem that the program in the camera should be the same as in the S6, but the firmware version specified in EXIF \u200b\u200blooks newer, and the camera shoots much worse. However, “noticeably” is still too loud a word, since the difference is clearly visible only on a laboratory test. In the field shots of the S6 Edge, there is a certain soapiness that hides the details, but in the shots of the S6 it was also observed, although it was much less pronounced. The feeling remains that the programmers wanted to improve the processing, but it turned out "as always", since the camera modules of these smartphones are clearly the same.

Nevertheless, our S6 Edge sample looked more advantageous, at least due to the lack of the out-of-focus area on the right, noted in the S6 sample. But objective tests do not allow the S6 Edge to be distinguished either against the background of other smartphones, or against the background of its less shocking brother. Although the shots look very good, comparisons with the LG G4, which were tested under exactly the same conditions at the same time, do not hold up. It is possible that such soapiness will be eliminated in serial samples, but this is doubtful, and sales are already in full swing.

As a result, the camera is quite suitable for documentary and artistic photography, besides, the detailing suffers noticeably only in the distant shots.

Telephone part and communications

The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks, and also has support for fourth-generation LTE Cat6 networks with a maximum possible speed of up to 300 Mbps for reception. In practice, with the SIM-card of the domestic operator MTS, the smartphone confidently recognizes and works with 4G networks.

The rest of the network capabilities of the smartphone are also at their best: there is support for NFC technology, Bluetooth 4.1 supports profiles A2DP, LE, apt-X, ANT +. Wi-Fi 802.11n / ac, HT80 MIMO (2 × 2, up to 620 Mbps) supports operation in both frequency bands (2.4 and 5 GHz) and Wi-Fi Direct technology, you can organize a wireless access point through channels Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It is possible to connect external devices to the USB port in OTG mode.

The navigation module works with both GPS and the domestic Glonass system, and also sees the satellites of the Chinese Beidou (BDS). There are no complaints about the navigation module, a cold start occurs within a minute and faster. The device is also equipped with a magnetic field sensor, on the basis of which the compass of navigation programs functions.

OS and software

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge runs on the fifth version of Android OS with the proprietary TouchWiz shell installed on top of it. The new version of TouchWiz in both S6 models is installed absolutely the same, you can read more about all its features in the Samsung Galaxy S6 review.

The only difference in the interface in the modification for the S6 Edge is a special section of the menu dedicated to the settings for working with a curved screen. The device can turn on the backlight of the side of the display, thus duplicating the alert sensor when receiving calls or notifications. Also, this side of the screen is used to display individual favorite contacts placed in multi-colored circles on it, and, accordingly, work with them. When calls and messages come in, the sidewall will be highlighted in exactly the color that was assigned to a particular contact - all this is configured in the menu of a feature called People Edge. In addition, a scrolling news feed with news received from subscribed channels can be displayed on the side screen, as well as a clock in night mode. The idea looks quite fresh, and perhaps even saves battery power, but whether this function is really in demand by the owners of the devices, time will tell.

With the updates, another new feature has appeared, which was introduced by Samsung after the announcement of the Galaxy S6 models: a data transfer service called Smart Switch. Smart Switch app for PC and Mac is designed to sync data using iTunes, as well as devices based on Blackberry and Windows operating systems. Smart Switch lets you transfer contacts, text messages, photos, music, videos, calendar data, call logs, memos, alarms, Wi-Fi settings, and even wallpapers to your Samsung Galaxy smartphones. IOS users can transfer music purchased from iTunes to a Samsung Galaxy device. To transfer personal data from Android smartphones (version 4.0 or higher), you need to install the application on both devices and use the Wi-Fi Direct function for wireless transfer. IOS users will also be able to use the USB OTG cable (iOS 5.0 and above).

Performance

The hardware platform of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is based on the Samsung Exynos 7420's own SoC, which is manufactured using a 14-nanometer process. The configuration of this single-chip system includes two clusters of four cores: ARM Cortex-A57 at 2.1 GHz and ARM Cortex-A53 at 1.5 GHz. The GPU is the Mali T760 video accelerator. The smartphone has 3 GB of RAM (LPDDR4 is used). The internal memory is implemented on drives that meet the UFS 2.0 specification. The flash memory is 32, 64 or 128 GB. In the case of a model with a minimum volume, the user initially has about 25 GB available from the nominally designated 32 GB. There is no expansion option due to memory cards, but it supports connecting devices, including flash drives, to the USB port in OTG mode.

Below are thermal images of the rear surface (top in the photo - left), obtained after 10 minutes of running the battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

The specularity of the back surface leads to the fact that surrounding objects are reflected in it (in particular, the screen of the tablet that was used for shooting, and what is reflected in this screen). Nevertheless, it can be seen that the heating is highly localized closer to the edge in the area of \u200b\u200bthe power button, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 44 degrees.

According to the test results, the hardware platform of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge demonstrated such high results that it surpassed all previous record holders, including the Meizu MX4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4, which occupied the first places in the AnTuTu test for a long time.

As a result, Samsung gave the world another record holder in terms of power - a reference smartphone, which will be equal to, trying to catch up and match throughout the season. The device is extremely productive, the capabilities built into it will be enough for a long time to complete any tasks, including for the most demanding games.

Testing with the latest AnTuTu and GeekBench 3 Benchmarks:

All the results obtained by us when testing the smartphone in the most recent versions of popular benchmarks, we have tabulated for convenience. Several other devices from different segments are usually added to the table, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry numbers). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison, it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, therefore, many worthy and relevant models remain behind the scenes - due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions of test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in the game tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark for the most productive smartphones, it is now possible to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

	Samsung Galaxy S6Edge (Exynos 7420)	HTC One M9 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 810)	Meizu MX4 (Mediatek MT6595)	Nexus 6 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 805)	Lg g4 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 808)
3DMark Ice Storm Extreme (more is better)	Maxed out!	Maxed out!	Maxed out!	Maxed out!	Maxed out!
3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (more is better)	21773	20538	16691	23234	18372
GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD (C24Z16 Onscreen)	38 fps	37 fps	21.7 fps	23 fps	25 fps
GFXBenchmark T-Rex HD (C24Z16 Offscreen)	50 fps	36 fps	23.2 fps	29 fps	35 fps
Bonsai benchmark	4155 (59 fps)	4092 (58 fps)	4033 (58 fps)	3633 (52 fps)	3340 (48 fps)

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for evaluating the speed of a javascript engine, you should always make allowances for the fact that the results in them significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so that the comparison can be truly correct only on the same OS and browsers, and this possibility is available when testing not always. In the case of Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

Video playback

To test the "omnivorous" video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats that make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that for mobile devices, it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is often impossible to process modern versions using processor cores alone. Also, do not expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.

According to the test results, the subject was not equipped with all the necessary decoders that are needed to fully play most of the most common multimedia files on the network. To play them successfully, you will have to resort to using a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, it is also necessary to change the settings and manually install additional custom codecs, because now this player does not officially support the AC3 audio format.

Format	Container, video, sound	MX Video Player	Native video player
DVDRip	AVI, XviD 720 × 400 2200 Kbps, MP3 + AC3	reproduced normally	reproduced normally
Web-DL SD	AVI, XviD 720 × 400 1400 Kbps, MP3 + AC3	reproduced normally	reproduced normally
Web-DL HD	MKV, H.264 1280 × 720 3000Kbps, AC3		video plays fine, no sound¹
BDRip 720p	MKV, H.264 1280 × 720 4000 Kbps, AC3	video plays fine, no sound¹	video plays fine, no sound¹
BDRip 1080p	MKV, H.264 1920 × 1080 8000Kbps, AC3	video plays fine, no sound¹	video plays fine, no sound¹

¹ sound in MX Video Player was played only after installing an alternative custom audio codec; the standard player does not have such a setting

Testing of video output features was carried out Alexey Kudryavtsev.

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see "Methodology for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices) 720 / 24p

well not

Note: If both columns Uniformity and Skips green marks are set, this means that, most likely, when watching movies, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with the playback of the respective files.

According to the criterion for outputting frames, the quality of video files playback on the screen of the device itself is good, since frames (or groups of frames) can be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without frame drops. Except for 60fps files - one frame is always dropped due to the strange 59Hz refresh rate. It seems that someone at Samsung is sabotaging and in recent versions of AMOLED screens deliberately lowered the refresh rate from the typical 60Hz. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, going into the bends. The clarity of the picture is high, but not ideal, since there is no escape from interpolation to the screen resolution. However, for the sake of experiment, you can switch to one-to-one pixel mode, there will be no interpolation, but the PenTile features will appear - the vertical world through the pixel will be in a grid, and the horizontal one will be slightly greenish. This is on test worlds, the described artifacts on real frames are absent. The brightness range displayed on the screen actually corresponds to the standard range of 16-235 - in the shadows only a couple of shades merge with black, but all the shades are displayed in the highlights.

Battery life

The capacity of the built-in non-removable battery installed in the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is far from a record - only 2600 mAh, although this is even slightly more than the "flat" version of the S6. However, despite the powerful platform and a fairly large five-inch screen, the smartphone more than proved itself worthy in terms of battery life. At the moment, Samsung's flagships not only show the best autonomy in the top segment among their kind, but also demonstrate enviable consistency in this matter, which cannot be said about many other manufacturers. For example, in the same LG, the G2 was simply excellent in terms of autonomy, but with the release of each subsequent model, this indicator, unfortunately, becomes worse and worse. The same can be said about the flagships of the NTS.

It should be noted that the device's settings traditionally contain two proprietary power saving modes: normal and extreme. The maximum power saving mode significantly reduces the level of energy consumption by turning off secondary and preserving vital functions at the moment, as well as, for visual effect, translating the image on the screen in black and white.

	Battery capacity	Reading mode	Video mode	3D Game Mode
Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge	2600 mAh	19 h 00 m	12h 20m	3h 50m
Samsung Galaxy S6	2550 mAh	20 h 00 m	12h 00m	4h 00m
HTC One M9	2840 mAh	11h 00m	8h 20m	3h 50m
Yotaphone 2	2500 mAh	12h 00m	9h 30m	3h 15m
Lenovo Vibe X2	2300 mAh	13h 00m	6h 00m	3h 15m
Meizu MX4	3100 mAh	12h 00m	8h 40m	3h 45m
Meizu MX4 Pro	3350 mAh	16h 00m	8h 40m	3h 30m
Sony Xperia Z3	3100 mAh	20 h 00 m	10h 00m	4h 50m
Lg g4	3000 mAh	17h 00m	9h 00m	3h 00m
Nexus 6	3220 mAh	18h 00m	10h 30m	3h 40m

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at the minimum comfortable brightness level (the brightness was set to 100 cd / m²) lasted about 19 hours until the battery was completely discharged. The device lasted more than 12 hours when continuously watching videos in high quality (720p) with the same brightness level over the home Wi-Fi network. The device worked for almost 4 hours in 3D games mode. The smartphone supports fast charging technology, so the full charging time is only 1.5 hours, and according to the developers, only 10 minutes "at the outlet" allow you to charge the smartphone for the next four hours of use.

Outcome

Samsung has done a great job on its next flagship: if the beauty of design is a matter of taste, and here opinions may differ, then in terms of the hardware equipment of the Galaxy S6 smartphones, you can safely put the highest score. Performance is at the maximum level, but at the same time at the height and autonomy, which is good news. Having one of the best cameras in its category is also a very indicative moment, although this aspect is not important for everyone. The screen quality and sound are at a very decent level, the network capabilities of the smartphone satisfy any need. In addition, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge also has most of the flagship features, from a fingerprint scanner to an infrared port and support for wireless charging. True, and worth it new smartphone more expensive than all its competitors, but this issue is already beyond the scope of our review and remains entirely on the conscience of the seller.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is an extraordinary smartphone, and in terms of the totality of its characteristics it simply cannot fail to receive our award for original design. But I would especially like to highlight its unusual screen and express the hope that in the future we will see even more daring experiments in this area and discover new applications of "curved" screens.