Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ Review: Great Design, Mediocre Performance

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We all know Samsung likes to announce their big flagship devices twice a year, once in the spring and the other in the fall. This year, Samsung tried something different and announced their Note series device during the summer – mainly to beat the newest iPhone device announcments. Unveiled along with the Galaxy Note5 was the Galaxy S6 edge+, the older brother of the Galaxy S6 edge. Was Samsung right for making a larger version of S6 edge when there was one already out? Let’s take a look and find out in my Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ review.

Specifications

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What’s In The Box

  • Galaxy S6 edge+
  • USB cable
  • Power block
  • Headphones
  • manuals

*NOTE: photos taken of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ that follow include a screen protector, but a screen protector is not included in the box.

Design

While keeping the same design of the Galaxy S6 edge, the only big difference is the screen size. When looking at the screen, Samsung has their logo in the usual spot towards the top by the ear piece grill. The front facing camera is on the right side of the ear piece, while the proximity/ambient sensor and LED notification light is on the left. Working our way to the middle, those nice edges can’t be missed. At the bottom of the screen is the famous physical home button we’re used to seeing and surrounded by the back and recent apps capacitive buttons. Flipping the phone over, the 16MP rear shooter sits nicely with the LED flash/heartbeat sensor. Once again, Samsung’s logo can be seen along with “Galaxy S6 edge+.” The right side of the device has the home screen and the left side has the volume rocker.

S6-edge+-photo-3On top you’ll find the sim card tray and a microphone. No IR blaster this time and some are wondering why it was taken out. Heading to the bottom of the edge+ you’ll see a 3.5mm headphone jack, USB port, and a speaker grill.

Display

Having the same Super AMOLED display technology as it’s younger siblings, the Galaxy S6 edge+ has a 2k (1440 x 2650) resolution and it’s truly a splendid sight to see. In my opinion it’s slightly better than LG’s G4 screen which has the same resolution. The screen size did receive a bump up to 5.7″ this time whereas the regular Galaxy S6 edge has a 5.1″ screen.

Performance

Mixing the Exynos 7420 with 4GB of RAM is fantastic… in theory. I enjoyed going through applications without much issue, but didn’t whenever I kept going back and forth between Chrome, Gallery, and Contacts as it seemed to have slowed down. After looking in and seeing what’s running, I noticed I had 1.5GB of RAM free. I get that the system takes up 1.5GB, but where’s the other 1GB going? Seeing 552mb used for apps, I’m wondering why Samsung has such issues with RAM management. Samsung needs to figure out why TouchWiz needs to use up 1.5GB of RAM. Maybe one day they’ll get it right.

Software/Ecosystem

The Galaxy 6 edge+ comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box and is upgradable to Android 5.1.1. The .1 release is security fixes and enhancements on top of the Android OS, but how about TouchWiz? TouchWiz still has its bloatware, but not as much. As I’ve said it before, the edge+ is just a bigger version of the regular S6 edge, so everything pretty much stays the same. But, there is one noticeable difference I found between those two phones running TouchWiz and that would be the icons. The icons on the edge+ are more round and pleasing to the eye. My wife’s Galaxy S6 received an update from her carrier (AT&T) that made the icons look like those on the edge+, so if you haven’t seen that update yet, just wait patiently.

Some of you might be asking how the apps work with the edge of the screen. Honestly, pretty well. What’s cool that I didn’t know is that in the Samsung App Store, you can find specific applications for the edge. I didn’t go any further into it as I didn’t need anything from there.

Speakers

S6-edge+-photo-4In the days of front facing speakers, Samsung has not jumped aboard that ship and that’s ok. Even with having one speaker at the bottom of the device, it’s loud enough for everyone to hear. At times I did end up catching myself covering up the speaker grill with my hand, but nothing too serious as I have used other devices where the speaker was in the same area.

Camera

The rear facing camera is 16 megapixels with Samsung’s ISOCELL sensor and is one of the best out there today. Photos came out beautiful and the colors were extremely close to the real thing. The front facing camera is 5 megapixels and also does pretty well. I did notice that pictures did come out a bit more brighter than needed, but it wasn’t a big issue for me. As for video recording, the back shooter supports up to 4k recording and the front shooter supports 2k recording. Of course if you’re wanting to watch the video in that specific resolution, you will need to have supported devices.

S6-edge+-photo-1
Great camera quality

Reception/Call Quality

After popping in my sim card and making a few phones calls, service was great as I didn’t experience any dropped calls. To be honest, it was something I was already used to with my OnePlus One and Nexus 6.

Battery Life

You would think having a 3,000mAh battery you’d be able to get through the day. Unfortunately, it felt like I was using my Nexus 6. I couldn’t get through an entire day to save my life. That’s somewhat depressing and I’m guessing it would have something to do with the RAM management, but it still shouldn’t be this bad.

Price/Value

No one really likes paying for expensive phones, so if you’re wanting this device, you must be willing to shell out $780 for a phone they you may not keep for a year. This is the same thing that was done for the regular Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, a $100 price difference just for the edges being curved. Either way Samsung has done a great job of marketing and people are still buying it.

Wrap Up

Even though the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ is expensive as can be, the design makes up for it. It’s an incredible device, but will need some fixing up on the software end.

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*We were sent a demo unit of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ for the purposes of this review.

Last Updated on November 27, 2018.

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