Samsung Galaxy S6 Vs Galaxy S5 Review

You’ve heard the rumours, you know everyone thinks the Galaxy S6 is great. Despite this there is one highly disgruntled group, the one audience Samsung doesn’t appear to have considered when making the Galaxy S6: Galaxy S5 owners.
In a nutshell the Galaxy S6 seems to be everything Galaxy S5 (and Galaxy S3 and S4) owners hate. A phone which prioritises style over substance, does away with practical features they loved lauding over iPhone owners and – perhaps worst of all – goes out of its way to copy key iPhone design elements. It might even feel like Samsung just sold you out.
All of which creates a dilemma: is the Galaxy S6 so good it is worth swallowing your pride or should you boycott and hope weak sales make Samsung return to old ways in 2016 with the Galaxy S7?
Having had the Galaxy S6 for some time now, I think I have some answers…
Note: Galaxy S5 review sample provided by Vodafone UK. Galaxy S6 review sample provided by Samsung UK
Read more – Galaxy S6 Vs iPhone 6 Review: Samsung Uses Apple To Beat Apple

Galaxy S6 (left), Galaxy S5 (right) – image credit Gordon Kelly

Design – Beautiful Versus Sensible
For long term Galaxy S fans I’m afraid there’s no way to sugar coat this: the Galaxy S6 is indeed a case of style over substance. Gone from the Galaxy S5 is a expandable storage, a removable battery and water resistance. In return you wave goodbye to plastic with real aluminium edges and a glass back.

• Galaxy S6 – 143.3 x 70.8 x 6.9 mm (5.64 x 2.79 x 0.27 in) and 132 g (4.65 oz)
• Galaxy S5 – 142 x 72.5 x 8.1 mm (5.59 x 2.85 x 0.32 in) and 145 g (5.11 oz)

Is the trade up in build materials worth it? For me, no. But this needs to be qualified: I think the Galaxy S6 needed a step up in build quality, but Samsung got the materials wrong. As it stands the glass back and aluminium edges are slippery so it cannot be held as comfortably in hand and the glass back is a fingerprint magnet.
What I would have preferred to see were textured aluminium edges for better grip and a removable aluminium back to keep the flexible battery and storage options. Why every phone maker thinks removable backs can only be made of plastic baffles me.

Galaxy S6 (right) is better built, but less practical than the Galaxy S5 – image credit Gordon Kelly

Then again it is equally important to acknowledge what is good about the Galaxy S6 because the whole phone does feel far better built than the Galaxy S5. Power, volume and home buttons are more solid and responsive, every edge and corner is meticulously machined and ports are better positioned.
Notably the speaker moves to the bottom from the back and is much louder and clearer as a result. It is also joined there by the headphone jack – a long overdue switch from the top of the phone and it means headphone cables don’t get in the way of the screen while you use it.
Ultimately for me neither the Galaxy S6 nor Galaxy S5 designs are perfect, but there is a near perfect phone somewhere to be found in a better merger of the two.

Galaxy S6 (right) is incredibly thin, but beautifully made – but less practical. Image credit Gordon Kelly

Read more – Galaxy S6 vs Galaxy S6 Edge: The Differences Between The New Samsung Smartphones
Display – Great Meets Over The Top Brilliance
If the designs of the two phones are going to split opinion, where there will be a universal and highly positive consensus is the new Galaxy S6 display. Why? Because while the Galaxy S5 once had the best phone screen on the market it has been replaced by – you guessed it – the best phone screen currently on the market:

• Galaxy S6 – 5.1-inch, 2560 x 1440 pixels (577 ppi), Super AMOLED panel
• Galaxy S5 – 5.1-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels (432 ppi), Super AMOLED panel

There are no two ways about it, the Galaxy S6 has a screen so jaw droppingly bright with colours so wonderfully rich that it almost feels like it is in 3D. There remains nothing wrong with the Galaxy S5, but this is a complete level up.

The Galaxy S6 display (left) is brighter and sharper than the Galaxy S5 – image credit Gordon Kelly

It is worth pointing out these improvements are nothing to do with the bump in resolution. Consider that a 50-inch 4K television has a pixel density of 88 ppi and you’ll see just how far phone makers have gone past practical resolutions.
On paper this shouldn’t matter as the new Galaxy S6 display is actually more efficient than the 1080p panel in the Galaxy S5, but the reality is different and I’ll discuss that later when we get to battery life…