The Camera Experience On The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge

As far as technical specifications are concerned, the main rear sided camera of the Galaxy S6 edge is a 16 MP camera, able to deliver pictures at a maximum resolution of 2988 x 5312 pixels. It benefits from technologies such as optical image stabilization, autofocus, an LED flash, and an HDR mode. It can shoot 2160p videos at 30fps or 1080p videos at 60fps.

The camera experience on this smartphone is great, the device shoots photos incredibly fast and of good quality, even when used in lesser light conditions and without using the incorporated LED flash. It offers several HDR modes, including Automatic.

In the photo gallery below, you'll find some pictures we took with the Galaxy S6 edge.

There's also a 30 seconds video clip we shot, recording the traffic from a boulevard in Bucharest, Romania.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge offers a photo camera of superior quality, with a lot of features and options, able to shoot photos in an incredibly fast succession. Also welcomed is the fact that by default, double-pressing the home button in any screen starts the camera app, offering a great way of taking a photo in a very limited amount of time.

Android 5 Lollipop, Samsung's TouchWiz & Bundled Apps

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge runs on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with the manufacturer's own user interface applied to it, the well-known TouchWiz. This is basically a skin applied on top of the default operating system that adds a few features of its own, integrates a home screen launcher and a few other bells and whistles. TouchWiz has come a long way from its first versions on the previous Samsung smartphones and has been developed into a fast and very efficient OEM skin for the Galaxy S6 edge.

Among the nice features TouchWiz gained when adapted to the Galaxy S6 edge is one that caught our attention: as you can see in the screenshot above, there's a light border on top of the right side of the display. If you drag that border inwards, you are presented with 5 colored round slots which you can assign to contacts from your address book. When you receive a notification from those contacts (be it a missed call, an SMS message or a Facebook notification) while the device is locked and the screen is off, the edge of the device's display blinks with the color assigned to that specific contact, letting you know which person is trying to reach you at a glance.

Another particularly interesting feature of the Galaxy S6 edge is the Edge Screen. While the screen is off and the display locked, if you run your finger up and down on the edge of the display, it will light up and show a series of details: the clock, the weather and the current battery level, together with any important notifications, such as missed calls of received SMS messages. The feature is completely configurable in the device's Settings menu.

The lock-screen of the device is pretty eye-catching as well and supports widgets. The default one shows a beautifully shadowed digital clock and date, paired with weather information shown for the current location. Drag the screen to the left while the device is locked to open the camera, while dragging it to the right opens the dialer. The screenshot below also shows the Backup Password button, shown while the fingerprint authentication option is configured for locking the device.

Arriving at the bundled apps section, Samsung chose to offer a wide range of apps that complement this smartphone's features. The device we had in for testing was branded by Telekom Romania, a Romanian mobile network provider, which also added a layer of customization to this device, so many of the apps you'll see in these screenshots are installed by the mobile network provider.

Beside the classic apps Google packs into the stock Android operating system (such as Hangouts, Maps, Google or the Play apps - Music, Newsstand, Books and Games), you'll find Samsung's own approach to music players in the form of the Music app, a Contacts manager, a Calculator app, the S Health app (useful for measuring and monitoring heart rate, SpO2 level, stress level and a few fitness indicators as well) and another useful app made by Samsung, the Smart Manager app. This app monitors the device's battery level, RAM memory usage, the storage capacity currently used and the security level and optimizes the device's settings based on this info. It is basically an operating system tweaking app for Android, made by Samsung itself.

You also find a few third party apps preinstalled on the Galaxy S6 edge, such as Accuweather, Skype, Shazam, Twitter, Vine, OneDrive and a GPS navigation app called MireoNav.

When it comes to Samsung smartphones, the TouchWiz user interface installed on top of the default Android operating system is no surprise. The version preinstalled on the Galaxy S6 edge is fast and efficient, looks great and adds a nice touch to the default Android experience. The apps chosen by the manufacturer for this device augment the features offered by default. The interface you get with this smartphone is hands down one of the most immersive ones we've seen on a mobile device so far.

Performance In Benchmarks

We've already told you about the impressive array of high-end hardware components Samsung used for the Galaxy S6 edge. The recently launched octa-core Exynos 7420 CPU, the Mali-T760MP8 GPU and the 3GB of RAM memory will surely deliver great performance to the users of this smartphone. But you've come here for numbers, so let's put the Galaxy S6 edge to the test and see the results.

Firstly, as we do with any device, we'll test the CPU of the device. To do this, we'll use the popular benchmarking app Vellamo, which offers two main CPU tests: the Vellamo Multicore test and the Vellamo Metal test.

In the Multicore test, which is a test that measures the device's ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge scored an impressive 3352 points, putting it on top of the scores list this benchmarking app offers. Undoubtedly, this means we're dealing with one of the highest performing mobile devices in the market so far.

When we tested it with the Metal test, which measures the device's performance while running single tasks, the Galaxy S6 edge did great again, getting a score of 2648 points. This result also puts it on top of the list of scores, surpassing every other device Vellamo offers for comparison.

Next, we'll move on to measuring the smartphone's gaming performance. For observing how well the Galaxy S6 edge does in games, we'll use the GFXBench GL Benchmark app. The tests that matter to us are the Manhattan and the T-Rex, both of them running at an 1080p resolution and offscreen, meaning that the actual display resolution of the device isn't taken into consideration when running these tests.

At the end of the Manhattan test, the Galaxy S6 edge finished rendering 796 frames, a great score for this type of device, over its older brother, the Galaxy S5 but not by as far as you'd probably expect.

On the T-Rex test, our device managed to render 3198 frames, being surpassed only by a few high-performance tablets.

It is undoubtedly clear by now that the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge is an extremely powerful mobile device, offering higher performance than most of the smartphones in the market these days. But still, we have another test to throw at it and a very important one as well. We're talking about the Vellamo Explore test, which tests the browsing capabilities of the device while displaying a web page consisting of HTML, CSS and JavaScript elements. The score obtained by the Galaxy S6 edge on this test is 3481, also a great result, ranking it higher than the HTC One M8 and the ASUS Zenfone 2.

Now comes the device battery's turn to be put to the test. While using it normally as a daily device, we managed to keep it running for more than a day. But for a more exact measuring, we'll use the Work battery life found in the PCMark benchmarking app. The 2600 mAh Li-Ion battery managed to keep the device running for an impressive 8 hours and 15 minutes. This is a great achievement, considering the high-performance components packed into the Galaxy S6 edge and the not-so-impressive battery capacity.

The last test we'll perform on this device is the network speed. We'll turn to Ookla's Speedtest app for measuring this. With good signal coverage and using the Telekom Romania mobile network provider, the Galaxy S6 edge achieved a download connection speed of 10.92 Mbps and an upload connection speed of 1.74 Mbps.

All evidence points to the fact that it's quite hard to find a more powerful Android mobile device than the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge these days. It packs exclusively high-end components and delivers top performance to its users, while managing to conserve battery power admirably. You probably won't find any apps or games in the Google Play Store that this smartphone would have trouble running.

Verdict - One Of The Most Powerful & Innovative Android Smartphones Available

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge is a device with a revolutionary design which may take a while to get used to, but once you're there, you'll find it hard to go back. It is on top of the Samsung line of smartphones right now. It is an extremely powerful mobile device, powered by a high-end CPU accompanied by assorted components, offering unprecedented performance. It features an innovative design characteristic - a display that curves on the way down the sides of the device and offers concentrated information while the display is locked and the screen is off. It benefits from a wide array of sensors of all kinds, including a heart-rate sensor and a fingerprint sensor. The camera performs admirably, the battery lasts for more than one day under regular use and the TouchWiz user interface is better than ever.

However, given that the price you have to pay for the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge is pretty high, we see it as a device aimed at mobile devices enthusiasts and people who actually need this kind of raw power and performance. So our verdict is "Buy for geeks!". If you have the money for it, you won't be disappointed.