NEW DELHI: Samsung launched its latest smartphone, the Galaxy S6 edge+, in Mumbai on 21 August. The phone which is a large screen variant of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge, which was launched in April, will start selling from 28 August at Rs 57,900 in online and offline stores across India.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ features a 5.7-inch QuadHD Super AMOLED display which is quite vibrant and bright. The curved glass around the edges, gives the phone a slim look from the sides. It measures 6.9mm thick and weighs around 153 grams. The phone has a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 back as well as front protection. The phone feels good in the hand although a tad slippery.
The power/standby button on the right hand side is complemented by the volume rocker buttons on the left hand side. The top has the nano SIM card slot whereas the 3.5mm audio jack is placed at the base beside the microUSB port.
Samsung has used the same chipset which was last seen on the Galaxy S6 edge and the Galaxy S6 – the Exynos 7420 – which has one quad-core cluster clocked at 1.5GHz and another quad-core cluster clocked at 2.1GHz. The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ comes with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM along with 32GB of storage, of which around 24GB is available to the user. There is no microSD card slot. On preliminary use, the phone comes across as extremely responsive and switching between apps is quick.
The Galaxy S6 edge+ comes with Android 5.1 OS with the TouchWiz UI skin atop it. There are some interesting features for the curved display such as quick contacts and quick apps side-scrolling. You can use the curved edges to check for notifications as well as news updates when the phone is in the sleep state. The phone supports Sidesync which lets you mirror your phone display on to a PC or a tablet.
On the camera front, Samsung has used a 16MP rear camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and an f/1.9 aperture. On the front-face you have a 5MP camera with an f/1.9 aperture as well. The sample shots we took at the indoor venue turned out decently well although some noise was noticeable. We will need to test it thoroughly as its predecessors have sported good cameras. The camera supports YouTube live broadcasting as well.
The phone comes with a single nano SIM card slot, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, NFC, GPS and so on. Among the sensors you have the accelerometer, proximity sensor, gyroscope, fingerprint sensor, barometer and so on.
On the battery front, you get a 3,000mAh battery which can be charged wirelessly as well. Samsung claims that its wireless chargers can charge the phone from 0 to 100% in around 2 hours whereas with the wired charger, you can charge a phone fully in 90 mins. We will have to test these claims when we get the camera for review.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ brings in all the good aspects of the S6 edge in a bigger form factor phone. It has also bumped up the battery significantly. Till the Galaxy Note 5 is launched in India, this will for all practical purposes be the Samsung flagship. It will be interesting to see how Samsung prices the Note 5 now. We will reserve our final verdict till we review the device.
