#samsung flagship

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 to return to flatter display screen: Report

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Samsung Galaxy telephones have pioneered loads of new tendencies within the smartphone trade. One of the most important tendencies that took off was curved screens. The Galaxy Edge collection was the primary to introduce a one-sided curved show which ultimately landed on most of its flagship smartphones. However, Samsung took a step again with the Galaxy S20 collection and launched…

See also: Part 1 for Display and Design, and Part 2 for Camera, Part 3 for Software and Features.

Performance and Battery

+++++ Samsung’s Exynos 7420 is a 14nm octa-core SoC. What regular consumers may care about is the number of cores. Techies however should notice that there isn’t a single mention of Qualcomm Snapdragon in sight. The fact that it’s a 14nm SoC – smallest fabrication yet for a smartphone – should be enough to excite as the possibilities of unprecedented low power usage is no doubt on their minds. Further helping keep that battery going is the octa-core’s big.Little configuration where a set of low power cores are used until a higher load comes along to make use of the faster more powerful cores. The end result is a processor that make things go fast and keeps the power draw in check. Fascinating stuff.

++++ Snappy and responsive is the general impression you will get when using the S6. Even with a QuadHD resolution, you’ll not see a single stutter or lag. It would seem the GPU itself is more than adequate to handle the load.

  ++++ Surely the monster performance is all thanks to, in no small part, the fast performing internal storage. To prove this, take a look at these Androbench results below.

+ The S6 Edge is an all-day phone. You’d think otherwise due to the rather small 2600 mAh. On average it lasted up to 14 hours of normal, non-gaming usage with around 20-30% to spare. It’s nothing groundbreaking but it’s the perfect balance between portability and battery life, especially for a flaghship phone.

  Bonus

Durability – completely by accident, our S6 Edge was dropped several times from waist height and here’s what happened.

Sturdy.

Severe slowdown – sadly for all its speed, the S6 can really slowdown, so much so it becomes a huge contrast. During our testing, on one occasion, one day was what it took for the slowdown to rear its ugly head. The UI generally becomes less responsive, sticky even. Camera quick launch takes seconds. The problem isn’t something a reboot can’t fix but it’s clear that there’s something wrong with the system. Fortunately these issues typically can be fixed by a simple software update. And the advantage of owning a flagship device is that you’ll be sure widespread issues will be fixed very promptly.

See also: Part 1 for Display and Design

and Part 2 for Camera

Software and features

+++++ Samsung further simplifies Touchwiz, taking it one step closer to Google stock experience. The main advantage of this is that the skin no longer feels like a resource hog (but whether it really is or not is another matter).

Further de-bloating has been carried out as you’ll find a Moto-style breakup of its ROM. Only basic / trademark features are kept on the device out of the box, but extra features can be downloaded from Samsung Apps store. Case in point, look at the screenshot below – Sound & shot used to be bundled into the camera app. No more.

+ S-Voice. Not that it’s used much because there is Google Now but Sammy has spent time to improve upon its voice assistant. Worth mentioning is the fact that the app no longer occupies the entire screen but instead it tucks into the bottom and out of the way, making a whole lot of sense. It shows you it’s listening when it needs to be and displays a little question mark for help should you need it.

+ well done to Samsung for making a fair effort in copying adopting Apple’s press-action fingerprint sensor to replace their swipe-action as seen on the S5. It’s still not as accurate as Apple’s but it’s not as difficult (error prone) to use now.

+ Settings has finally been cleaned up. Previously it was a mess – Samsung categorised them into meaningless tabs and you’d usually have to go through each page in order to find what you’re really looking for. Now, it’s all been listed in one single page, just like how stock Android does things. Fortunately, Samsung also added a Quick settings section at the top where you can pin frequently accessed items to the top. Good thinking.

—– the Edge screen is an absolute disappointment. The only time it’s useful at all is when the screen is locked. And even then, it just isn’t very useful. Samsung has no excuse really. Edge isn’t a brand new feature. It’s already been 6 months (more, if you count their 2013 showcase) since it’s been on the shelf living on the Note Edge. If they were going to release a flagship around the feature, they really should have beefed its functionality up some.

The settings screen actually explains it all- there’s Edge lighting, People edge, Information stream and night clock.

Edge lighting and People edge

You can set 5 contacts into People edge where it can be quickly accessed with the tiny tab at the side of the screen that’s designed to remind you it’s there. Each contact will be automatically assigned a colour and you can go in and pick one if you like.  When – or if – you turn your phone over, (and only if you’ve setup People edge) the Edge lights up when you get notifications. And they will be in the same colour as defined when you added them to Peopl edge. Useful for people who do turn their phones over to reduce the amount of distraction but still wants to know if anybody important is trying to contact them.

But is it of great value.. well it’s there if you need it.

Information stream

When the screen is locked, rub the Edge as though it were a Genie lamp and the Information Stream will light up with tickers and notifications. It’s that idiotic.

  Arguably this function has potential but that potential is so far off you’re more likely to see the tip of Mount Everest without climbing it than seeing this come to fruition. So far, there are only a handful of tickers that you can add to the Edge and they’re not particularly useful either. Activating the stream will light up the Edge, and from there you have to scroll to the ticker you’re actually looking for, rather than you know, displaying a bunch of essential information that summarises all the different sources of info you wanted to see. Because quite why anyone would want to scroll through stuff from such a tiny area is anyone’s guess.

The purpose of Information stream is unclear as putting widgets on the lockscreen will accomplish the same, but better e.g. bigger screen real estate to display more information. You could argue that lighting up the entire AMOLED display uses up more battery but hey if they really had wanted to save battery in the first place, they could still just light up the widget only rather than the entire lockscreen.

—- cannot sort apps into alphabetical order. seriously wtf Samsung? Looks like somebody was a little over-enthusiastic with the de-bloat?

Night clock

It’s a clock that shows up at night. Right on the edge. So yes something Samsung can claim as another feature for the S6 Edge. Am blown away.

Sound

++++ the speaker quality is a bit of a surprise. It doesn’t have the bass but it’s not hollow and tinny either. Even at max volume there is no crackle and pop which is a pleasant surprise and a half.

—- still no stereo speakers! nevermind front-facing ones. At least, Samsung has finally decided to remove it from the back of the device and is now placed at the bottom, just like how Apple does it, but this doesn’t merit any praises.

Camera

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Camera

+++++ The camera quality is excellent overall. At first glance the photo quality seemed extremely similar to that of the S5 and the Note 4 – which is a good thing because the quality on those last gen devices were really quite excellent. In fact, the photos from the Note 4 can go head to head with the iPhone 6 – which is something worth boasting about especially considering the the extra megapixel the Sammys were carrying.

This time round, the S6 Edge does pump out great looking photos and very respectable night shots – mark of a great camera in our books when you can take snapshots in most environments and end up with photos you wouldn’t feel ashamed to show off. However the one unknown factor is whether the S6 Edge we tested had an ISOCELL (by the similarity of quality, we would guess we had the ISOCELL) or a Sony IMX camera module. I know which one I’d want – Samsung’s in-house ISOCELL- but no one would have the luxury of choice, sadly. It’s one big lottery.

++++ fast camera launch is touted as one of the selling points on the S6 series. And rightly so because the S5 had a pretty horrible launch time, as did with the Galaxy Note 4. And it doesn’t disappoint. The Home button double-tap now launches the camera from any screen (including the lock screen) instead of launching S-Voice – thank goodness. It’s intuitive, convenient and yes very fast. If you’ve experienced launching the camera on an iPhone 6 say, from the lockscreen then you’ll know what fast is. This, is faster.

—- As mentioned, there’s no telling which camera module your S6 Edge has. Samsung apparently has sprinkled modules “from multiple manufacturers” and according to them they “meet strict global quality and performance standards”. Sadly this is not the case as other investigative tech websites have found and that’s bad consumer experience.

– While night time shots have minimal noise with the camera letting in a lot of light, there is also some fairly aggressive noise reduction and over-exposure going on. The result is where there is a source of light, that source becomes overly bright obscuring whatever is on and around the light. Overall quality is still respectable, especially considering the speed at which they are taken.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Review Part 1 of 4

Part 1 So everybody’s been worried about or cheering on Sammy’s dip in smartphone sales in the past year. The S5 didn’t do too well- it was a spec update and with more features crammed in without thought. Worst of all, the design stuck to their plastic origins and the general public must have finally gotten tired. It was a good thing that Samsung noticed, brought in a new designer and began…

Samsung Mobile President Has Something to Say About the Note 5

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 was rumoured to come out sooner than expected in order to compete with the new iPhone that is to be launched in September. Let those anticipations disappear because the Samsung Mobile President has shunned all those rumours and this is official. The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 will arrive as per its yearly release cycle. But what is the exact time of its annual release? the Note 4…

Moto E correlated with the Galaxy S5;

We all apprehend that the Samsung Galaxy S5 could be a terribly capable device. However what if the recently launched Moto E was to be nearly on par or maybe quicker than the Samsung flagship in some areas? That’s specifically what a replacement video comparison demonstrates because the Moto E and therefore the Galaxy S5 are faveolate against one another to perform a number of the foremost basic…