Samsung Galaxy S6 review - The Verge

After a few first-day lags and error messages (which may have been cleared up by a software update), I never ran into any notable slowdowns. In fact, this is probably the fastest Android phone I’ve ever used. It should be, with a 64-bit Octa-core processor and 3GB of RAM. Like it did with the screen, I think Samsung solved any slowdowns you might experience in Android with brute force. So much so that I often found that both versions of the S6 get warm, especially when using processor- or graphics-intensive apps.

Those power-hungry apps also took a toll on battery life. In our web browsing battery test (which loops a web page once a minute), the Galaxy S6 held up well, achieving over nine hours of uptime. But in actual usage — especially when streaming YouTube or playing games — I got less than that, sometimes distressingly less. There were days that I made it to midnight and beyond before it conked out, and there were days where the battery saver mode kicked in as early as 6PM. That’s decidedly average at best, and worse than what I get with an iPhone 6.

The Galaxy S6 has a 2,550 mAh battery, and the S6 Edge, oddly, rates 2,600 mAh. That’s smaller than the S5’s battery, yet it needs to power many more pixels — so I suppose it’s a testament to both Lollipop and Samsung’s processor that it lasts as long as it does. It also helps that Samsung is supporting both major wireless charging standards in one body and rapid charging via USB. That’s all nice, I suppose, but it’s small consolation when you’re away from a plug and running out of juice.

On the software side, Samsung is continuing its long journey toward a genuinely clean and restrained design. But it’s doing so by taking all of the clutter and stuffing it into the closet. The crazy Samsung features are mostly still here, just buried and turned off by default. I’m fine with that: the result is a lot of nicer rooms to live in. Samsung has mostly deferred to Google’s Material Design sensibilities, which is a refreshing change of pace. I still wish that Samsung would use more restrained colors, though. There’s also a new theming option and store, but the stuff you’ll find there is the stuff of a bad LSD trip when it isn’t a blatant co-branding ploy with an action movie.

Unfortunately, there’s still carrier-incentivized crapware apps to contend with. My review units come from T-Mobile, which meant that Lookout Security and T-Mobile carrier junk took up half my notifications until I managed to turn them off.

Samsung's finally learning how to make better software

Samsung’s apps like S Health are surprisingly decent, though, and I actually found myself using S Finder in the notification shade to quickly jump to arcane settings I couldn’t otherwise have located. Samsung still wants you to believe that it’s a good idea to use two apps at once on the same screen or to put one app in a tiny pop-over window. It’s mostly wrong about both of those ideas, but I guess it’s impressive that a phone can even pull it off in the first place. Honestly, my favorite new feature is double-pressing the home button to launch the camera.

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