Although Samsung's Xclipse 920 integrated graphics processing unit based on AMD's RDNA 2 architecture has not lived up to expectations, the consumer electronics giant will continue to use AMD's RDNA architectures for its future built-in GPUs, the company disclosed on Thursday. 

"We plan to continue to implement other features in the RDNA series by working closely with AMD going forward," said Sungboem Park, a vice president of Samsung who oversees GPU development. "In general, mobile tends to lag around five years or so behind consoles when it comes to graphics technology, however, we were able to incorporate the latest console technologies in the Exynos 2200 mobile processor quickly through our collaboration with AMD. 

AMD's Radeon RX 6000 family of GPUs based on the RDNA 2 architecture is without any doubts the company's most competitive GPU lineup in many years, even though ray tracing is not its strongest side. 

But the Xclipse 920 graphics processor based on the same architecture did not really shine in Samsung's Exynos 2200 system-on-chip for smartphones either in compute or graphics workloads. Which is why Samsung inked a deal with Qualcomm to use its Snapdragon SoCs with Adreno graphics for its upcoming Galaxy S-series handsets globally, as the head of Qualcomm recently revealed (ComputerBase first noticed this). Ironically, Qualcomm's Adreno (which is an ambigram of Radeon) development has been led by Eric Demers, who previously worked as GPU architect at AMD, ATI, and ArtX. 

"We are very pleased to report that Qualcomm and Samsung have entered a new multiyear agreement starting in 2023, expanding the use of Snapdragon platforms for future premiums Samsung Galaxy products globally," said Cristiano Amon, chief executive of Qualcomm during the company's Q3 earnings call.

At present, Samsung uses Qualcomm's premium Snapdragon SoCs for its Galaxy S smartphones sold in Asia and the U.S., its own Exynos SoCs are used in models sold Europe. The new deal allows Samsung to use Exynos for European Galaxy S smartphones, but it does not necessarily oblige the company to do so. Therefore, if Samsung has an Exynos SoC with a competitive CPU and GPU implementation, it might use it instead of Exynos. 

But Samsung is certainly playing it safe with its choice of SoCs and GPUs as it also intends to use Snapdragons for other mobile products as well, according to Qualcomm.

"In addition to Galaxy smartphones, the agreement includes PCs, tablets, extended reality and more," said Amon. 

While AMD's RDNA architectures are feature rich and scalable in terms of performance, power, and die size, actual implementation matters a lot. A GPU realization depends on multiple factors, including experience of its engineering team in general and with a particular GPU architecture in particular, design decisions, cost, and process technology. Therefore, Samsung might build a competitive RDNA-based integrated GPU sometimes in the future, but its engineers need to gain general GPU development experience first, and the only way to get it is to keep designing graphics processors.

As you approach the orbit of your new home planet, Gliese 667CC, you realize you made a terrible, terrible mistake: you didn’t download the latest firmware update for your ships’ communication protocols. 

While this would be a secondary concern around Earth’s orbit, where the servers holding the installable package reside and radio communications are speedy enough to make do, things are different when you’re 22 light-years away from humanity’s cradle. There’s no way for you to download an update for your ships’ protocols promptly; with no communications handshake happening, you’ll have to pay a hefty fine for the military ships sent to investigate your lack of response to the official channels. You haven’t even crossed Gliese’s atmosphere, and you’re already in debt. Ouch.

Fortunately, researchers with the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have furthered the road towards an eventual quantum internet. The effort, published earlier this week in Nature, drives us ever-so-slightly forward toward an intra-and, perhaps, extra-planetary communications network.

When achieved, this quantum network will be able to operate at instantaneous speed, teleporting information between places in a secure, interference-and-snooping-free way. It happens because anyone trying to intercept qubit operations or read the qubit state would introduce errors in the computation or even lead the entangled qubits to decohere, losing the information in the process - a quirk dubbed the Observer Effect in quantum physics.

“This means that the quantum computer can solve your problem and that it does not know what the problem is,” said Tracy Eleanor Northup, a researcher at the University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Experimental Physics. “It does not work that way today. Google knows what you are running on its servers.”

The research takes advantage of the entanglement property of quantum physics, which allows for the “marriage” of two qubits so that changes affecting one of them automatically replicate them in the other - irrespective of such mundane concerns as distance. As a result, the qubits are no longer independent: they’re now a single system like a married couple.

While entanglement between two qubits has been conquered for a while now, the researchers finally managed to expand the maximum number of entangled qubits from two to three - opening up the door for multilateral, instead of simply bilateral, communication.

With quantum computing still being a nascent field, there are several ways to produce qubits - from electrons to quantum dots, passing through ion chains and Microsoft's exotic topological qubits; there are several approaches and materials with different strengths and weaknesses. For their experiment, which entangled the three qubits in systems 60 feet apart from each other, Dr. Hanson and his team used a nitrogen vacancy center — a tiny empty space in a synthetic diamond to trap electrons.

But entanglement has already been shown to be viable up to 1,203 kilometers (748 miles) apart - and future research will focus on scaling the distance between entangled qubits while increasing the number of entangled "network nodes."

This development, in turn, could enable a veritable quantum internet, where information only needs to be updated in a single physical location - such as a specific ship manufacturer's headquarters - with instantaneous propagation across the network of entangled qubits. Wouldn't that be handy for your firmware update antics above the skies of Gliese 667CC?

Last summer, news broke that AMD was partnering with Samsung to license its RDNA graphics for use in smartphones. Since then, it had pretty much been radio silence on the topic, until a thread recently spawned on the clien.net forums with benchmark figures, as spotted by Twitter user @Kaz9837.

According to the thread's author, the RNDA-Exynos combo SoC put down some serious performance numbers in the GFXBench test, as you can see in the table below. The data on the Adreno 650 comes from Notebookcheck, as the source appears to have removed data on the Adreno 650.

The Adreno 650 is one of the most powerful mobile GPUs currently available and part of the Snapdragon 865 SoC, which is installed in the Samsung Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 Plus and Galaxy S20 Ultra, as well as smartphones from other manufacturers.

However, we are unfamiliar with the source of the purported RDNA-Exynos data. With the numbers not yet verified, don't take results at face value. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be surprising to see such a performance uplift. After all, Samsung isn't partnering with AMD for nothing.

Don't expect to see an RDNA-infused mobile phone on the market anytime soon. Those aren't expected to arrive until 2021 at the earliest.

Some developers are bringing Windows 10 on Arm (the processor architecture, not the appendage) to flagship Android smartphones, as reported by Windows Latest this week. 

These efforts are in their early stages. A developer called "Lemon1Ice" told Windows Latest that Windows 10 on Arm can be installed on the OnePlus 6 and is being ported to Xiaomi's Mi Mix 2S, but much of the operating system (OS) is unusable. Another developer called "Enviso0n" is attempting to bring the OS to Samsung's Galaxy S8.

Windows 10 on Arm enables this kind of tinkering because smartphones and so-called always connected PCs use many of the same chips (often from Qualcomm). Microsoft didn't intend for the desktop version of Windows 10 to reach smartphones, but the shared Arm architecture makes it possible, at least in theory.

Like other projects, these efforts might serve little practical purpose. Microsoft announced in January that it would end support for Windows 10 Mobile at the end of the year, indicating that people don't even want to use a mobile-optimized version of Windows on their smartphones. Who'd want to use the full desktop version?

The real value in these projects comes from demonstrating the power of the Arm architecture and the value in supporting it. Microsoft brought Windows 10 to Arm, so it could make PCs with Qualcomm chips that never have to go without Internet access, and in doing so, it opened up a world of possibility for many other devices.

Chaos Computer Club (CCC) security researcher, Jan Krissler (nicknamed “Starbug”) has bypassed the Samsung Galaxy S8’s iris-based authentication system just one month after the phone started shipping.

Biometric Troubles

The same researcher who has now tricked Samsung’s iris-based authentication system was also the one to bypass the iPhone’s Touch ID fingerprint recognition system with a mold of a fingerprint. Not long after that, Krissler was also able to bypass Apple’s fingerprint authentication system using photos of fingers downloaded from the internet.

Samsung’s own Galaxy S8 comes with a fingerprint sensor, as well as face and iris recognition systems. Samsung doesn’t seem to have learned much from the past in regards to mistakes that keep getting repeated in face authentication systems, because the S8’s face recognition was bypassed by a simple photo on the day of the launch.

As we’ve seen from previous research, even the best face recognition systems play a cat and mouse game with those who want to bypass such systems. In practice, most systems like these can be easily defeated.

Iris scanning systems don’t seem to be much better, either. They tend to function under the same principle as face scanning systems, except that instead of analyzing facial features, they analyze iris features. In theory, this should be more difficult to bypass, but as Krissler has now shown, the difficulty isn’t much greater.

"The security risk to the user from iris recognition is even bigger than with fingerprints, as we expose our irises a lot. Under some circumstances, a high-resolution picture from the internet is sufficient to capture an iris," said Dirk Engling, spokesperson for the CCC.

A Photo Enough To Bypass Iris Scanning

According to Krissler, who uncovered the issue, the Samsung Galaxy S8 iris authentication system can be bypassed by high-quality photos, including selfie photos that you may upload to Facebook or elsewhere on the internet.

However, the easiest way to bypass the Galaxy S8 iris scanning system right now is to take photos using digital cameras with 200mm-lens from a distance of up to five meters. That also means that you don’t have to upload your photos online for someone to capture your iris profile.

An attacker would have to print the photo using a laser printer and then add a contact lens on top of the scanned iris on the printed photo to emulate the curvature of the eye. That's how a photo could be used to trick the Galaxy S8’s iris authentication system into thinking a real eye is in front of it.

Samsung has enabled iris authentication for “Samsung Pay,” which means that a successful attack can unlock both the phone itself as well as the company’s own payment system. Other companies, including banks, are now considering using iris scanning as the main authentication method for ATMs. If their security can be just as easily bypassed as Samsung’s Galaxy S8’s iris authentication was, that could spell trouble for the banks' customers.

"If you value the data on your phone – and possibly want to even use it for payment – using the traditional PIN-protection is a safer approach than using body features for authentication," warned Engling.

Biometric security has become increasingly popular over the last few years. Apple built fingerprint scanning into the iPhone, Microsoft uses face scanning in the Windows Hello feature, and ZTE was among the first to adopt eye scanning in a consumer device with the ZTE Grand S phone. Samsung built all those scanners into the new Galaxy S8 and S8+, but it clearly favors facial and iris recognition over plain-ol' fingerprint scanning.

That preference is made clear in the Galaxy S8's promotional materials. Samsung pays special attention to iris scanning--it's listed first on the phone's security page and has more space devoted to it than other features. That's at least partly because recognizing someone's eye is more novel than scanning their finger, which makes it a selling point for a new flagship product, but it also seems like Samsung flat-out wants you to use the feature.

The fingerprint scanner's position on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ supports that idea. It's not located at the bottom of the display, like it is with many other phones, but is instead placed right next to the rear camera. That surely helped minimize the phone's bezel (one of the Galaxy S8's main design changes) yet it also means the scanner is placed near the top of a 184.9mm or 159.5mm tall phone. How easy will it be to reach there?

Combine the phone's marketing with that fingerprint scanner placement and you'll probably end up with many Galaxy S8 and S8+ owners opting for iris or facial recognition over their less convenient counterpart. That could become a problem if those people then want to make sure nobody can access their smartphone without their permission, especially as governments around the world start to collect more biometric information.

Not that some of those governments will have to start from scratch. A study from the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology from 2016 found that 50% of American adults are in at least one facial recognition network used by law enforcement organizations. The study also found that these systems are "unregulated" and that only a "few agencies have instituted meaningful protections to prevent the misuse of the technology."

Those photographs might allow law enforcement to access smartphones that rely on iris or facial recognition. It's not guaranteed--it depends on how closely Samsung identifies various markers, the quality of law enforcement agencies' photographs, and other factors--but it is a possibility. So too is US law enforcement's ability to make people unlock biometrically secured phones even though they can't do so with password-protected devices.

Governments could also follow Singapore's lead in requiring biometric data for official documents or materials. That country decided in December 2016 that, starting in January 2017, anyone registering for or renewing the registration on a National Identity Registration Card or passport must have an image of their iris collected. Others also require people to, erm, hand over their fingerprints if they want a passport or other document.

This means the path of least resistance for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ also provides the least protection against unwanted access to the device. You're better off using a fingerprint than your iris or face, and it's best to forgo biometric security entirely in favor of a passcode or password, at least when it comes to legally accessing your device. (A password doesn't help if, say, an abusive spouse demands access to your phone.)

All that said, many people might actually be more secure if they use the iris or facial recognition on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ when they debut. That's because Pew found in January that, among other personal security failings, many Americans don't use any type of screen lock for their smartphones. That introduces another shade of gray to the issue: even flawed precautions, after all, are better than no protections at all.

Samsung offered Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge owners a taste of enterprise-ready security with the new Secure Folder. This special folder will allow consumers to hide apps from their home screen, keep sensitive data separate from other information, and use an extra layer of security for everything it contains.

Secure Folder is based on Samsung's Knox platform. That's the same tech that was cleared by the National Security Agency (NSA) for classified work in 2014. Now it's reached consumers, too, and other companies should follow Samsung's lead in helping people manage their private data with easy-to-use tools.

Samsung explained that Secure Folder offers a variety of options. This starts with how you access the feature: You can choose to set it up with an extra password, PIN, pattern, or biometric verification. Each has its benefits--biometric verification is convenient but also vulnerable to coercion, whereas passwords are secure but inconvenient--but the key is that Samsung lets you choose your preferred solution instead of forcing something on you.

Secure Folder also holds whatever information you want. It can be used to store documents, images, and other files on an individual basis, but it can also house entire apps. You can even store one version of an app in the Secure Folder while keeping another version of the app on your home screen. The two should never meet or share data. It's almost like they're using a different device altogether, but without the added costs of carrying around two phones.

This has recently become more important as people are asked to unlock devices when crossing the U.S. border, for example, or when law enforcement agencies have sought warrants that would've required everyone in a building to unlock their biometrically secured phones. Both are legal despite how invasive they can be (cops don't even need warrants to make people unlock thumbprint-enabled phones) and leave privacy-minded folks with little recourse.

Something like Secure Folder could help. Police can't force people to enter a password without a warrant, so keeping sensitive information in a password-protected Secure Folder can let people combine the convenience of biometric features with the added security of alphanumeric passwords. Information stored in a hidden Secure Folder could also evade the notice of someone rifling through a phone they stole or forced someone to unlock.

Secure Folder probably isn't foolproof. It's easy for companies to make security mistakes, and the feature's novelty means that even though Knox is trusted by America's top intelligence agency, Secure Folder itself might have some flaws. There's also the ol' wrench rule that states that everyone thinks digital security makes them impervious to snooping, when in reality they can just be hit with a wrench until they finally agree to comply.

But the point here is that Samsung is giving people more options and recognizing the reality of personal security. Not everyone is worried about far-off hackers accessing their devices. Many people just want to keep information from abusers, for example, or from nosy friends and family members. Secure Folder is flexible enough to help with both scenarios and approachable enough that people won't be too scared to even give it a whirl.

And that's a real problem with many security tools. Pew recently found that many Americans know they've been hacked, don't trust others to keep their personal information safe, and don't follow basic security principles. That's often because security can be daunting. Who wants to learn how to use PGP to protect their emails? Or try to remember a lot of unique passwords? Or scrutinize every link that hits their inbox? Some people do, but many don't.

Even if Secure Folder turns out not to be perfect, Samsung has at least given people more control over the information stored on their phones.

Introduction

As the constant stream of sequels arriving in movie theaters shows, it’s much easier to sell a product built around an existing franchise than trying to build brand recognition for a new product from scratch. Perhaps this is why Motorola released two different versions of its premier Moto X this generation: the Moto X Play and the Moto X Style. The Moto X Play is the additional cast member, a midrange device situated between the Moto G and the Moto X Style. There’s one additional twist, however; in the U.S., the Moto X Style uses the stage name Moto X Pure Edition.

Motorola Mobility released the original Moto X more than two years ago after the company was acquired by Google. It included several features that proved popular with mainstream users, including the ability to customize the appearance of the phone through the Moto Maker website. It also offered a close-to-stock Android experience, something that was previously only available on Google’s own Nexus phones, with a few unique features such as voice recognition and Active Notifications on the lock screen.

Similar to how “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” closely followed the original trilogy’s blueprint (maybe a little too closely) despite changing ownership from George Lucas to Walt Disney, the latest X sequel, the Moto X Pure Edition, avoids a “Star Trek” inspired reboot under new parent company Lenovo. All of its signature features remain intact. It still runs “pure” Android, and its Nexus 6 derived appearance can still be customized using Moto Maker.

Technical Specifications

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The Moto X Pure Edition comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 SoC. We discussed the pros and cons of using the 808 instead of the top-tier Snapdragon 810 in our LG G4 review, but we feel the 808 is the better choice considering it matches or exceeds the performance of the 810 in most cases while largely avoiding the 810’s power and thermal problems. The 808’s Adreno 418 GPU cannot match the peak performance of the Adreno 430 in the 810, or even the Adreno 420 GPU found in the older Snapdragon 805 SoC powering the Nexus 6, but its better frame rate stability makes it suitable for Android gaming.

The 16GB base storage option is a bit weak, but the Moto X offers both 32GB and 64GB options, along with a microSD card slot for storage expansion. It also comes with 3GB of RAM, which is the sweet spot for speedy multitasking and web browsing when running stock Android.

In a play to boost camera performance, Motorola equips the Moto X Pure Edition with Sony’s new 21MP Exmor RS IMX230 sensor, which supports advanced features such as phase detect autofocus (PDAF) and high dynamic range (HDR) when shooting both 1080p and 4K video. The front-facing 5MP camera has its own LED flash, a rarity for front shooters.

The new Moto X comes with a larger 5.7-inch QHD IPS display. The bigger screen results in a bigger and heavier phone overall compared to the previous version, but it’s still smaller than the Nexus 6P that has the same size display. The Moto X is not too much bigger than most 5.5-inch phones, with the notable exception being the LG G4, which is significantly shorter and lighter. The tapered back is thicker than most phones at its midpoint, but this does not present any comfort or usability issues.

The Moto X Pure Edition comes unlocked and works with all of the major U.S. networks, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon. Buying an unlocked phone from a retailer rather than through your wireless provider is becoming more palatable thanks to bring your own device (BYOD) plans. AT&T, for example, offers a $25/month credit if you already own a compatible phone. That’s a $600 savings after 24 months, which tends to be the typical upgrade cycle. Starting at $399.99, the Moto X Pure Edition is a real value proposition, especially considering that flagship phones generally cost more than $600.

With a solid spec sheet, some tantalizing features, and a reasonable price, the Pure Edition could be a real X factor; however, it faces some stiff competition. Any odd behavior and it could end up an X-File.

Hardware Design

The Moto X Pure Edition is Motorola’s flagship device, and the phone certainly looks and feels high-end; its build quality is excellent, and its aluminum frame makes it feel sturdy, adding just enough mass to convey quality without being heavy. The corners and back are nicely rounded too, making it comfortable to hold.

The Moto X uses the same design language as other recent Motorola phones, with obvious similarities to the Nexus 6 and the current Moto G, giving it a distinct look that helps it stand out from all of the other rounded rectangles. What really sets the Moto X apart from other phones, however, is the ability to personalize the phone. Using the Moto Maker website you can mix and match a variety of colors and materials to make something that’s uniquely yours. The front bezel comes in either black or white depending on the aluminum frame’s finish, and the metal accent pieces (speaker grilles on the front and strip around camera on the back) come in a number of different colors. The back cover comes in three different materials. Genuine wood options include Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified Bamboo, Ebony, Walnut, and Charcoal Ash. There’s also genuine Saffiano leathers sourced from the Horween Leather Company that come in Natural, Cognac, Black, and Red. The finish of each leather is unique and will age over time as any leather would. For those not into wood or leather, there’s also Coated Silicone Rubber (CSR) available in multiple colors. While not as premium looking as the natural materials, it resists fingerprints, fading, and discoloration. The CSR backs have a diagonal pattern of raised ridges that combine with the rubber’s inherent grippiness to make the Moto X easy to hang on to. The downside is that dust and crumbs tend to collect in the valleys between ridges.

Motorola allowed us to use Moto Maker to configure our review unit, and it was an experience we thoroughly enjoyed. After cycling through various color and material options, some of which are more humorous than stylish, we settled on a light silver frame with white front paired with matching silver accents and a bamboo back cover. Wood is hardly the first material that springs to mind when you think about smartphones and cutting-edge technology, but when combined with the aluminum frame, it just works.

Taking a closer look at the removable back shows the new metal accent strip surrounding the camera at one end and incorporating the Motorola logo into a concave dimple—which is a convenient place to rest your index finger—at the other end, with the dual-color LED flash in between. This design element is the biggest departure from the Moto X (2nd Gen), but is consistent with the current Moto G (3rd gen). The only other feature on the curved back is a small pinhole near the bottom for a microphone.

The aluminum frame has a light satin finish and a chamfered edge that sits flush with the back. The metal buttons are located on the right edge, leaving the left edge smooth. The power button, which has a ridged pattern to help locate it by feel, sits just above the single-piece volume rocker. Our only complaint is that it’s difficult to pick up or handle the phone without inadvertently pressing either the volume or power buttons because of how close they are to the midpoint. Sliding the buttons up a little closer to the top, or relocating the volume rocker to the left edge, would definitely help.

There’s a microUSB 2.0 port centered on the bottom edge flanked by two plastic antenna bands. The 3.5mm headphone jack is centered on the top edge, with the access door for the combination Nano SIM/microSD card tray sitting to one side.

A plastic frame surrounds the 5.7-inch display, but the entire front is covered over with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The side and lower bezels are just as narrow as the LG G4’s, giving the Moto X Pure Edition an excellent 76% screen-to-body ratio. The small bezels above and below the screen each contain a speaker grille with a raised metal bar that’s color-matched to the accent strip on the back. These metal bars are more than just pieces of flair, though; they help protect the screen when the phone is sitting face down and both speakers are functional, meaning the Pure Edition has front-facing stereo speakers.

The bezel area above the screen is a bit more cluttered than usual. Ambient light and proximity sensors flank the speaker on the left, while an infrared sensor—which activates Moto Display when it senses movement—flanks it on the right. The front-facing camera and LED flash sit in the upper-right corner.

The second speaker and microphone are centered below the screen, with two additional infrared sensors in each corner.

While most phones look more and more alike with each iteration, Motorola’s phones stand out in a good way. The front-facing speakers and metal accent strip on the back are unique design features, as are the myriad ways to personalize the phone’s appearance. The Moto X Pure Edition’s materials, construction, and smooth lines give it a premium look and feel, with button placement our only quibble.

Display And Audio

Motorola pushes the Moto X Pure Edition into phablet territory by bumping screen size up from 5.2-inches in the Moto X (2nd gen) to 5.7-inches. Screen resolution also increases from FHD (1920x1080) to QHD (2560x1440), giving the new, larger display a pixel density of 520 PPI.

The Pure Edition also ditches the AMOLED panel used in the previous generation, replacing it with an IPS LCD. AMOLED panels use less power in low APL (Average Picture Level) conditions and have superior black levels relative to IPS panels; however, IPS panels are generally brighter than AMOLED and are more power efficient in high APL conditions (think mostly white backgrounds). Both technologies can yield excellent results, but the change is a little curious considering that Moto Display is one of Motorola’s signature features. Since an AMOLED display turns on only the necessary pixels (displaying black requires no power), it will use less power than an IPS display that needs to turn on the entire backlight even though Moto Display lights a small fraction of the total pixels. This change could be just a cost or panel supply issue, but it’s more likely that IPS’ better efficiency at higher APL conditions, which are prevalent throughout Android and common apps, outweighs the power deficit relative to AMOLED when using Moto Display, resulting in a net gain in battery life. The Pure Edition’s new IPS display also supports panel self-refresh, which helps save more power by not updating the display when the content is static.

One positive trend we’re seeing more of lately are phones that offer different display modes, primarily affecting color temperature and saturation, that give users more control over how content appears on the screen. The Moto X Pure Edition offers two choices: Normal and Vibrant. We test both options and show the results in the charts and graphs below.

We’re using SpectraCal's CalMAN software and SpectraCal C6 colorimeter for display measurements. All of the charts below with a gray background were generated in CalMAN v5 Ultimate. If you would like to learn more about our display testing procedure, or gain a better understanding of how these measurements affect visual quality, please read our article about how we test mobile displays.

Display brightness ranges from seven nits to around 550 nits, an excellent value considering we have yet to see an IPS display break the 600 nit barrier. Samsung's SAMOLED panels exceed this value, but only in direct sunlight after engaging Auto overdrive mode.

The Pure Edition’s black level is also very good for an IPS display. Panels using photo-aligned crystals, like those used in the iPhone 6 and above or devices such as the OnePlus 2 and LG G4 that use JDI's IPS-NEO panels, achieve better black levels, but the Pure Edition’s level is low enough not to be an issue.

In Normal display mode, the Pure Edition tracks the ideal gamma value closely up to 80% luminance before falling off. While not ideal, it’s still very good and significantly better than the Asus ZenFone 2 and OnePlus 2, both of which suffer from poorly configured gamma curves. Similar to these two phones, the Pure Edition’s gamma curve in Vibrant mode is also too high across the full luminance range, resulting in a loss of shadow detail, muted highlights, and generally darker colors.

The Pure Edition’s display falls very close to the target color temperature in both display modes. This is a pleasant surprise considering how bright the screen gets. To get brightness above 500 nits, most phones with IPS screens “cheat” by favoring blue output (backlights use blue LEDs) over red, resulting in a familiar blue cast from the cooler color temperature. In Vibrant mode, the color temperature varies a little more, skewing slightly warm below 50% luminance.

Motorola obviously put some effort into calibrating the Pure Edition’s display. Normal mode shows a little less red than blue and green, but no color channel varies by more than 4% from ideal. The Vibrant mode is perfect at 50% luminance, with a small 3% emphasis on red at lower values. Above the halfway point, the blue and green channels are up about 4%, while red is down 5%. Overall, these are excellent results.

Grayscale accuracy in both the Normal and Vibrant modes is excellent, with average ΔE2000 error falling between about 1.6 and 2.1, respectively. In Normal mode, grayscale error remains below three, where error is visible but acceptable, across the full luminance range and below two up to 50%. The Vibrant mode is even better, creeping up to three only above 90% luminance and remaining below one, which is basically imperceptible, across most of the luminance range. This is better than any other phone we’ve seen at this price point and is even better than most flagships.

The Pure Edition’s display does a great job covering the sRGB color space. In the ongoing spec wars, many companies are equipping their phones with wide-gamut displays and boasting about their superior color rendition. This marketing hype is misleading, however, because neither Android nor iOS support system-wide color management, and neither do any of the default apps. Until software support arrives, having a display that renders colors outside of the sRGB color space results only in oversaturated, inaccurate colors.

It’s in the color saturation sweep test that we see the true purpose of the Pure Edition’s Vibrant mode. In our discussion about color gamut above, we noted how displays that extend coverage beyond the sRGB color space show oversaturated colors. While we prefer a more natural look, some people prefer the more vibrant colors of a wide-gamut display. The Pure Edition’s Vibrant mode caters to this latter group, applying moderate color compression to boost color saturation.

The Pure Edition’s Normal mode focuses on color accuracy and performs well in the color saturation sweep. It hits every target box for each tested color, which is all we can ask for.

Another test and another excellent performance. The Pure Edition’s color accuracy in Normal mode is even better than the much more expensive Galaxy S6 edge+. Color ΔE2000 error remains below three for all the tested colors, and about half of them have an error below one, which is generally imperceptible. Even in Vibrant mode the Pure Edition is still better than other phones in its class. Intermediate colors show increased error due to the applied color compression, but with the exception of red, all of the primary and secondary colors are still at or below one.

Full Size Images: [Color Palette: Moto X Pure Edition Normal], [Color Palette: Moto X Pure Edition Vibrant]

The color palette above shows the target color on the bottom versus the displayed color on the top and is a nice way of visualizing the color error discussed above [note: the color accuracy of your screen will affect the actual colors you see]. The accuracy of the Pure Edition’s Normal mode is readily apparent; it’s difficult to see any differences between the displayed colors and the targets even when comparing them side by side. The grayscale values are also very close, with an almost unnoticeable green tint.

Looking at the color palette is the best way to see the effects of the Pure Edition’s Vibrant mode. Color compression does indeed make colors look more vibrant, but they fall short of the overly-saturated, neon-like colors from a wide-gamut display. The Vibrant mode’s gamma curve is also too high, making colors and grayscale shades appear too dark.

Overall, we’re really impressed with the Moto X Pure Edition’s display. It’s bright and clear, and Motorola’s meticulous calibration results in excellent looking colors. If color fidelity isn’t your thing, there’s even a mode that creates richer looking colors to catch your eye, while avoiding the unnatural saturation levels of wide-gamut displays. Of all the devices we’ve tested, the Pure Edition has the best looking screen in its price range.

Audio Performance

Unlike the previous two versions of the Moto X, the Pure Edition has front-facing stereo speakers, similar to Motorola’s Nexus 6. The stereo speakers definitely create a wider soundstage, and with the speakers facing the front, you do not have to set the phone on a table or cup your hand awkwardly behind the phone to get the best sound.

The external speakers sound pretty good. They’re still small phone speakers, so there’s almost no bass. Kick drums are anemic and low-frequency thumps are MIA in hip-hop. The lack of low-end also makes male vocals sound a bit hollow. While music sounds overly bright, it does remain clear. Even in complex music it’s possible to pick out individual instruments.

The speakers also get plenty loud, although they are not the loudest we’ve heard—the Nexus 6 is louder. The Pure Edition’s amplifiers, like most used in smartphones, reduce distortion at high volume levels by limiting current and voltage. This works very well, with minimal distortion at max volume.

Plugging in a set of headphones nets a pleasant music listening experience. At first, I could not hear a difference between the Pure Edition and our iPhone 6 reference. Listening more closely, however, revealed some very subtle differences. Low-end notes were just a bit softer from the Pure Edition and individual sounds were not quite as distinct. Notes in quick succession also tend to run together. For example, listening to a harp in the background with the iPhone 6, I could hear all four string plucks, but I could only make out two when listening to the same song on the Pure Edition. Again, these differences were very subtle were very subtle and probably would go unnoticed without doing a side-by-side comparison.

Camera Features

Previous versions of the Moto X produced decent images in good lighting, but struggled in low-light conditions. Autofocus speed was also a bit slow. For the Moto X Pure Edition and its derivatives, Motorola looks to correct these issues and improve overall camera performance by equipping them with Sony’s Exmor RS IMX230 sensor. This is a stacked CMOS sensor featuring backside illumination (BSI) and a 1/2.4” optical format. At 21 MP it’s one of the higher resolution sensors you can get in a smartphone, which should capture a lot of detail. The 1.12μm pixel size is pretty standard for this type of sensor. We’ll see if the smaller pixels and lack of optical image stabilization (OIS) hurt low-light performance in our image quality tests.

Note: For an explanation of camera hardware and terminology, please see our Camera Phone Technology 101 article.

The Pure Edition’s new rear camera also includes phase detect autofocus (PDAF). Using up to 192 AF points on the sensor, the camera is quick to focus in most cases. Scenes with higher dynamic range trip up the PDAF routine and cause the camera to fall back to the slower contrast detect AF (CDAF) method, however.

The optical stack consists of six lens elements with an f/2.0 aperture. This gives the Pure Edition’s camera one of the largest aperture areas currently available, letting in 6% more light than the lens in Samsung’s Galaxy S6 edge+. It also lets in 9% more light than the OnePlus 2’s lens and 53% more light than either the Asus ZenFone 2 or iPhone 6s Plus. This should improve low-light performance and help compensate for the higher-resolution sensor’s smaller pixels.

Motorola equips the Pure Edition with a new front camera too. Resolution increases from 2 MP to 5 MP to capture more detail. The sensor uses 1.4μm pixels, and the wide-angle lens has an f/2.0 aperture. There’s also an LED flash, which is still a fairly unique feature for front-facing cameras. The higher image resolution, larger aperture, and LED flash combine to produce some Facebook-worthy selfies, and the wide-angle lens helps get your entire group into the shot.

Camera Software

Motorola’s camera app makes shooting pictures and videos as simple as possible. The camera controls all of the settings automatically by default, requiring you to only tap the screen to take a picture. That’s right; there’s not even a shutter button, although, you can use the volume button to snap a picture. Long-pressing on the screen activates burst-mode, which takes multiple shots (about five) per second.

The app provides minimal control over focus and exposure and that’s it. There’s no sophisticated manual mode, image filters, or artsy effects to apply. You can set the focal point manually by simply dragging the focus ring over the desired object. Sliding the sun symbol around the focus ring adjusts exposure. There’s also a 4x digital zoom that’s controlled by sliding your finger up and down the right edge of the screen.

Additional controls are accessed via swipe motions. Sliding your finger inward from the left edge of the screen opens a carousel menu of settings: HDR, flash, video mode, photo resolution, shot timer (3 or 10 seconds), panorama, geotagging, shutter sound, and Quick Capture. Sliding your finger inward from the right edge of the screen allows you to browse through your latest images and edit them.

The Quick Capture feature is a clever way to launch the camera app with two flicks of the wrist. This works from the lock screen or inside any app. Repeating the gesture with the camera app already open switches between the front and rear cameras. This feature can be turned off but is on by default.

Other than a panorama mode, the front-facing camera supports all the same features as the rear camera, including burst-mode, automatic HDR, and the manual focus and exposure control.

Video

Just like with still photos, Motorola’s camera app offers only basic video recording options. There’s no 1080p@60fps mode available, even though the camera sensor supports it, and slow motion video is limited to 720p@120fps (played back at 30fps for a 1/4 speed slow-motion effect). It does offer 1080p@30fps recording at a reasonable bit rate for both the front and rear cameras. The rear camera can also record 4K UHD videos without any restrictions on the recording duration.

Rear Camera Video Modes

Front Camera Video Modes

Video quality using the rear camera is similar for both 1080p and 4K except for the obvious difference in resolution. Outdoors in good lighting, white balance is very good, and the camera adjusts exposure smoothly and quickly when transitioning from bright areas to shadows. The camera’s PDAF also works well, with almost no focus lag. The only quality issue in good lighting are noticeable compression artifacts—not just around objects but also large, flat surfaces—when moving the camera. Predictably, video quality in low-light conditions suffers. White balance is still generally good, but there’s a significant amount of noise in the video, somewhat negating the resolution advantage of the 4K mode. The camera also has more trouble focusing, frequently falling back to the much slower CDAF method.

While the Pure Edition’s camera does not have optical image stabilization (OIS), it does use electronic image stabilization (EIS) to help steady video. This removes some high-frequency jitters, but is not as effective as the methods used in some other flagship cameras.

One nice feature is the rear camera’s ability to use high dynamic range (HDR) when shooting both 1080p and 4K video. To use HDR with video you must activate it manually; auto HDR does not work. Using HDR helps brighten dark areas of the scene, but it does not compensate enough for overexposed areas. Also, using HDR tends to make the colors a bit warmer.

Like with most phones, the Pure Edition’s slow-motion video is more of a gimmick than a useful feature. The videos contain a significant amount of noise because of the higher video compression, and videos shot in anything but perfect lighting turn out darker than usual because of the shorter exposure time when recording at 120fps. The camera also seems to use CDAF exclusively in this mode, resulting in noticeable focus lag and instances where the camera fails to acquire a focus lock, resulting in mostly blurry videos. Also, there’s no audio track recorded when shooting in slow-motion.

Camera Performance And Photo Quality

It’s time to put the Moto X Pure Edition’s new camera to the test. We’ll be comparing its images to identical ones taken with the 16 MP Sony Exmor RS IMX240 camera in Samsung’s Galaxy S6. This is not meant to be a fair comparison since the Galaxy S6 is a more expensive flagship device, but as the current leader in smartphone photo quality, it will serve as the gold standard.

All of the images shown below were taken with the default camera app using the Auto mode unless noted. Also, you can view the full-sized image for each photo by clicking the text links below the images that are within a slideshow album. The Moto X Pure Edition shoots natively at a 4:3 aspect ratio, while the Galaxy S6 shoots natively at 16:9.

Outdoors

Daylight

Full-Size Images: [Moto X Pure Edition: daylight dragon], [Galaxy S6: daylight dragon], [Moto X Pure Edition: daylight fountain], [Galaxy S6: daylight fountain]

There’s plenty of light in the first set of images, allowing both cameras to use low ISO settings. The Pure Edition’s white balance is a bit cooler than the Galaxy S6’s, but this is partially because of a small change in brightness from the cloud cover. Zooming in reveals less noise grain in the Pure Edition’s image, especially in the background and the dark gray wall on the right, because of its additional noise reduction post-processing. This has the negative side effect of smearing away some fine detail, which is evident on the rocks at the foot of the gray wall.

The Pure Edition does an excellent job capturing the fountain in the second set of images. Its higher-resolution sensor clearly captures more detail than the S6, and its image is less noisy too. Noise reduction does smear away some detail on flat surfaces in the Pure Edition’s image, like the bricks on the road, but it’s not excessive. Comparing white balance, the Moto X captures the color of the sky better, but the S6 does better with the fountain.

Afternoon

Full-Size Images: [Moto X Pure Edition: afternoon giraffes], [Galaxy S6: afternoon giraffes], [Moto X Pure Edition: afternoon building], [Galaxy S6: afternoon building]

When it comes to snapping pictures of giraffes in the afternoon under an overcast sky, the Moto X Pure Edition starts to struggle. The white balance skews a bit cool, and there’s less color saturation than in the S6 image. The Pure Edition’s stock camera also appears to be using higher jpeg image compression, since its image shows more artifacts around edges. These issues are fairly minor, though, compared to the overly aggressive noise reduction processing that smears away almost all of the detail in the grass and fence in the background.

The Pure Edition’s aggressive noise reduction works to its advantage in the second image of the building taken at sunset. Where the S6 was the clear victor in the giraffe scene, the Moto X does better with the building. In general, because of how the Pure Edition’s noise reduction works, it tends to do well in modestly-lit scenes with mostly flat, smooth surfaces, like buildings or sky, but struggles when the scene has lots of tiny details, like grass and trees outdoors.

Evening

Full-Size Images: [Moto X Pure Edition: evening trees], [Galaxy S6: evening trees], [Moto X Pure Edition: evening parking lot], [Galaxy S6: evening parking lot]

In the first set of images with the palm trees, the sun is just dipping below the horizon, giving the cameras very little light to work with. Without OIS, the Moto X cannot take as long of an exposure as the S6, resulting in a darker image despite using a much higher ISO setting. As light levels drop, the Pure Edition’s noise reduction seems to get more aggressive, which hurts overall image quality. The bricks on the ground and the wall in the background have almost all of their detail wiped away. It does do a decent job setting white balance, though.

It’s the same story in the parking lot scene: The S6 produces a brighter image (perhaps a bit too bright) with more visible noise but also more detail.

HDR

Full-Size Images: [Moto X Pure Edition: stream - no HDR], [Moto X Pure Edition: stream - HDR], [Galaxy S6: stream - no HDR], [Galaxy S6: stream - HDR], [Moto X Pure Edition: cheetahs - no HDR], [Moto X Pure Edition: cheetahs - HDR], [Galaxy S6: cheetahs - no HDR], [Galaxy S6: cheetahs - HDR]

The Moto X comes with automatic HDR for both the front and rear cameras. Unlike some flagship phones, it does not display a real-time preview of the HDR effect on the screen. The HDR processing also slows down the camera, increasing shot-to-shot latency from about half a second to around two seconds, which is common for phones in this price range.

HDR quality is pretty good, but it’s definitely not as good as the Galaxy S6. The Pure Edition does well brightening the darker areas of the image, but is just a little too aggressive, over-brightening some of the lighter areas. While it compensates somewhat for the overexposed sky in the first image, it is not able to remove the glare from the building’s roof like the S6 does. In the second image with an overcast sky, the Pure Edition’s HDR mode performs better, revealing the detail of the fence and powerlines in the background.

Indoors

The staged indoor shots below were lit by overhead LED lights, a CFL lamp from the front, and an incandescent overhead light in the background.

Bright Light

Full-Size Images: [Moto X Pure Edition: indoor mall], [Galaxy S6: indoor mall], [Moto X Pure Edition: indoor bright], [Galaxy S6: indoor bright]

The artificial light in the shopping mall causes the Moto X to set a cooler white balance. Similar to what we saw in the afternoon shots, its noise reduction works well when removing noise grain from flat, smooth surfaces, like the walls, but smears away some detail from the bricks and floor. The higher resolution sensor captures more detail in areas not affected by noise reduction.

The staged scene is a bit more challenging because of the mixed light sources and less overall light. The Galaxy S6 sets exposure correctly, but even though the Moto X uses the same shutter speed, it sets ISO twice as high, overexposing the scene and clipping the highlights on the figurines’ heads. The Moto X does a better job setting white balance, however, avoiding the green tint that degrades the S6’s image.

Low Light and Flash

Full-Size Images: [Moto X Pure Edition: indoor dark], [Galaxy S6: indoor dark], [Moto X Pure Edition: indoor flash], [Galaxy S6: indoor flash]

In this dimly lit scene, the Galaxy S6 excels; it gets a good exposure and captures a lot of detail, all while keeping noise low. Low-light scenes are kryptonite for the Moto X, however. Its lack of OIS limits exposure time, resulting in a darker image. White balance is also too cool and colors lack saturation. The Pure Edition’s overly aggressive noise reduction further reduces image quality, creating odd yellow splotches and reducing overall sharpness.

Turning the Pure Edition’s dual-color LED flash on produces much better results. Colors look very natural, and the image looks very sharp with minimal noise.

The Moto X Pure Edition’s camera is a big step up from the previous generation. Its image quality in good lighting is superb, rivaling even the excellent camera in the Galaxy S6. As the light fades, however, the Pure Edition’s heavy noise reduction post-processing starts wiping away more and more detail. In scenes dominated by flat, smooth surfaces, this ends up being a positive, but for most scenes it ends up reducing quality. This is especially true in very low-light conditions. White balance was never a problem for the Pure Edition in our tests, but the lack of OIS limits exposure time in low-light situations, leading to darker images.

Performance And Battery Life

In this section, we evaluate system-level performance and battery life by running a series of synthetic and real-world workloads. There are several facets to overall device performance, including single- and multi-threaded CPU performance, memory and storage speed, and GPU rendering, all of which will be probed by our suite of benchmarks. If you're interested in learning more about how these benchmarks work, what versions we use, or our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device performance.

Instead of just running one or more CPU cores at max frequency like synthetic benchmarks do, PCMark’s varied real-world workloads migrate from small to big cores and exercise the CPU governor just like the apps we normally use do, which makes it a good indicator of overall performance. After using the Moto X Pure Edition for awhile, it’s not surprising to see it perform well in this test. For the most part, the UI remains fluid and the phone never felt slow.

Looking at the individual tests, there’s no specific area where the Moto X falls behind its competitors. It even manages to outperform the OnePlus 2 and its Snapdragon 810 SoC in most tests. In the Writing test, the Moto X uses its two higher-performing Cortex-A57 CPU cores to good effect, posting the highest score, higher even than the Galaxy S6 edge+ or the OnePlus 2, which prefers using its lower-power Cortex-A53 cores for single-threaded workloads.

Like we saw with the LG G4, the Moto X Pure Edition does not shy away from using its A57 cores, unlike the Snapdragon 810 devices. The Moto X, like the G4, can also use all six cores simultaneously for multi-threaded workloads, at least for short durations.

The extra performance from the power-hungry A57 cores takes its toll on battery life, however. In the PCMark endurance test, the Moto X lasts as long as the Asus ZenFone 2 but falls short of the OnePlus 2’s 7.5-hour mark. The Nexus 5X, with a smaller battery (and display), also lasts longer than the Moto X.

Battery life, however, is only part of the story; we also have to take performance into account. By multiplying the PCMark battery life by the overall performance score and dividing by 1000, we get a composite metric that gives us an estimate for how much total work can be done on a single charge.

The Moto X can get as much work done as the ZenFone 2 before it runs out of juice. After taking performance into account, it pulls ahead of the Nexus 5X by 14% but still comes in behind the OnePlus 2.

The Moto X’s Adreno 418 GPU cannot match the peak performance of the Adreno 430 in the OnePlus 2 or Mali-T760MP8 in the Galaxy S6 devices, but it does outperform the GPUs in the less expensive ZenFone 2 and BLU Pure XL.

In our LG G4 review, we took a more in-depth look at the Adreno 418 GPU’s performance. In addition to being slower than the Adreno 430, we also found that it’s 10% to 20% slower than the Adreno 420 used in the Snapdragon 805 SoC. Like other Qualcomm GPUs, the Adreno 418 has good ALU performance relative to its peers. Based on our tests, however, it appears that Snapdragon 808’s reliance on LPDDR3 RAM limits memory bandwidth to the GPU, especially when rendering at the Moto X’s native QHD resolution. Fortunately, most Android games render at lower resolutions before scaling up to the panel’s native dimensions. While reviewing the LG G4, which also uses a Snapdragon 808 SoC, we played several different games, including “Asphalt 8” (high visual quality), “Brothers in Arms 3” (Better Quality setting), and “Star Wars: Uprising”, and did not notice any significant frame rate issues, even after about forty-five minutes of continuous gaming.

The GFXBench 3.0 battery test focuses on the GPU and is an indicator of battery life during intense gaming. It also effectively gauges a device’s ability to dissipate heat.

The Moto X Pure Edition lasts about three hours while gaming, which is about the same as most other phones, including the LG G4 that has a similarly sized battery and screen. Because of its lower-resolution 1080p display, the ZenFone 2 achieves about the same performance level as the Moto X, but lasts 21% longer (the battery life test runs at the device’s native resolution).

Unlike the G4, which throttles back GPU frequency after about 23 minutes, reducing peak performance by a mild 7%, the Moto X experiences no thermal throttling at all. This impressive performance stability is a result of Motorola’s thoughtful design. The SoC is covered by a copper heat spreader that presses against a large metal plate, which contacts the Moto X’s metal chassis on the sides. This provides a conduction path that moves heat from the SoC to the metal chassis, which acts as a large heatsink. So while the Moto X feels warm in your hands, you’ll experience no degradation in gaming performance.

Conclusion

The Moto X Pure Edition is Motorola’s flagship phone. Its price and feature set, however, place it in the premium mid-range category with phones such as the OnePlus 2 and LG G4. This is a difficult category to compete in, but there’s more to the Moto X Pure Edition than a long name.

For starters, it has an excellent display. The 5.7-inch IPS panel’s QHD resolution makes objects and text look very sharp. It’s also very bright, reaching a maximum of 550 nits. The well-calibrated sRGB panel also boasts some of the most accurate looking colors of any phone we’ve tested. The displays in the Moto E (2nd gen) and Moto G (3rd gen) were impressive given their price point, but Motorola’s attention to detail gives the Pure Edition the best display in its class.

The camera is another piece of hardware that sees a major upgrade over the previous generation. The Sony-­sourced 21 MP rear camera takes nicely detailed photos in good lighting. A large aperture lens lets in a lot of light, but the lack of OIS limits exposure time, bounding brightness in dark scenes. Overly aggressive noise reduction processing wipes away detail, further reducing low-­light image quality.

The Pure Edition’s Snapdragon 808 SoC is technically a step down from the 810; however, with two fewer A57 CPU cores, the 808 is better able to stay within its thermal envelope, allowing it to keep its six cores online at higher frequencies. This gives the Pure Edition a small performance edge over the OnePlus 2.

In general use, the Pure Edition feels plenty fast, especially after the update to Android 6.0. The UI is fluid, with fewer dropped frames than the LG G4, and the phone does not seem to struggle when browsing the web or running apps. Driving the high­-resolution QHD display is a bit much for the Adreno 418 GPU and LPDDR3 RAM, but this is usually not a problem since most games do not render at the panel’s native dimensions. The Pure Edition also does not suffer from thermal throttling when gaming. While the Snapdragon 810 and Samsung Galaxy devices deliver better peak frame rates, the Pure Edition’s excellent performance stability means its gaming experience will not be that much different after about 15 minutes of gameplay.

This performance, when combined with a battery that’s below average size for a phablet, leads to mediocre battery life. Under moderate, continuous use its battery life is similar to the LG G4 and Asus ZenFone 2 but less than the OnePlus 2 and both new Nexus phones, the 5X and 6P.

Up to this point we’ve talked a lot about hardware but have not discussed why Motorola calls this phone the “Pure Edition.” What makes this phone “pure” is its nearly stock version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow. There’s no custom OEM launcher, duplicate OEM apps, or reimagined notification shade. The Pure Edition uses the Google Now launcher and Motorola leaves the stock Android UI intact. It also relies exclusively on Google’s apps—the lone exceptions being the previously discussed Camera app, which Motorola replaces with its own version, and the open source Gallery app, which sits alongside Google’s Photos app. It’s also worth noting that unlike Motorola’s less­-expensive phones there’s no FM radio support.

As clean as it is, this is not a Nexus phone. Motorola adds a few features of its own that are accessible through two of its apps: Connect and Moto. The Connect app allows you to interact with other Motorola products such as headsets and smart watches. The Moto app, shown in the screenshots below, is the gateway to enabling Motorola’s extra features.

We already covered the Quick Capture action in the camera section. The other interesting action is Lift for Moto Voice, which provides discrete answers to questions after raising the phone to your ear without having to say the launch phrase. Speaking of the launch phrase, it’s customizeable. Instead of the typical “OK Google,” you can train it to respond to “Heads up Jarvis” or “Wake up HAL.” The Moto X can also read incoming calls and messages out loud when it notices you’re in a specific environment, like your car.

If you want to see notifications appear on the lock screen, the Pure Edition offers a choice between Google’s Ambient Display or Motorola’s Moto Display. Details about the latter are shown in the screenshots below.

The Moto X Pure Edition is an all-­around solid phone, and we cannot find much to complain about. A bigger battery would be nice, especially considering it’s thicker than its peers. It also does not have a fingerprint scanner, which Android Marshmallow and the latest Nexus phones turned into a standard feature months after the Pure Edition launched. But unlike many phones in this price range whose impressive sounding hardware disappoints, or whose feature-­packed software just seems to get in the way, the Pure Edition’s simplicity and performance make it enjoyable to use.

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Matt Humrick is a Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware, covering Smartphones and Tablets. Follow him on Twitter.

Leonid Yankulin is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware, covering Smartphones and Tablets.

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Samsung announced its latest image sensor for its own high-end smartphones, such as the recent Galaxy S7, that comes with 1.4μm pixels and Dual Pixel technology for much faster autofocus.

Samsung’s Galaxy S7, much like the latest Nexus devices, adopted a lower-resolution sensor that offers better low-light performance because of the resulting larger pixels. Somewhere around 12MP seems to be the optimum resolution for smartphone cameras right now, because the fewer pixels there are, the easier it is to do computational photography. When there are fewer pixels, less processing power is required to combine pictures or add various effects to them in real time.

Another big improvement for Samsung’s new sensor is the addition of the Dual Pixel technology, usually found in DSLRs. The technology enables significantly faster autofocus by employing two photodiodes on the left and right side of a pixel. The photodiodes then convert the light into measurable photocurrent for phase detection. That means that each and every one of those 12 million pixels will be capable of detecting phase differences of perceived light, resulting in the faster autofocus.

“With 12 million pixels working as a phase detection auto-focus (PDAF) agent, the new image sensor brings professional auto-focusing performance to a mobile device,” said Ben K. Hur, Vice President of Marketing, System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics. “Consumers will be able to capture their daily events and precious moments instantly on a smartphone as the moments unfold, regardless of lighting conditions,” he added.

Samsung’s new sensor also employs the ISOCELL technology, which isolates every pixel from one other to reduce color cross-talk and improve image quality.

Just a few years ago, most people thought that a phone camera could never achieve the performance of a DSLR. Although we’re not quite fully there yet, the adoption of what were typically DSLR technologies into smartphone sensors has increased lately. We’ve seen larger sensors (in some devices), higher quality lenses, optical image stabilization, phase detection autofocus, laser autofocus, optical zoom, and now Dual Pixel technology, too.

As smartphone chips achieve higher and higher performance, computational photography will only play a bigger role as well -- perhaps an even bigger one than in DSLRs. This could level the playing field somewhat and reduce other natural shortcomings that smartphone cameras have (such as the physical size of the sensors) compared to DSLRs.

Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu. 

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In late 2014, Samsung announced its first 360-degree camera, dubbed Project Beyond. This is a professional-level "3d omniview" stereoscopic camera with 17 cameras and UHD 3D capture, designed to film the highest quality 360-videos possible. After fading from public view for a while, Project Beyond resurfaced at CES this year, and at around the same time Samsung filed a patent for a "Gear 360" product, leading people to speculate that it would be the go-to-market name for the project.

This week at MWC 2016, Samsung cleared up all the confusion and announced the Gear 360, a monoscopic 360-degree consumer video camera designed to be used with the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge phones. This means that pricing and availability for Project Beyond is still to be announced, but likely to be in the five-figure price range, whereas the Gear 360 will be sold at a much more consumer-friendly three-figure price (though pricing was not disclosed yet).

To be honest, comparing the two cameras is pointless because the Gear 360 is designed to make shooting 360-video accessible to the masses, whereas the Beyond is for professional filmmakers. The Gear 360 has a light (153g) and compact spherical design, and looks like a high-tech eyeball (or a Portal Sentry Turret when it's on its stand). It is also splash proof and dust resistant and comes with a small tripod. It also uses an industry-standard thread size, so it can be mounted using a wide variety of camera mounts for more versatility.

The Gear 360 is targeting the same market as the LG 360 CAM also announced at MWC, but its specs are a bit more on the higher-end. It has two 15MP cameras that produce a 30MP spherical image when stitched and it can capture 3840 x 1920, 360-degree video (the LG has two 13MP cameras and can capture up to 2K 360-degree video). The Gear 360 also has a wide aperture f/2.0 lens for better low-light performance. You can see a sample video shot with the Gear 360 above (remember to pan around with your mouse or by tilting your phone if not viewing in VR).

Specifications

The Gear 360 connects to "select Samsung smartphones," including the S7 and S7 edge. Let's hope it can be used with Samsung's 2015 flagship devices too. When connected to a phone, you can preview what the camera is shooting in real time and control the camera with it. You can save the footage the Gear 360 captures to its microSD card, or to your smartphone to share it directly with social media, though Samsung didn't specify which channels it will support.

You can also livestream 360-video from the camera, with the footage from the two cameras stitched together by the Samsung Gear 360 App on your phone. Footage captured with the Gear 360 can either be viewed in 2D using the Gear 360 app, or in VR using the Gear VR.

Like so many MWC announcements, pricing and availability (beyond a vague "Q2 2016 in select countries") was not disclosed by Samsung.

Introduction

The smartphone market has become increasingly competitive over the past several years. Samsung, like most of its peers, is facing a number of challenges, including more competition at the high-end, cheaper devices from Chinese OEMs, and market saturation. Last year, in an effort to jumpstart declining sales, Samsung radically redesigned its Galaxy line of flagship phones. Switching from an all-plastic to aluminum and glass construction meant more luxury and less utility, simultaneously attracting new buyers to the brand while alienating its most faithful fans.

The Galaxy S6 and its derivatives sacrificed several features for sexy curves. Protection against dust and water leaked away, and the battery became a prisoner inside the aluminum and glass cage, making easy battery swaps impossible. With the perimeter on lockdown, microSD cards found themselves locked out, denying users storage flexibility and expansion. This injustice only deepened when the more expensive Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note5—which limited internal storage to 64GB—launched later in the year.

After receiving volumes of vociferous feedback and gaining valuable experience with its new design language, Samsung is unleashing its seventh generation Galaxy devices. The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge look to correct the shortcomings of the previous generation, even bringing back some of the previously discarded features such as support for microSD cards, which now share space with the Nano SIM card in a special dual-card tray located on the top edge. Samsung also restores environmental protection, giving the new Galaxies an IP68 rating that makes them dust tight and allows for immersion in water up to 5 feet for up to 30 minutes. Unlike the Galaxy S5, however, the Galaxy S7 devices do not require a plug to cover the USB port.

Battery life is one thing we can never get enough of, and while the Galaxy S6 family of devices compared favorably to their peers, the smaller Galaxy S6 and S6 edge struggled to last a whole day on a single charge during moderate to heavy use. In a move to address this issue, Samsung increases the battery size in the Galaxy S7 to 3,000mAh, up from 2,550mAh in the S6. The Galaxy S7 edge also gets a larger 3,600mAh battery, up from 3,000mAh in the S6 edge+. The fact that the battery remains sealed inside will likely remain a point of contention for some people, though.

Design

The new Galaxy S7 devices retain the design language and materials from the previous generation, but do include a few small refinements. The edges of the lightly-textured aluminum frame are chamfered and polished, and sheets of Corning Gorilla Glass 4 still cover the front and back. Samsung’s iconic pill-shaped home button, with integrated touch-based fingerprint sensor, still sits below the screen, flanked by capacitive, backlit buttons. One subtle difference is the lack of chrome accents around the home button and speaker grille on the front and around the camera components on the back; these accents now take on the same color as the phone, helping these parts blend into the body.

Just like last year, the seventh generation arrives with two different models. Both use SAMOLED QHD resolution screens that differ in size: The Galaxy S7 comes with a 5.1-inch screen like the S6, while the larger Galaxy S7 edge comes with a 5.5-inch screen similar to the S6 edge+. Like its name implies, the edge’s screen curves around both sides, with similarly curved bevels above and below the screen too. While we have not tested these new screens yet, Samsung’s previous generation displays were excellent, with good viewing angles, peak brightness values above 600 nits when using Auto mode outdoors, and sufficient resolution to overcome PenTile’s lower subpixel density. The new S7s, like previous Galaxy devices, also offer different display modes, including Basic, which is an accurate sRGB mode; Cinema and Photo, which use an extended color gamut to provide bright, saturated colors; and Adaptive, which adjusts display parameters based on the content that’s being viewed.

One of the complaints we had about both the Galaxy S6 edge and S6 edge+ was that their curved screens and flat backs made the phones difficult to pick up and also made the sides feel a bit sharp in our hands. By curving the edges on the back too, like it did with the Galaxy Note5, the new S7s are much easier to handle and more comfortable to hold.

Both of the S7s are slightly smaller than the models they replace, thanks to reduced bezels around the screens. The Galaxy S7 shrinks by about 1mm in height and width, while the S7 edge is about 3.5mm smaller in both dimensions. Thickness increases slightly to make room for the larger batteries, a more than acceptable trade off in our opinion considering the extra bulk is barely noticeable. The extra thickness also reduces the height of the rear camera plateau; it's still not flush with the back, but it's not much more than a raised ridge now.

A 3.5mm headphone jack, a mono speaker, and a microphone are still located on the bottom edge. It’s a bit of a surprise to see a microUSB 2.0 port instead of the new USB Type-C variety. Most flagship devices should be switching to the new reversible plug this year, which only makes this port feel even more dated. Sticking with microUSB does maintain compatibility with Gear VR, however.

The new phones bring a selection of new colors. In the U.S., the Galaxy S7 is available in Black Onyx and Gold Platinum, while the S7 edge is available in Black Onyx, Gold Platinum, and Silver Titanium. Both the gold and silver colors have a shiny, reflective finish.

Technical Specifications

Camera

Smartphone camera resolution has been increasing at a steady rate, with OEMs fueling a megapixel arms race. Because of physical size constraints for the sensor package, however, increasing the number of pixels generally means making them smaller. But smaller pixels capture less light, reducing dynamic range and low-light performance. Some OEMs, such as HTC and Apple, have favored using fewer, larger pixels to improve low-light capability at the expense of image detail.

With camera performance a high priority, Samsung is opting out of the megapixel race, choosing a completely new lower-resolution sensor with larger pixels for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. The 12 MP rear camera, the same resolution as the iPhone 6s, has 1.4μm pixels. There's also a new lens array with a larger f/1.7 aperture that lets in 25% more light than the f/1.9 aperture lens in the Galaxy S6. Combining the sensor’s larger pixels with the lens’ lower f-stop allows the new camera to capture 95% more light than the previous generation, according to Samsung. It will be interesting to see if this new camera can actually outperform the Galaxy S6, which currently has the best smartphone camera we’ve tested, at least when using the 16 MP Sony IMX240 Exmor RS sensor (some Galaxy S6 phones use a Samsung S5K2P2 ISOCELL sensor that does not perform as well).

The demonstration shown in the video above—conducted by Samsung—shows a tantalizing hint of the new camera’s performance by pitting the Galaxy S7 against the iPhone 6s Plus. When the light inside the box is dimmed, the Galaxy S7 certainly appears to capture more light.

This video also shows off the Galaxy S7’s autofocus capability. The Galaxy S7, like the S6 and most other premium phones, uses phase detect autofocus (PDAF), which provides superior performance to the contrast detection method. However, the S7’s new camera sensor uses far more pixels for phase detection: Where the Galaxy S6’s sensor only uses 0.78% of its total pixels as phase pixels, the S7’s new sensor uses 100% of its pixels. Samsung says that each pixel in its Dual Pixel sensor is split into two photodiodes. We're still not sure exactly how this works, but it seems to perform well based on Samsung's limited demo.

The other thing we're not sure about is if customers will still need to play the camera lottery with the S7. Samsung won't say, but based on the novelty of this sensor it seems likely that it's made by a single manufacturer.

Hardware

In the past, Samsung has equipped its Galaxy devices with different hardware for different regions, generally preferring Qualcomm SoCs for the North American market and its own Exynos chips for other regions. Last year, Samsung decided to use its Exynos 7420 SoC, the first to use a 14nm FinFET process, exclusively for its Galaxy S6 phones, avoiding the Snapdragon 810 and its thermal problems. With Samsung developing its own custom 64-bit CPU for the Exynos 8890, along with a new high-end Snapdragon from Qualcomm, it would not be surprising to see Samsung revert back to dual-sourcing SoCs for the Galaxy S7. While Samsung has not specified what chip will power its new flagship globally, we do know that the S7 will use Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 820 for the North American market.

Featuring four of Qualcomm's new custom 64-bit Kryo CPUs arranged in a heterogeneous dual-cluster configuration, with one cluster optimized for higher performance and the other optimized for lower power, the 820 focuses on improving single-threaded performance. In our performance preview of the Kirin 950, we found that Kryo holds an instructions per cycle (IPC) advantage over the Cortex-A72 CPU in both integer and floating point operations. However, octa-core SoCs such as the Kirin 950 can perform better when running multi-threaded workloads. The 820, coincidentally, uses Samsung’s second-generation 14nm LPP (Low Power Plus) FinFET process that enables lower power consumption at a slightly higher frequency than the first-generation LPE process used for the Exynos 7420.

Samsung pairs Qualcomm's SoC with 4GB of LPDDR4-1866 RAM, which should help alleviate the memory pressure problem that limited the Galaxy S6’s multitasking performance.

All of the Galaxy S6 phones include two or three options for internal storage capacity, with the S6 and S6 edge offering up to 128GB. The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge come in only one configuration, however: 32GB. If that's not enough, the internal UFS 2.0 NAND can be supplemented with a microSD card.

The Snapdragon 820 includes an integrated X12 LTE modem capable of Category 12 download speeds of up to 600Mbps and Category 13 upload speeds of up to 150Mbps. The Galaxy S7 also includes support for 802.11ac MU-MIMO Wi-Fi, with peak theoretical throughput of up to 867Mb/s, and Bluetooth 4.2 LE.

Hardware support for Samsung Pay, the company's wireless payment system, first appeared on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, with software and vendor support rolling out late last year. Like Apple Pay, it uses the fingerprint scanner to authorize payments at terminals supporting NFC. Unlike Apple Pay, Samsung's solution works at most traditional magnetic stripe credit card terminals too, making it a far more useful solution.

Software

Running atop Android 6.0.1, Samsung’s TouchWiz UI receives some refinements and new features. This latest build retains the mostly white interface with coordinated highlight colors that was introduced with the Galaxy S6. Looking more closely, however, reveals new application icons and a redesigned notification shade.

One of the new features is Always-On Display (AOD). Similar to Google’s Ambient Display and Motorola’s Moto Display, this feature displays some basic information while the screen is locked, like a calendar, the time and date, or notifications. There's also an option to personalize what's displayed. Power drain is minimized by taking advantage of the AMOLED display’s ability to only illuminate the pixels in use, rather than turning on the entire panel like most IPS displays. AOD also uses the ambient light sensor to detect when the phone is placed inside a pocket or purse and turns itself off.

A new utility called “Game Tool” provides quick, in-game access to several features. One of its simplest tricks, but possibly the most useful, is keeping notifications from interrupting your gameplay. It also allows you to grab screenshots or record up to 6Mbps 1080p video to document your gaming skill. You can even record a voiceover using the phone’s microphone.

Edge UX, a feature unique to the Galaxy edge devices, undergoes a significant makeover and gains new functionality. For those not familiar with this feature, it's a panel that slides out from the curved edge of the screen that's meant to provide quick access to frequently used apps or favorite contacts, among other things. The most obvious change in this latest version is that the panel is now wider, allowing for two columns of circular icons rather than a single column like before.

In addition to the Apps and People edge panels mentioned above, there's a new Tasks edge that offers shortcuts to common tasks such as composing an email, taking a selfie, creating a calendar event, or opening a specific webpage. The new Quick tools edge displays a compass or a ruler, which can certainly come in handy.

What makes Edge UX really interesting is support for third-party panels (think edge widgets). Informational panels showing news, weather, or sports scores are obvious examples, but other possibilities exist too. More panels can be downloaded from within the configuration menu as they become available. To keep things from getting cluttered, individual panels can be toggled on or off, and the panels can be reordered.

Previous TouchWiz features carry over too such as the quick launch camera, which jumps straight to the camera from within any app or from the lock screen by double-clicking the home button. Multi Window, which allows multiple, windowed apps to run at the same time, returns too, and so do the options for improving one-handed use.

All of these software features put pressure on system RAM. This problem negatively impacted the user experience on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, whose 3GB of RAM was already over 70% capacity after a fresh reboot. Without enough free memory for applications, the operating system needed to unload apps and webpages to make room for new ones, reducing multitasking and browsing performance. We have not had a chance to investigate this issue on the Galaxy S7 devices thoroughly, but a quick check showed only 55% of system memory in use after closing open apps. Hopefully, this translates to better overall performance under heavy use.

Final Thoughts

The Galaxy S6 and its derivatives are good phones, notable for their design, performance, and the new technologies they brought to market. But they fell short of perfection: Deficiencies in ergonomics, battery life, and multitasking held them back, as did the exclusion of several features Samsung’s customers associated with Galaxy phones.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 edge appear to address many of these issues. The curved edges on the back make the phones easier to handle and more comfortable to hold. Bigger batteries should prolong battery life, and the extra RAM should improve the multitasking experience. Expandable storage with microSD cards and IP68 environmental protection, last seen on the Galaxy S5, also make a comeback, although a swappable battery is still MIA. Throw in the Snapdragon 820, which performed well in our initial tests, and some interesting changes to the camera, and the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge seem like solid flagship phones.

In the U.S., both devices will be available in Black Onyx and Gold Platinum, but only the Galaxy S7 edge will be available in Silver Titanium. The new phones will be available from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon Wireless, along with other major retailers, on March 11, with pre-orders starting at 8:00 a.m. EST on February 23.

As an initial incentive, consumers who purchase a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge between February 23 and March 18 will receive a free Samsung Gear VR and a six-game bundle, while supplies last.

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Matt Humrick is a Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware, covering Smartphones and Tablets. Follow him on Twitter.

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Introduction

The larger screens that came with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were the biggest hardware changes the iconic brand has yet seen and represented a major philosophical shift for Apple. Competitive pressure from Android OEMs and more cognizant consumers shattered Cupertino's stranglehold on what a smartphone should look like. Its customers wanted larger screens, and Apple gave them what they wanted.

This is an "s" update, however, so there's no radical redesign or reimagining of the iPhone. Instead, Apple focuses on boosting performance and refining last year's design for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. While their screens are the same size and resolution, most of the internals are new, starting with the A9 SoC. Apple's custom-designed, dual-core 64-bit CPU gets more cache and higher IPC (instructions per cycle). The A9 also gets a new PowerVR GPU, with its own architectural enhancements and two additional cores. Using a new FinFET manufacturing process allows Apple to ramp up clock frequencies, further increasing performance—up to 70 percent for the CPU and up to 90 percent for the GPU, according to Apple.

The M9 motion coprocessor is no longer a separate chip. It now resides on a special low-power island within the A9 SoC. This change unshackles Siri from the power outlet, an inconvenient restriction placed on the iPhone 6, whose M8 coprocessor took up additional space on the motherboard and drew too much power to be left on, listening for voice commands, when running on battery power. Now Apple's digital assistant is always listening, ready to respond as soon it hears you say, "Hey Siri." The M9 still collects data from the accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, and barometer too, feeding it to fitness tracking apps that log steps taken, distance traveled, and elevation traversed. Additionally, it now measures the speed of movement.

Riding atop the A9 SoC in a package-on-package (POP) configuration is perhaps the most important hardware improvement in terms of user experience: 2GB of RAM. Gone are the frequent app crashes and random interface stutters that plagued the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. With twice as much RAM, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus really do feel like completely new phones. Apps are not just more stable and smooth, either. Switching apps is also much faster, since they remain in memory and do not have to be constantly reloaded. The same is true for switching between several web pages in Safari. The iPhone feels like a flagship phone once again.

Memory capacity is only one area where the iPhone is falling behind, though. When it comes to camera performance, Samsung's Galaxy S6 devices surpass the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Apple hopes to rectify this situation by giving the 6s and 6s Plus new front and rear cameras that offer higher resolution and the ability to record 4K UHD videos. We'll discover if these changes push the iPhone back into the lead in performance and features once again later in the review.

The new iPhones should now be on par with the Wi-Fi performance of other flagships. Last year, the iPhone 6 added support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi, boosting theoretical bandwidth from 150Mb/s on the iPhone 5s to 433Mb/s using a single spatial stream and an 80MHz channel. For the 6s, Apple adds a second spatial stream, elevating bandwidth to a maximum of 867Mb/s.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the base storage option, the iPhone is still stuck in the past, offering a meager 16GB (~12GB usable). This is not enough for a modern smartphone, let alone a flagship phone. My mother-in-law, who has not installed any apps and does not do much more than text, managed to completely fill her 16GB iPhone 6 Plus with just pictures and a few short videos. With a larger camera sensor and the ability to shoot 4K video, the new iPhones will consume even more storage space. Apple does offer 64GB and 128GB storage options, but they do not come cheap.

Apple iPhone 6s Specifications

Apple iPhone 6s Plus Specifications

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The iPhone "s" models are not just about new silicon, however. It's become a tradition for Apple to introduce a new usability feature in lieu of a new design. The iPhone 4s introduced Siri, Apple's voice activated assistant; the 5s added Touch ID, a functional fingerprint scanner; and now the 6s squeezes in 3D Touch, a pressure sensitive display with haptic feedback. Adding a third control dimension to the now familiar two-dimensional multi-touch controls allows for two new interactions: Peek and Pop. Will these become as ingrained as pinch-to-zoom, or should they be relabeled Try and Forget? We'll explore 3D Touch more in a bit.

Cellular

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are packed with more cellular silicon than any phone we've ever seen. There are multiple power amplifiers, front-end modules, and antenna switches from Avago, Murata, Qorvo, RF Micro Devices, Skyworks, and TriQuint, with some of these components specific to certain iPhone model numbers, depending on regional frequency requirements.

All of these chips surround a Qualcomm MDM9635M baseband processor. Manufactured on a 20nm process, it supports Category 6 LTE speeds of up to 300 Mbps on the downlink (2x20 MHz carrier aggregation with 64-QAM) and up to 50 Mbps on the uplink (1x20 MHz with 16-QAM). It also supports all major radio modes, including GSM/EDGE, UMTS (WCDMA, TD-SCDMA), LTE (LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD) and CDMA2000. This new processor consumes less power than the 28nm MDM9625M in the iPhone 6, while delivering higher downlink speeds than the older Category 4 LTE (150 Mbps) part.

The RF transceiver is another Qualcomm part. The WTR3925 is the first single-chip solution from Qualcomm to support all of the 3GPP approved carrier aggregation band combinations, eliminating the need for a second receive-only transceiver like the iPhone 6 used. Qualcomm's QFE1100 envelope tracker, part of the company's RF360 suite, dynamically adjusts voltage to the power amplifiers, wasting less energy and reducing heat generation.

All of this is required for supporting up to 23 LTE bands, up from 20 in the iPhone 6 and 13 in the 5s, the most in any smartphone, assuring the iPhone 6s will work in nearly any country you might travel to. Here's the full list of supported frequencies.

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Wi-Fi calling, which allows you to make higher‑quality wideband calls over a Wi‑Fi connection, were both supported on the iPhone 6 and carry over to the 6s. This latter feature came with an unfortunate limitation on the 6, however: turning it on would break Apple's Continuity feature. The iPhone 6s eliminates this restriction, allowing both features to be enabled without interfering with each other.

Hardware Design

To the naked eye, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus look the same as their counterparts from last year, but there are a few subtle differences. In response to the overblown Bendgate scandal, where some iPhones bent under extreme conditions, Apple has upgraded the aluminum alloy used for the frame from a 2000 series to a 7000 series alloy. Without knowing the temper of the alloys used it's impossible to say exactly how much stronger the new frame is, but it's a safe bet that the iPhone is less prone to bending now.

Both new iPhones are also imperceptibly larger in height, width, and thickness than last year's models. Weight also increases by 14 grams (11 percent) for the iPhone 6s and by 20 grams (12 percent) for the 6s Plus. While the weight gain for the 6s goes unnoticed, the extra weight on the 6s Plus can be felt and makes an already hefty phone even heavier. What's driving these changes is the new Taptic Engine that provides the impulses for 3D Touch. In order to deliver greater force impulses in quicker succession, the Taptic Engine uses larger and heavier electromagnets than the traditional vibration motor it replaces.

The most noticeable design change is the addition of a new color. In addition to the now familiar Silver, Gold, and Space Gray options, Apple now offers Rose Gold, which is just a fancy way of saying pink. Similar to the Gold finish, Rose Gold is a subtle shade that looks classy. The Space Gray finish comes with a black front, while the other three options have white fronts.

Note: Since the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus look the same externally, apart from size obviously, the description below applies equally to both.

The entire front of the iPhone 6s is covered by a single piece of glass made by "a special dual ion‑exchange process" that makes it more durable. The edges of the glass are curved and seamlessly flow into the rounded sides, which makes edge swipes, an important UI interaction in iOS, feel natural and smooth.

The bezels surrounding the 4.7-inch screen on the 6s or 5.5-inch screen on the 6s Plus are uncharacteristically large for a modern flagship phone. The 6s Plus, for example, has the worst screen-to-body ratio of its peers at 67.9 percent versus 76.6 percent for Samsung's Galaxy S6 edge+ at the other end of the scale. The circular home button, with integrated Touch ID fingerprint scanner, is responsible for the large lower bezel. Given the convenience of Touch ID as an authentication mechanism, which receives a new second-generation capacitive touch sensor that makes it faster and even more accurate, this design "sin" is forgivable. The large upper bezel exists primarily for symmetry, however.

Centered above the screen is a recessed earpiece and ambient light sensor, with the FaceTime HD camera sitting to its left. The LCD interface circuitry hides behind the portion of the upper bezel between the screen and earpiece.

The rounded sides and curved corners make the iPhone 6s very comfortable to hold. Combining smooth contours with aluminum and glass creates a slippery device, though, making a grippy case a good idea for less sure-handed individuals.

The power button is located near the top on the right side, with the the metal door for the Nano-SIM tray just below. Across from the power button are the volume controls. All of the buttons are metal and make a reassuring click when pressed. They also fit firmly in their sockets without any extra movement or rattle, exemplifying the iPhone's excellent build quality. The only complaint I have is that it's too easy to accidentally press the power button when changing the volume. Offsetting the buttons on either side just a little bit would help alleviate this minor complaint.

Above the separate volume buttons on the left side is a mute switch to silence the phone and place it into a vibrate-only mode. Having a physical switch is convenient, but because it protrudes slightly, it's too easy to accidentally activate when putting the phone into or taking it out of a pocket. This happened to me about once a day on average.

There's nothing to see on top since all of the ports are lined up on the bottom edge. Flanking the port for Apple's proprietary Lightning connector, which is reversible like USB Type-C, is the 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone, and mono speaker.

No iPhone would be complete without a reflective Apple logo on the back. Below the iPhone branding is a small "s" moniker, which is the only visible difference between an iPhone 6 and a 6s (well, except for the new Rose Gold color). Plastic antennae lines, a necessary evil for metallic phones, surround matching aluminum inserts on the upper and lower sections of the back.

The iSight camera, which protrudes a little less than one millimeter above the back surface, is protected by a sapphire lens and a metal ring. At least on the iPhone 6, this ring is made from a relatively soft metal and can get pretty chewed up over time if its owner is not careful. The circular True Tone Flash sits to the right of the camera, along with a second microphone for noise cancellation.

The smaller iPhone 6s hits a sweet spot for screen space and one-handed usability; any larger and it becomes difficult to reach the top of the screen. Both edges are within easy reach for edge-swipe gestures and it slips into nearly any pocket. It's a good choice for people with smaller hands or who prefer portability over screen area.

The iPhone 6s Plus, however, is a beast. Because of the larger bezels, it's big, even for a 5.5-inch device. Features like Reachability, swipe gestures, and, of course, Siri make one-handed navigation possible, but most of the time you should remain seated with both hands firmly gripping the phone. The most frustrating thing I've encountered when trying to use the 6s Plus with one hand is that my thumb cannot reach the opposite screen edge without shifting my grip, which causes the screen to flip to landscape view, thwarting my intended swipe gesture. While bigger phones like the 6s Plus present usability challenges, the utility of their larger screens can more than make up for these minor annoyances.

Display And Audio

Modern smartphones are really just miniature computers that also do telephony. Rapid advances in computational power are driving phones to adopt larger screens, just they have for every other computing form factor. Either because of denial or stubbornness, it took Apple a bit longer to accept this trend, finally giving its users access to more screen space with the iPhone 6.

After such a radical change, it's no surprise that Apple made no significant screen changes for this generation. The iPhone 6s still uses a 4.7-inch IPS panel with an odd, greater than 720p, 1334x750 resolution, giving it a sufficient 326 PPI pixel density. The larger 6s Plus comes with a 5.5-inch 1080p IPS panel with a 401 PPI density. While most flagship phablets are shipping with QHD (2560x1440) screens these days, the iPhone 6s Plus' 1080p panel is still very sharp. QHD is only really necessary for AMOLED panels (due to having fewer red and blue subpixels than RGB stripe LCD panels), virtual reality applications (because the screen is closer to your eyes), and for people who augmented their genetic code with eagle DNA.

Last year, Apple adopted two technologies for its larger Retina HD Displays that carry over to this generation: photo-aligned crystals and dual-domain pixels. Using light and a photoresist layer to achieve better crystal alignment improves the display's overall performance, including a lower black level and better contrast ratio. Dual-domain pixels, like the name implies, split each pixel into two domains or subpixels that have a slightly different crystal orientation. This technique improves viewing angles: While shifting your view, the pixels oriented away from you become dimmer, but the complementary subpixel oriented towards you gets brighter, partially compensating for that color's brightness reduction.

For our display measurements, we're using SpectraCal's CalMAN software and SpectraCal C6 colorimeter. All of the charts below with a gray background were generated in CalMAN v5 Ultimate. If you would like to learn more about our display testing procedure, or gain a better understanding of how these measurements affect visual quality, please read our article about how we test mobile displays.

The iPhone 6s achieves a max brightness just shy of 550 nits, in between the 6s Plus and iPhone 6. In fact, the last three generations of iPhones all fall between 500 and 600 nits, bright enough to handle nearly every situation except direct sunlight. The only phones we've seen break the 600 nit barrier use Samsung's SAMOLED panels, but only in the Auto overdrive mode. The only other phone we've tested that gets close to 600 nits is the OnePlus 2.

The use of photo-aligned crystals help give the iPhone's displays very good black levels, although not as good as the IPS screens in both the OnePlus 2 and LG G4 (we asked LG if the G4's display also uses photo-aligned crystals, but received no response). Of course none of the IPS screens can match the perfect blacks produced by the AMOLED panels in Samsung's Galaxy S6 devices.

Most flagship phones have an average gamma near the ideal value of 2.2, and the new iPhones are no different. Gamma also varies little with luminance, ensuring good dynamic range and improved color accuracy regardless of display brightness.

All iPhones dating back to the 5s hover right around 7300 K (our 6 Plus being a slight deviation), a slightly cooler color temperature that gives a pure white screen a noticeable, but faint, blue tint. It's obvious that Apple is deliberately targeting this color temperature, but why? Is it the result of market research showing a clear preference for this setting, or maybe it's the value used on Jony Ive's desktop monitor? Whatever the reason, if you've used an iPhone in the past couple of years, the new iPhones' screens will look familiar.

Like most IPS phone displays, the new iPhones show an increasing disparity between red and blue approaching 100 percent luminance. This is what gives the screens their cooler temperature profiles and slight blue cast. It also helps boost the iPhones' max brightness: Because of the blue LEDs used in the backlight, the screen will naturally emit more blue light than red. The only way to achieve a proper RGB balance is to partially close the blue subpixels, limiting max brightness.

The new iPhones do reasonably well with grayscale accuracy, although not as well as Motorola's Moto X Pure Edition or Samsung's Galaxy S6 devices when using the Basic display mode. For luminance values less than about 40 percent, ΔE2000 error remains below three, which is considered good. Grayscale error reaches a maximum of around 5 near 100 percent luminance, the cutoff where error is noticeable but generally acceptable.

Apple continues to target the sRGB color space with its displays, avoiding the overly saturated, inaccurate colors that result from using wide-gamut displays with no software based color management.

Both new iPhones perform the same in the color saturation sweep, with no major problems. Shades of blue are a bit too saturated, though, just missing the target boxes. We can also see how the cooler color temperature pulls the nearby secondary colors, magenta and cyan, towards blue.

While neither iPhone performs system-wide color compression, we did notice that Apple's native Photos app does apply color compression, which is a little surprising. So if you desire better color accuracy when reviewing photos on an iOS device (well, as accurate as you can get on an sRGB screen), you'll need to use a third-party app.

When it comes to color accuracy, both the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus show decent improvements over the previous generation. For the tested colors, ΔE2000 error hovers around three or below, with shades of green being the most accurate, ensuring most of the error will go unnoticed. Just like we saw with grayscale error, however, both Motorola and Samsung (in Basic mode at least) are doing a better job than Apple with display calibration.

Full Size Images: [Color Palette: iPhone 6s], [Color Palette: iPhone 6s Plus]

The color palette above shows the target color on the bottom versus the displayed color on the top and is a nice way of visualizing the color error discussed above [note: the color accuracy of your screen will affect the actual colors you see]. A faint blue tint is visible on the gray shades, but most colors are very close to the target values.

Our display testing found no obvious issues with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The displays are very similar to the previous models, but with slightly improved color accuracy. While Apple cannot claim to have the best smartphone screens, it still sets a performance standard many OEMs have yet to reach.

Audio Performance

Apple continues its longstanding relationship with Cirrus Logic for Audio ICs. Because Apple applies its own numbering system to the chips, we cannot determine their exact specifications. However, the single 338S00105 audio codec likely handles AD/DA conversion, while the two 338S1285 audio ICs probably operate as separate amplifiers for the external speaker and headphones/earpiece.

Also keeping with iPhone tradition, there's only a single, downward-firing speaker for music and audio. While not as good as having it on the front, we find this speaker location preferable to rear-mounted speakers, since there's less likelihood of your hand blocking the speaker when holding the phone or the sound getting muffled when it's sitting on a table.

Listening to a variety of music, ranging from Metallica to Daft Punk, through the external speakers of the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6s shows a clear progression in quality from old to new. Music from the 5s sounds muddy and flat, with subtle background sounds getting lost in the noise. The iPhone 6's sound quality is vastly improved, but still sounds a bit tinny. The 6 also seems to emphasize the strongest sound (usually vocals for music), while suppressing background tones.

The quality improvement from the 6 to the 6s is smaller than the jump from the 5s to the 6, but it's still quite noticeable. Sound from the iPhone 6s is fuller, shedding some of the tinniness of the prior model. Music is also clearer, allowing you to better isolate individual instruments and sounds in the background. Bass output is similar, but drums sound a bit tighter on the 6s.

The new iPhone also delivers more balanced sound output, eliminating the iPhone 6's tendency to exaggerate vocals or the loudest instrument. Depending on personal preferences and what's playing, this change can be either good or bad. The max volume is sufficiently loud to be heard across the room and is essentially the same as the iPhone 6, but louder than the 5s.

Headphone output sounds excellent, with no discernible difference in audio quality between the iPhone 6 and 6s. The iPhone continues to be our reference device for headphone sound quality, although several devices, such as the LG G4 and Sony's Xperia line, now match the iPhone's listening experience.

Camera Features

iPhones have had very good, if not the best, rear cameras for a number of years. Over the past year, however, we've seen phones such as Samsung's Galaxy S6 usurp the iPhone’s camera performance crown. Take image detail, for example. Phone cameras now routinely exceed 20 MP, but the iPhone has been stuck at 8 MP since the 4s came out four years ago.

Note: For an explanation of camera hardware and terminology, please see our Camera Phone Technology 101 article.

While pixel count is not the only factor that determines image quality (as noted in our 101 article linked above), Apple's iSight camera is due for an update. After acquiring LinX, an Israel-based company that develops multi-aperture cameras, and PrimeSense, which worked on Microsoft's original Kinect, expectations were high. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait for the iPhone 7 to see this radical new camera in action; the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus stick with a conventional smartphone camera design.

The new iPhones get a new camera sensor at least. Recent iSight cameras were made by Sony, and it appears this new sensor is too. Resolution increases to 12 MP, but the sensor size remains unchanged. Packing more pixels into the same size sensor means pixel size decreases to 1.22µm from 1.5µm. Generally speaking, smaller pixels capture less light, reducing low-light performance and dynamic range, which is a cause for some concern.

While Apple was one of the first companies to embrace backside-illuminated sensors, it has taken the company a bit longer to adopt deep trench isolation technology. Samsung's ISOCELL sensors have been using this technique, which reduces electrical and optical crosstalk by surrounding each pixel with a barrier material, for a couple of generations now. This improves color fidelity by keeping charge from leaking into a red pixel from a blue pixel, for example.

The new sensor still includes Focus Pixels, which is just Apple's way of saying phase detect autofocus (PDAF). The iPhone still has the best implementation of PDAF, delivering smooth, continuous autofocus that locks onto objects very quickly.

Another expected feature for a flagship phone camera is optical image stabilization (OIS). This technology helps reduce motion blur caused by shaky hands. It's especially helpful in low-light situations since it allows the camera to use a longer exposure and still capture a sharp image. Like last time, however, this feature is exclusive to the Plus version of the iPhone. It's unfortunate that Apple withholds this feature from the smaller iPhone 6s, especially considering the move to smaller pixels. We'll see in the next section if this omission handicaps the iPhone 6s' low-light performance.

It appears the iPhone 6s uses the same optics as the iPhone 6 and 5s, an array of five lenses. This is possible since it keeps the same sensor size and focal length. Another thing that has not changed is the f/2.2 aperture, which would require a thicker camera module. Most flagship phones are trying to improve low-light performance by switching to larger f/2.0 to f/1.8 apertures, putting the iPhone 6s at a disadvantage. The LG G4's f/1.8 aperture lens, for instance, is 69 percent larger. Other flagships from the current generation have apertures larger than the iPhone 6s too, including the Moto X Pure Edition at 53 percent, the Galaxy S6/S6 edge+/Note5 at 44 percent, the OnePlus 2 at 41 percent, and the HTC One M9 at 30 percent. By reducing pixel size and stubbornly refusing to update the camera's optics, Apple risks compromising the iPhone's performance.

The iPhone's front-facing FaceTime HD camera also gets an update for this generation. The new sensor in the iPhone 6s squeezes 5 MP into the same 1/5" size sensor as the previous 1.2 MP shooter. This means pixel size decreases to 1.12µm from 1.9µm, which could have some negative side effects.

To cope with the higher resolution images from the new sensors, the iPhone 6s includes a new Apple-designed image signal processor (ISP). The hardware itself is a mystery, but Apple claims it provides better temporal and spatial noise reduction, which could help compensate for the new camera's smaller pixels. The ISP also implements Apple's third-generation local tone mapping algorithm that helps preserve contrast in high dynamic range (HDR) images.

Camera Software

Apple's Camera app has a simplistic interface that provides very little control over the camera's settings, relying almost exclusively on automatic software controls. Fortunately, the iPhone's autofocus, autoexposure, and auto white balance are the best we've seen in a smartphone, making the capture of images and video an easy point-and-shoot affair.

The camera interface provides easy access to the flash, HDR, and self-timer controls on one side. There's also the obligatory button to switch between the front and rear cameras. Unlike most other controls that allow you to just tap them to change settings, Apple's camera controls only reveal the underlying options when tapped, forcing you to tap again on the desired option. This hunt-and-peck method is less efficient than simply tapping the same button once or twice.

In the middle of these other controls is a new toggle for the Live Photos feature available only on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. When active, it records 1.5 seconds of audio and video before and after the time when the shutter button is pressed, turning a snapshot in time into a three second period you can bring back to life by pressing on the photo. Beyond viewing them in the photo gallery, they can also be used to create a dynamic wallpaper on the Lock screen. These short moments are also shareable within Apple's universe, but outsiders will only see the still image.

Live Photos works by continuously recording video into a small, rolling memory buffer that continuously discards unused video beyond the previous 1.5 seconds. This feature works with both the front and rear cameras, resulting in a still image in JPEG format and a small MOV video file. The still images are recorded at each camera's full resolution, while the video (1440x1080 rear and 1280x960 front) is cropped to a 4:3 aspect ratio to match the photo. The H.264 High profile video is recorded at 13-15 fps and is accompanied by a single 16-bit 44.1kHz PCM audio channel.

The appeal of Live Photos is debatable; some people will love it and leave it turned on all the time, while others will try it a few times before turning it off and forgetting about it. Its biggest limitation is the low frame rate that makes it unsuitable for capturing scenes with fast motion—even scenes with moderate motion look choppy. There are times, however, where Live Photos successfully adds emotional impact to a still image—trees blowing in a light breeze or an animated facial expression, for example. Just keep in mind that Live Photos take up an additional 3-4MB of storage space each, and because the camera is constantly recording video whenever the Camera app is open, it drains the battery a little faster.

The other half of the camera interface includes a dedicated shutter button and a button that provides access to a small selection of image filters. The filters are not particularly useful, but there's a live preview of the effects in both the thumbnail selection view and the viewfinder. There's also a small thumbnail of the last picture taken that opens the photo gallery when tapped or a full-screen preview when gently pressed, utilizing the new 3D Touch Peek feature. Curiously, when "Peeking" there's an image scrubber for quickly scanning through photos in the portrait interface, but not in landscape.

Pressing a little harder will Pop the image open into a photo viewer with a black theme that differs from the regular Photos app. This darker interface includes an image scrubber along the bottom for selecting a photo as well as options to favorite, share, or delete the image, just like the Photos app. The image editor found in the Photos app is also accessible from within the darker interface, providing controls to crop and rotate, adjust brightness and color properties, and apply photo filters. Tapping "All Photos" in the upper-left corner launches the Photos app.

Above the shutter button is a text-based slider for selecting the camera mode; this control is incredibly awkward. For starters, it does not rotate with the screen, leaving the text vertical in landscape mode. The biggest issue, though, is the control's finicky nature: roughly 50 percent of the time it moves in the wrong direction, either jumping randomly when you first touch it or moving opposite to the direction you swipe. It's absolutely infuriating. Numerous times I've missed an opportunity to capture something my son is doing on video just because I cannot select the video option. In addition to the standard Photo and Video modes, there's also options for taking square format photos, panoramic photos, and time-lapse videos—assuming you have the patience to keep swiping until you land on the right option.

Outside of the standard tap-to-focus option and a manual exposure slider, there's no additional camera controls in the iPhone's stock camera app, not even an option to set image resolution. Fortunately, Apple added an API in iOS 8 that exposes the more advanced controls, allowing third-party app developers to fill the void. Using one of these other camera apps, you can manually control ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and exposure.

The interface for the FaceTime HD camera is exactly the same as the rear iSight camera. Features are mostly the same too, including support for automatic HDR and Live Photos. The only features not supported by the front-facing camera are panoramic images and slow motion video.

Besides the new sensor, the front-facing camera on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus adds the Retina Flash feature that uses the display's backlight to illuminate selfies. This is a rather clever reuse of existing hardware that other phones have employed too, notably LG's G3 and G4. Apple's Retina Flash actually uses a custom chip to control the backlight, temporarily boosting brightness by a factor of three. Similar to the True Tone flash on the back, there's a preflash that the camera uses to evaluate the current lighting condition and then the main flash that's adjusted based on the ambient lighting to produce more realistic colors.

Video

Shooting video with the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus is very similar in both features and quality to the iPhone 6 with two notable exceptions. First, the iPhone can now (finally) shoot 4K video thanks to the higher resolution 12 MP iSight camera. UHD 4K video requires ~8.3 MP, in addition to extra pixels around the frame's borders to provide oversampling for electronic image stabilization (EIS), which is why the iPhone 6 and earlier were limited to 1080p. Second, the iPhone 6s Plus can now use OIS, in addition to EIS, while recording video. Combining these two different image stabilization techniques should further dampen vibrations both big and small, resulting in smoother, steadier video.

Rear Camera Video Modes

Front Camera Video Modes

All video recorded with the new iPhones uses the H.264 high profile. The bit rate for 1080p30 video is a fairly standard 17 Mb/s, the same rate as Samsung's Galaxy S6 family of devices and LG's G4. There's also a 1080p60 option, which is something not available on all flagship phones yet, that produces very fluid video and is great for capturing scenes with a lot of motion. The new 4K video option records at 50 Mb/s, about the same as the Galaxy S6's 48 Mb/s but more than the G4's relatively low 30 Mb/s. Unlike the 5-minute time restriction enforced by most other phones, there's no time restriction when recording 4K video with the iPhone, and you can capture 8 MP still images while recording 4K video too.

When it comes to slow motion video, the iPhone still produces the best results by far. While others struggle just to create choppy, low-quality 720p120 video with no audio track, the iPhone produces smooth 720p240 video along with audio. The 6s even adds a new 1080p120 slow motion option. Because these modes use higher compression to keep file size reasonable, there is more image noise than what’s present in the regular video modes.

Video quality for the other video modes is also very good. Image noise is comparable to other flagship phones such as the Galaxy S6. The 4K video, however, does exhibit noticeably more noise than the HD modes because of the higher compression and the limits of H.264, an issue that plagues all other phones that shoot 4K video too. We'll have to wait for H.265 support before we can realize the full quality benefit from 4K video.

The iPhone 6s still lacks support for HDR video recording, a limitation that’s especially noticeable when recording outdoors. The good news is the iPhone’s camera does a good job prioritizing exposure so that the subject of the video is usually properly lit, even though the sky may be overexposed or shadows underexposed. It also adjusts exposure quickly when it encounters a change in lighting conditions. The same is true of the iPhone’s auto white balance routine. Color accuracy is very good in most circumstances.

What the iPhone really excels at is using PDAF for continuous autofocus. As the camera or subject moves, focus is continuously adjusted, always keeping the video looking sharp. This also frees you from having to tap the screen to refocus during recording. You can see an example video of PDAF in action from our iPhone 6 review.

As mentioned above, the iPhone 6s Plus now uses OIS along with EIS in all recording modes to help create smoother videos. While the addition of OIS does help dampen some vibration from hand shake, it creates some undesirable side effects of its own. The first is OIS wobble, where the camera tilts whenever there’s a change in direction. The iPhone’s cinematic video stabilization (EIS) does reduce this disorienting effect, making it less noticeable than on other phones such as the Galaxy S6 and LG G4. The second, related issue is OIS jitter, which occurs whenever the sensor reaches its excursion limit. This is most noticeable when walking; each step causes a small vertical vibration in the video. Personally, I prefer the iPhone 6s' EIS only solution that produces more natural looking video.

Even though the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus do not achieve video nirvana—there's a reason why companies still make dedicated video cameras—they are the most well-rounded smartphones for recording video, with no glaring weak points.

Camera Performance And Photo Quality

It's time to see if the iPhone's new 12 MP iSight camera is an upgrade over the previous generation, or if the smaller pixels are a step backwards. All of the images shown below were taken using the stock camera app's Auto mode unless noted. Also, you can view the full-sized image for each photo by clicking the text links below the images that are within a slideshow album. The LG G4 and Galaxy S6 both use a native 16:9 aspect ratio, although most of the G4's pictures were taken with a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is what all of the iPhones use. This does not impact the quality of the G4's pictures, since it just crops the edges of the frame. Also, our Galaxy S6 uses the Sony Exmor RS IMX240 image sensor, which we've shown to produce better images than the alternate Samsung S5K2P2 ISOCELL sensor.

Outdoors

Daylight

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: daylight island], [iPhone 6: daylight island], [iPhone 6s Plus: daylight island], [iPhone 6 Plus: daylight island], [iPhone 5s: daylight island], [LG G4: daylight island], [Galaxy S6: daylight island], [iPhone 6s: daylight fountain], [iPhone 6: daylight fountain], [iPhone 6s Plus: daylight fountain], [iPhone 6 Plus: daylight fountain], [iPhone 5s: daylight fountain], [LG G4: daylight fountain], [Galaxy S6: daylight fountain]

In our first set of images, taken on a partially overcast day, we see some minor differences between the test images. The 5s uses the fastest shutter speed, resulting in the darkest image overall, with the iPhone 6 and 6s devices using progressively longer exposures, increasing brightness a bit. The 6s phones also have a slightly lower minimum ISO of 25 versus 32 for the previous model. The LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy S6 use the longest exposures, resulting in the brightest images.

Both models of the iPhone 6 and 6s set the white balance correctly, capturing the most natural colors. The 5s, G4, and Galaxy S6 are pretty close, but skew just a little too warm.

The 6s and 6s Plus appear to have more detail than the earlier iPhones, but this is mostly because they do a better job adjusting focus, and because they seem to be using more aggressive edge sharpening, which produces additional aliasing along some edges. The Galaxy S6 image is noticeably sharper and more detailed than any of the iPhone images.

Speaking of sharpness, the right side of the G4's image is noticeably lacking it. We've noticed this in a couple of other images too, where the right side is blurrier than the left. Since this does not happen consistently, it appears to be a side effect of noise reduction processing. There's also some noise reduction artifacts around edges, especially noticeable around the ropes. The iPhone's noise reduction looks better here, producing a smooth-looking sky with no edge artifacts. Compared to the iPhone 6, the 6s produces more noticeable noise grain in the water, the darkest part of the scene. The S6 shows the least amount of noise overall.

When there's an abundance of sunlight, like in the second set of images with the fountain, differences in image quality are far more subtle, with all phones producing nice pictures. For the most part, our observations from the first set of images also apply here, with the only notable exception being the slightly cooler white balance of the S6 and G4.

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: daylight flowers], [iPhone 6: daylight flowers], [iPhone 6s Plus: daylight flowers], [iPhone 6 Plus: daylight flowers], [iPhone 5s: daylight flowers], [LG G4: daylight flowers], [Galaxy S6: daylight flowers], [iPhone 6s: daylight cactus], [iPhone 6: daylight cactus], [iPhone 6s Plus: daylight cactus], [iPhone 6 Plus: daylight cactus], [iPhone 5s: daylight cactus], [LG G4: daylight cactus], [Galaxy S6: daylight cactus]

Once again, on an overcast day, the iPhone 5s sets the shortest exposure and captures the darkest image of the yellow flowers. While there's no brightness difference between the iPhone 6 and 6s images, both 6s cameras use a longer exposure again. This seems to be a necessary change to compensate for the lower ISO and the new sensor’s smaller pixels.

Other than the luminance difference, and the fact that the 5s image is a little out of focus, the images from all of the iPhones look very similar. Colors look good and are nicely saturated, however, they all suffer from aggressive noise reduction that blurs edges and adds an unnatural waviness to the out-of-focus background. Overall, the differences between the iPhone 6 and 6s images are subtle. The iPhone 6s' extra pixels improve detail, but it's a little disappointing that we do not see a bigger jump in quality.

In this situation, the Galaxy S6 once again produces the best image. It's bright, with excellent color and detail. Image noise is minimal, and the camera's larger aperture creates a nice bokeh effect. The only issue we see with the S6's image is some color haloing around edges, likely caused by a post-processing sharpening filter. In contrast, the iPhone's sharpening filter appears to only work on the luminance channel, rather than RGB, creating a more subtle light/dark outline.

Depending on personal taste, the LG G4's image could also be judged superior to the iPhone 6s'. Its colors look nice but are not as saturated as the iPhone's. The G4's noise reduction algorithm, which works progressively better with less available light, does a better job than the iPhone's. What really sets the G4's image apart from the others, though, is its limited depth of field, a product of having the largest aperture of any current smartphone. Only the yellow flowers in the foreground are in focus, with the rest of the image mostly blurry. While the G4's limited depth of field works to its advantage in the closeup of the flowers, the bokeh effect is not always desirable; it cannot keep the entire cactus in focus, for example.

In the cactus pictures, the iPhone 6s cameras exhibit better dynamic range as compared to the earlier iPhone models. The greater difference between highlights and shadows gives the images better overall contrast. Colors in all of the iPhone images look a bit too saturated, although we find this preferable to the dull and lifeless G4 image. Even though the Galaxy S6 captures more detail than the iPhones, the iPhone images look sharper from a distance because of their more aggressive sharpening filter.

Afternoon

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: afternoon giraffes], [iPhone 6: afternoon giraffes], [iPhone 6s Plus: afternoon giraffes], [iPhone 6 Plus: afternoon giraffes], [iPhone 5s: afternoon giraffes], [LG G4: afternoon giraffes], [Galaxy S6: afternoon giraffes], [iPhone 6s: afternoon square], [iPhone 6: afternoon square], [iPhone 6s Plus: afternoon square], [iPhone 6 Plus: afternoon square], [iPhone 5s: afternoon square], [LG G4: afternoon square], [Galaxy S6: afternoon square]

While hunting big game in Africa, we stumbled upon these giraffes. It was late in the afternoon, on an overcast day, and with no large predators in sight, we decided to take advantage of this challenging lighting condition to test smartphone cameras. The LG G4 produces the worst looking image of the group by far, partly because the image is too dark and partly because the G4's camera consistently focuses on the plants in front, leaving everything behind, including the giraffes, blurry. The Galaxy S6 produces a nicely detailed image once again that's a bit darker than the iPhone images but with richer colors. Image noise is minimal and similar to the iPhone 6s, including some light halos around objects from the noise reduction processing.

Looking at just the iPhone images, there's very little variation from one generation to the next. The iPhone 5s image is a little brighter and warmer, but otherwise there's no significant differences.

In the second group of images showing a town square close to sunset, the Galaxy S6 stands out as the clear winner. Its image shows the highest level of detail with the least amount of noise. Even in challenging lighting, all of the iPhone images are near identical. In this case, any detail advantage from the iPhone 6s' higher resolution camera is nullified by more aggressive noise reduction.

Evening

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: night trees], [iPhone 6: night trees], [iPhone 6s Plus: night trees], [iPhone 6 Plus: night trees], [iPhone 5s: night trees], [LG G4: night trees], [Galaxy S6: night trees], [iPhone 6s: night parking lot], [iPhone 6: night parking lot], [iPhone 6s Plus: night parking lot], [iPhone 6 Plus: night parking lot], [iPhone 5s: night parking lot], [LG G4: night parking lot], [Galaxy S6: night parking lot]

The sun had just dipped below the horizon in the first set of images showing some palm trees and a waterfall, giving the cameras very little light to work with. In this situation, the LG G4 engages a special low-light mode with a longer exposure (notice how the waterfall looks more smeared), making the scene very bright—albeit unnaturally so—with everything clearly visible. All of the cameras with OIS make good use of it, holding their shutters open longer (33 percent for the G4 and S6 and 73 percent for the iPhone Plus models), allowing them to let in more light or, in the case of the iPhones, to decrease ISO and noise. While the iPhone images look dark, they do a good job of capturing how the scene actually looked. The Galaxy S6 takes the middle road, boosting brightness enough to easily see the scene but avoids the G4's unnatural appearance by not going too far.

Noise can severely degrade image quality in low-light situations. The Galaxy S6 manages to keep noise levels acceptably low, while still preserving a lot of detail; you can still see individual bricks on the ground and texture on the trees. Capturing more light with a longer exposure helps reduce noise in the G4's image. It also uses post-processing routines to smooth noise grain at the expense of fine detail. All of the cameras without OIS—iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6s—exhibit significantly more visible noise, which is most obvious in the image taken by the iPhone 6s, where more aggressive edge sharpening actually enhances the noise grain. Both of the iPhone Plus models perform better than the non-Plus models, with the 6s Plus showing a slight edge over the 6 Plus.

The second set of pictures of the parking lot were taken after dark. The cameras all choose their longest exposure setting again but raise ISO to compensate for the lower-light condition. Using its special low-light mode, the G4 takes the brightest image, overexposing the streetlights and bright lights on the building in the process. The Galaxy S6 image is not as bright as the G4, but it maintains a higher level of contrast with less haloing around light sources. Again, the iPhones produce darker images that more accurately reflect the actual luminance in the scene, with only minor differences between them. Whether you prefer the brighter images from the S6 and G4 or the more natural images from the iPhone is a matter of personal taste.

HDR

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: stream - no HDR], [iPhone 6s: stream - HDR], [iPhone 6: stream - no HDR], [iPhone 6: stream - HDR], [iPhone 6s Plus: stream - no HDR], [iPhone 6s Plus: stream - HDR], [iPhone 6 Plus: stream - no HDR], [iPhone 6 Plus: stream - HDR], [iPhone 5s: stream - no HDR], [iPhone 5s: stream - HDR], [LG G4: stream - no HDR], [LG G4: stream - HDR], [Galaxy S6: stream - no HDR], [Galaxy S6: stream - HDR]

In the first set of HDR images, the Galaxy S6 does an excellent job brightening the shadows and reducing the glare on the roof in the background. The G4 also handles the shadows well, but basically ignores the brighter areas; the details of the netting are completely lost in the bright sky. Unfortunately, we see no improvement in HDR quality for the iPhone 6s, which continues to have the most conservative and underwhelming HDR mode of any flagship phone. All the iPhones do a nice job correcting the overexposed sky and reducing the glare on the roof, but instead of brightening the shadows they actually make the darker areas even darker. All of the HDR images show some purple fringing, a byproduct of the HDR processing, along edges bordering the sky; however, the Galaxy S6 also shows some additional purple spots amongst the leaves.

Before our trek across the African plains, we stopped by this watering hole filled with flamingos and snapped some more pictures. In this case, the G4 comes out on top by correcting both light and dark areas equally well without washing away too much color saturation. The Galaxy S6 also brightens up the shadows but leaves the sky and some of the flamingos standing in the hot sun overexposed. Its colors look good and noise is low, but there’s some loss of detail and color artifacts on the fence as well as some purple fringing around the flamingos, something the G4’s HDR algorithm avoids. The iPhones play it conservative again, reducing some of the glare but not lightening the shadows. There’s also some purple fringing, but it’s not as bad as in the G6 image.

With its new ISP and local tone mapping algorithm, we were certainly expecting more from the iPhone 6s' HDR mode. Instead its HDR images are no different than the iPhone 6's. The new ISP is fast, though, snapping HDR images with only about a one second delay.

Indoors

The staged indoor shots below were lit by overhead LED lights, a CFL lamp from the front, and an incandescent overhead light in the background.

Bright Light

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: indoor mall], [iPhone 6: indoor mall], [iPhone 6s Plus: indoor mall], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor mall], [iPhone 5s: indoor mall], [LG G4: indoor mall], [Galaxy S6: indoor mall], [iPhone 6s: indoor bright], [iPhone 6: indoor bright], [iPhone 6s Plus: indoor bright], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor bright], [iPhone 5s: indoor bright], [LG G4: indoor bright], [Galaxy S6: indoor bright]

Shooting pictures indoors without natural light makes setting white balance more challenging. Inside this shopping mall, all of the iPhones opt for a cooler tone, while the S6 and G4 are a little warmer. Overall the S6 produces the best looking image, with pleasing colors, minimal noise, good detail, and proper exposure.

Moving indoors does not elicit any new behavior from the iPhones; their images all still look about the same. Zooming in, both Plus models show a little less noise than the non-Plus versions, and both 6s models smooth noise grain a little better while maintaining better sharpness.

There's less light to work with in the second set of images, leading to more noise and more difficulty with white balance. The iPhone images have a reddish tint, the G4 image is a yellowish-green, and the S6 has a green tint. The iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus make better use of OIS to increase exposure and reduce ISO. In this scene, both the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus capture sharper images with less noise than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The 6s Plus image has a bit less noise than the other iPhone images, putting it about on par with the Galaxy S6.

Low Light and Flash

Full-Size Images:[iPhone 6s: indoor dark], [iPhone 6: indoor dark], [iPhone 6s Plus: indoor dark], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor dark], [iPhone 5s: indoor dark], [LG G4: indoor dark], [Galaxy S6: indoor dark], [iPhone 6s: indoor flash], [iPhone 6: indoor flash], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor flash], [iPhone 5s: indoor flash], [LG G4: indoor flash], [Galaxy S6: indoor flash]

Our lowest-light scene is lit only by an incandescent light in the background. The G4 struggles with white balance again, creating an image with an ugly yellow tint. However, the G4's noise reduction algorithm, which works better as light levels drop, does an excellent job wiping away noise while preserving image detail, including the numbers on the book and the thin lines on the figures’ clothing.

The iPhone 5s is the worst of the iPhones, its red-tinted image shows the most noise of any device in this roundup. The new 6s Plus pulls ahead of the other iPhones and is about on par with the Galaxy S6.

Front-Facing Camera

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s: front camera indoors], [iPhone 6s: front camera outdoors]

The iPhone's new front-facing FaceTime HD camera produces nice looking images. It usually does a good job setting white balance and exposure, although our outdoor example above should be a little brighter. Its extra pixels and less heavy-handed noise reduction processing give the iPhone 6s an edge in detail and sharpness over the iPhone 6, but noise grain is a bit more visible in the background with the new camera. The iPhone also does not seem to apply any automatic "beautification" processing to smooth skin wrinkles and blemishes like the Galaxy S6.

Additional Sample Images

Full-Size Images: [iPhone 6s Plus: sample bakery], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample windmill], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample clock tower], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample flower bed], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample trees], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample tower], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample cafe], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample flowers], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample fall tree], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample desert 1], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample desert 2], [iPhone 6s Plus: sample desert 3]

After taking and comparing a lot of different photos, we cannot help but feel disappointed by the iPhone 6s' new iSight camera. In most situations, there's no perceivable difference in image quality between it and the iPhone 6 version. It's only in very low-light conditions where we see a small improvement in sharpness with less visible noise. Withholding OIS from the iPhone 6s hurts image quality, as its images consistently show more noise than those from the 6s Plus.

The Galaxy S6 still has the best camera, beating the iPhone 6s in every condition we tested. The 6s Plus manages to pull even with the S6 in some very low-light conditions, but still gets outperformed in most situations. We would place the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus above the LG G4, however, because of the G4's white balance issues and inconsistent noise reduction processing.

Apple A9 CPU And System Performance

The biggest change for Apple’s A9 SoC is the move from TSMC’s HKMG 20nm node to the new FinFET process technology. Using a 3D structure—where the silicon channel gets extended into a vertical wall or fin and then wrapped by the gate—decouples the transistor from the bulk of the silicon substrate. This allows the operating current to be controlled via three channel surfaces instead of one like in a 2D planar structure and also significantly reduces leakage current. The improved electrical characteristics allow 3D transistors to operate at a lower voltage, reducing dynamic power and heat, which the chip designer can take advantage of to improve battery life and/or performance by ramping up the clock frequency.

With all of its advantages, it’s no surprise to see the A9 jump to FinFET. What is surprising, however, is Apple using two different suppliers (a practice called dual sourcing). This is commonly used by OEMs for many smartphone components, including displays, RAM, and NAND, but generally not for SoCs because of the additional engineering cost to tape-out with two different foundries, each with its own libraries and quirks. We can only speculate as to why Apple spent extra money going this route, but since this is the first generation of FinFET, perhaps Apple wanted to play it safe in case one or both suppliers encountered yield issues or otherwise could not meet Apple’s demand.

Ultimately, dual sourcing means there’s two different variations of the A9—one made using Samsung’s 14nm LPE (Low Power Early) FinFET process and one using TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process. While the actual chip architecture and clock frequencies are the same for both, there are some minor differences. First, the Samsung die is a bit smaller, as seen above, thanks to the tighter gate pitch. More importantly, the two different processes will naturally have different voltage-frequency curves, meaning an A9 built with one process will consume less power at the same frequency as an A9 built on the competing process. This leads to an obvious question: Which A9 variant is better?

While we cannot answer this question definitively due to our limited sample size, our testing shows that performance is identical between both versions with only a small difference in battery life. In tests that run the CPU or GPU at 100 percent for extended periods of time (an extreme scenario not seen in real-world use), our test unit with a Samsung made A9 shows 3 to 11 percent better battery life. In a video playback test, where the CPU and GPU are mostly idle, our TSMC A9 sample shows a 2 to 3 percent battery life advantage, the same difference quoted by Apple. Based on these results, along with similar results obtained by other testers, we feel the differences between the two A9 versions are a non-issue.

Regardless of foundry, the A9 still employs a dual-core 64-bit CPU compatible with the ARMv8-A architecture. In many respects, Apple’s custom designed Twister CPU core shares many similarities to the Typhoon core in the A8 SoC. Based on AnandTech’s analysis, Twister has the same IPC (instructions per cycle) as Typhoon—capable of decoding, issuing, and executing up to six instructions per cycle—and retains a comparatively large out-of-order instruction reorder buffer. The execution stage sees a few minor tweaks, though, including a one cycle reduction in floating-point latency (a 20 percent improvement for multiplies and 25 percent for additions) and the ability to perform three FP32 floating-point multiply instructions in parallel instead of two.

Apple A9 (Samsung) Die: Modified by Tom’s Hardware [Image Source: Chipworks]

In addition to improving floating-point performance, Apple also increases the L2 cache size from 1MB to 3MB and changes the 4MB L3 cache from being inclusive (L3 retains a copy of the L2 cache) to victim (L3 holds data evicted from L2). Cache latency also improves thanks in part to a significant increase in clock frequency.

One of AnandTech’s more interesting findings is a significant reduction in the branch mispredict penalty, anywhere from 33 to 50 percent. It’s not clear how this is achieved, but it’s likely a combination of the larger cache, lower cache latency, and more aggressive prefetching. Because real-world code is generally branch heavy, this change could have a noticeable impact on user experience.

Along with the architectural tweaks, Apple takes full advantage of its move to FinFET, boosting CPU frequency from 1.4GHz to 1.85GHz, a 32.1 percent increase. Historically, Apple has been conservative with clock frequency in an effort to conserve power, relying on its wide architecture for performance. Now with FinFET, Apple gets to erase most of the clock frequency advantage held by its narrower-architecture competitors and really ramp up performance.

Like most current-generation flagship phones, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus use the new LPDDR4 RAM, which uses 35 to 40 percent less power (according to Samsung) and delivers greater bandwidth through higher operating frequencies.

The STREAM benchmark in Geekbench 3 gives us some insight into the evolution of memory performance over the last few generations. Both the A7 and A8 have the same size L2/L3 cache and use LPDDR3-933 (14.9GBps) RAM, so it’s no surprise to see only a small increase in STREAM performance (roughly 8 percent), likely due to memory controller optimizations or lower RAM latencies. The STREAM Copy metric—which is the most indicative of memory bus performance, because it simply copies the contents of one large array to another—shows that the LPDDR4-1600 (25.6GBps) RAM helps give the A9 a significant boost in throughput. The STREAM Scale, Add, and Triad tests all see some additional benefit from the reduced floating-point add/multiply latency. Throughput in the Scale test lags behind the values obtained in the Add and Triad tests in part, because floating-point add instructions have one cycle less latency than the multiply instruction used exclusively in the Scale test.

It’s interesting to see the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus deliver more throughput here than the Galaxy S6, another phone that uses LPDDR4 memory. We cannot extrapolate these results to general memory performance, however, because the STREAM tests only use sequential data structures. Based on the results we’ve collected in other tests, we know that the memory controllers used in Apple’s A7 and A8 both perform well with serial access patterns and poorly when dealing with more random memory access. In contrast, the Exynos 7420 used in Samsung’s Galaxy S6 is more of a generalist and is not optimized for any specific type of memory access. What the STREAM data tells us then is that the A9’s memory controller continues Apple’s tradition of optimizing for serial memory access, perhaps to boost performance when reading or writing images (think burst performance), video, and GPU textures, or just writing to the frame buffer.

To better understand how the STREAM benchmark included in Geekbench works, or to learn more about our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device system performance.

Apple’s A8 SoC delivers the best single-core integer and floating-point performance of any current flagship phone. Well, except for the A9 in the iPhone 6s. The fact that the A8’s Typhoon CPU core, used in last year’s iPhone 6 and running at only 1.4GHz with LPDDR3 RAM, is still faster than anything Samsung, Qualcomm, MediaTek, etc. produce is impressive.

Even more impressive are the 55 percent and 60 percent gains in integer and floating-point performance, respectively, by the latest A9 SoC. The 32.1 percent increase in CPU frequency explains most of the A9’s performance boost, but there’s clearly more going on here. As expected, floating-point performance sees a larger increase, relative to the A8, than integer performance because of the architectural improvements to the floating-point units, although the difference is small. It appears that both integer and floating-point performance benefit significantly from the larger, lower-latency L2 cache, and, to a lesser extent, the LPDDR4 memory, since not all of the Geekbench data sets fit within cache.

Despite having only two CPU cores, versus six to eight cores for the non-Apple phones in these charts, the A9 still posts the best multi-core floating-point performance. It does fall behind the Exynos 7420 used in the Galaxy S6 devices and the Snapdragon 810 v2.1 in the OnePlus 2 in integer performance, however. Still, the A9’s multi-core integer performance is good enough to outpace the Snapdragon 808 (which has two fewer Cortex-A57 cores than the 810) used in the LG G4 and Moto X Pure Edition. It also beats the older revision Snapdragon 810 SoC used in HTC’s One M9, which falls back to the lower-performing Cortex-A53 cores due to thermal constraints.

The difference between the iPhone 5s and 6s serves as a good example of just how quickly mobile systems are advancing. In just two generations, Apple has nearly doubled performance in the Basemark OS II System test, which performs a number of subtests to gauge CPU and memory performance. In the OpenGL ES 2.0 based Graphics test, the iPhone 6s is 324 percent faster than the 5s! Imagine the possibilities if desktop systems could advance at a similar rate.

Going back just one generation, the iPhone 6s is still 43 percent faster than the iPhone 6 in the System test, 18 percent faster in the Web test, and 81 percent faster in the Graphics test (the 6s Plus is only 69 percent faster than the 6 Plus, since the GPU was clocked higher on the 6 Plus).

Ignoring the broken Memory test, the new iPhones deliver noticeably better performance here. The iPhone 6s is 43 percent faster than the Galaxy S6 in the System test, currently the fastest Android phone when it comes to CPU/memory performance, and it’s 33 percent faster than Qualcomm’s Adreno 430 in HTC’s One M9.

When discussing system performance, you cannot forget the importance of internal storage. Back when the Galaxy S6 was released, we praised Samsung for being the first to implement a UFS 2.0 based storage solution, improving NAND performance over the traditional eMMC interface. Now it appears that Samsung’s moment of glory has passed. According to AnandTech’s sleuthing, Apple includes a custom NVMe-based PCI-E storage controller in the new iPhones, which boosts sequential reads and writes significantly. We’re not talking laptop/desktop class SSD performance here, this solution still has to work within the power and size limits of a smartphone, but this is yet another move that closes the gap between phones and laptops just a little more.

Unfortunately, we do not have any iOS benchmarks that gauge performance in real-world usage scenarios like we do on the Android platform. One thing that’s easy to measure, and is something we do quite often, is open apps. NAND performance is the obvious bottleneck in this scenario, but CPU and RAM performance come into play too. In the charts above, we show the time to launch several common apps as well as how long it takes to boot the OS. Since the iPhones are all running the same OS and apps, we can draw some conclusions about hardware performance. Once we move beyond Apple hardware, however, this becomes impossible, since we’re dealing with completely different software. These comparisons are still useful, though, in terms of the difference in performance a user perceives.

The cumulative time to load all apps on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is 16 percent faster than the previous generation. Not a big increase, but noticeable, particularly when opening Maps. Given the large increase in NAND, CPU, and memory performance, it’s disappointing not to see larger gains here.

Casting a wider net, we see that Samsung’s Galaxy S6 devices, along with LG’s G4, offer a better experience when launching apps, although the iPhone 6s gets you into the camera the fastest. The iPhones are generally quick to boot too, but for some reason the 6s Plus consistently takes longer to boot than the 6s.

The iPhones do well as always in the browser-based tests, with the iPhone 6s 42 to 90 percent faster than last year’s iPhone 6. Safari’s optimized JavaScript engine clearly outpaces Chrome in these tests.

Based on the data above, Apple’s tweaked Twister CPU in the A9 is clearly the fastest available now. That’s not really surprising considering that Apple’s competitors still cannot match the A8 SoC’s performance in some tests. The A9 benefits most from the move to FinFET, enabling a higher CPU frequency, a larger L2 cache, and lower cache latencies. Combining these benefits with higher bandwidth LPDDR4 RAM and Apple’s custom NVMe-based PCI-E storage controller makes the iPhone 6s the smartphone performance king—a title it should hold for the foreseeable future (at least in CPU performance), since it’s unlikely that any SoCs based on ARM’s Cortex-A72 CPU, which is optimized more for power efficiency than performance, will surpass the A9 in the coming year. Even Qualcomm’s custom 64-bit Kryo CPU cannot touch the A9’s integer and floating-point performance based on the results from our Snapdragon 820 Performance Preview.

GPU And Gaming Performance

Apple’s A9 SoC includes an Imagination Technologies PowerVR GT7600 GPU, which has six cores arranged in three pairs around shared cache and logic. While not a significant departure from the Series6XT Rogue architecture used in last year’s iPhone 6, Series7XT does include a number of small tweaks that improve performance and reduce power consumption.

One of the changes is native support for FP16 (16-bit floating-point) operations in the Special Function Units (SFU), which were FP32 only in Series6 GPUs. Native FP16 support gives developers the option to save power when the extra precision of FP32 is not required. Additionally, SFU and ALU operations can now be co-issued, increasing instruction throughput in some situations.

Speaking of increasing throughput, improvements to the Vertex Data Master should help alleviate geometry setup bottlenecks, and the Compute Data Master, which performs front-end duties for setting up GPU compute wavefronts, sees up to a 300 percent gain. The Coarse Grain Scheduler also manages USC (Unified Shading Cluster) resources better, keeping pipelines full and reducing stalls caused by inter-tile dependencies.

iPhone GPU Comparison

While the ALU resources on a per-core basis are the same for Series6XT and Series7XT, the GT7600’s two additional USCs mean that the total FP32 and FP16 FLOPS both increase by 50 percent. Combining these gains with the aforementioned improvements to the front-end blocks should yield some significant performance gains. Indeed, Apple is claiming up to a 90 percent advantage over the iPhone 6, which seems to also imply an increase in max GPU clock frequency, a consequence of the more power-efficient FinFET process.

Keeping this bigger GPU fed is likely the motivation for the move from LPDDR3-933 RAM in the iPhone 6 to the newer LPDDR4-1600 RAM in the 6s, resulting in ~41 percent more bandwidth according to the Geekbench memory test.

Below we explore how the PowerVR GT7600 GPU in the new iPhones performs by running several synthetic and real-world game engine tests. To learn more about how these benchmarks work, what versions we use, or our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device GPU performance.

The new iPhones see a significant overall graphics boost in 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited compared to the previous generation; the iPhone 6s is 83 percent faster than the iPhone 6, and the 6s Plus is 71 percent faster than the 6 Plus, which has the same GPU as the 6 but uses a higher max clock frequency. In this test at least, we see scaling beyond what the 50 percent increase in ALUs can account for, and pretty close to Apple’s 90 percent claim.

The iPhone 6s also outpaces Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and its Mali-T760MP8 GPU by 80 percent. Imagination’s GT7600 even takes the top spot on the chart away from Qualcomm’s Adreno 430 GPU used in both the HTC One M9 and OnePlus 2. The margin of victory is smaller, though, just 30 percent faster than the M9 and 22 percent faster than the OnePlus 2, whose GPU runs at 630MHz versus the M9’s 600MHz.

Breaking down the graphics results shows the architectural changes in Series7XT are fairly well balanced between the front-end and back-end, with similar performance gains between the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6 in each graphics test. We do see slightly better gains across the board in the first graphics test, which focuses on vertex operations (front-end) and minimal pixel processing, suggesting that the Vertex Data Master was the bigger bottleneck in Series6XT. The second graphics test, which focuses heavily on pixel operations by including particles and several post-processing effects, plays to the Adreno 430’s strength in ALU performance; the OnePlus 2 is not far behind the iPhone 6s here.

Apple’s SoCs have struggled in the Physics test since the A7. Focusing on CPU performance, the Physics test uses “non-sequential data structures with memory dependencies," according to Futuremark, the test’s developer. In the previous section, we discussed how Apple’s memory controller in the A7 onwards is optimized for sequential access patterns. This ends up being a disadvantage here, one which Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 808 and 810 SoCs also share.

GFXBench Manhattan uses an OpenGL ES 3.0 based game engine that uses several lighting and pixel-shader effects. Looking at the offscreen results, we see the new iPhones getting around twice the performance of the previous generation, once again scaling beyond what’s achievable by simply adding two additional GPU cores. The iPhone 6s Plus outpaces the Galaxy S6 edge+ by 55 perrcent, similar to what we saw in 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited. Curiously, the larger S6 edge+ performs better than the standard S6 in the game engine tests, but the same in the GFXBench synthetic tests.

Despite Adreno’s ALU advantage, the 430 falls behind the Mali-T760MP8 in the Galaxy S6 family of phones, leading to a larger 67 percent margin of victory for the 6s Plus over the higher-clocked 430 in the OnePlus 2. Relative to the scaled-back Adreno 418 GPU in the LG G4 and Moto X Pure Edition, the iPhone 6s Plus is about 2.7x faster.

All of the iPhones as well as HTC’s M9 move to the top of the chart when rendering onscreen because of their lower resolution displays. The iPhone 6 and 6s, with their 1334x750 native resolutions, naturally see the largest performance increase. While the iPhone 6 Plus and 6s Plus render the UI at a higher 2208x1242 resolution and then downscale to 1080p, GFXBench renders the onscreen tests directly at 1080p, which is why the onscreen and offscreen results are the same.

We also ran GFXBench Metal, which uses the same tests as GFXBench 3.0 but rewritten to leverage Apple’s Metal graphics API that was first introduced in iOS 8. Similar to project Vulkan, the Metal API is meant to give game developers more direct access to the hardware, improving performance by cutting out software overhead. In Manhattan, however, we see very little to no benefit from the move to Metal.

In the OpenGL ES 2.0 based T-Rex game simulation, the iPhone 6s performs 82 percent better than last year’s model, once again very close to Apple’s 90 percent claim. The 6s Plus improves upon the 6 Plus’ score by 73 percent.

The HTC One M9 heats up quickly and throttles heavily in this test, which is why it performs no better than last year’s iPhone 6. The newer revision of the Snapdragon 810 SoC in the OnePlus 2 throttles less, boosting performance and closing the gap with the 6s Plus to 55 percent.

The move to higher bandwidth LPDDR4 memory helps give the iPhone 6s a 54 percent boost in alpha blending over the iPhone 6. The Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge+, OnePlus 2, and HTC One M9 also use LPDDR4 RAM, but fail to match the new iPhones’ throughput, mirroring what we saw in the Geekbench memory bandwidth test.

The two additional USCs in the GT7600 give the iPhone 6s an even more impressive increase in ALU and texturing performance, with the iPhone 6s at least doubling performance in both the ALU and Fill tests. Unlike last year, where the iPhone 6 Plus’ GPU was clocked roughly 10 percent higher than the smaller-screened version, it’s clear from these tests that the iPhone 6s Plus and 6s share the same max GPU frequency.

Up to this point we have not seen any appreciable performance gains from using the Metal API. In the Driver Overhead test, which measures the graphics driver’s CPU overhead by issuing a large number of draw calls—the exact scenario targeted by the new lower-level APIs—we finally see Metal’s true potential. The latest iPhones see a 3x improvement in draw call performance, allowing for many more objects to be rendered onscreen at a time. Metal is even more helpful for older, lower-performing devices: the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, and 5s all see a 4x improvement.

With the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, we see GPU performance nearly double in a single generation—an impressive feat. The front-end optimizations in Series7XT, especially the improved throughput in the Vertex Data Master, produce a more balanced GPU with no glaring weak spots. What’s really driving this performance increase, however, is the move away from the 20nm planar process used for the A8 SoC to 14/16nm FinFET. The additional die space affords Apple the room to include the GT7600 GPU, which has two more cores than the GPU in the A8, and the improved electrical characteristics allow Apple to ramp up clock frequency. Pairing a potent GPU with LPDDR4 memory and sensible screen pixel densities makes the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus two of the best gaming smartphones you can buy.

Battery Life And Thermal Throttling

Battery life may be the most important performance metric for a mobile device. After all, it does not matter how quickly a phone or tablet can load webpages or how many frames per second the GPU can crank through once the battery runs down and the device shuts off. To learn more about how we test this critical facet of mobile computing, please read our battery testing methodology article.

Unfortunately, we do not have any tests that run realistic workloads for assessing battery life on Apple’s platform. Instead, we’ll have to bracket the value with two worst-case conditions supplemented with some subjective experience.

The Basemark OS II battery test runs CPU-intensive workloads and accounts for both battery life and performance. Sure, it’s completely unrealistic, but it’s a good gauge for CPU efficiency, pushing the phones hard enough to trigger thermal throttling.

With both iPhone 6s models sacrificing some battery capacity (about 5 percent) to make room for the new Taptic Engine, there was some concern about a regression in battery life. Fortunately, the efficiency gains from using FinFET and lower-power LPDDR4 memory offset what’s lost from the smaller batteries. Looking at the battery runtime chart, it’s pretty clear that Apple has a specific battery life target it designs to. The iPhone 6s runs for the same amount of time as the iPhone 6 and 5s; the two Plus-sized versions are equal too.

iPhone 6s Taptic Engine located below the battery [CREDIT: iFixit]

While an increase in battery life would have been more impressive—not to mention more useful than maintaining a thin profile—the iPhone 6s still scores about the same as the Galaxy S6 here and a little better than the One M9. Subjectively, the iPhone 6s seems to have a slight edge over the Galaxy S6 in actual daily use. The S6’s larger 5.1-inch screen (versus the iPhone’s 4.7-inch screen) accounts for most of the difference. Both the 6s and GS6 can get you through a full day in most cases, but more demanding users will need to top off at some point during the day, especially with the GS6.

The larger iPhone 6s Plus scores 13 percent higher than the OnePlus 2 and Galaxy S6 edge+, and a more noticeable 43 percent higher than the LG G4. Like the iPhone 6 Plus before it, the 6s Plus gets excellent battery life. Even when on the go from 8am till midnight while attending a show like CES—constantly checking my email and calendar, taking pictures and notes, recording audio and video, chatting via Skype, looking up info on the web—the 6 Plus never required extra juice. So far, I’m seeing the same battery life from the 6s Plus.

Low Power Mode is a software feature introduced in iOS 9 that saves power by dialing back performance and features, allowing you to stretch battery life a bit further. Specifically, it reduces or turns off background data transfers (email, automatic store downloads, background app refresh), some visual effects, and Hey Siri. These are all transient events, however, making it difficult to assess their impact on battery life. The one aspect of Low Power Mode that Basemark OS II can measure is the impact of reducing the max CPU frequency.

By underclocking the CPU, Low Power Mode extends runtime in this test significantly. While we cannot determine the actual core frequency used in this mode, the frequency reduction seems to be proportional to CPU performance. In order to maintain an acceptable level of performance, the slower A7 SoC in the iPhone 5s sees a smaller frequency reduction than the much faster A9 in the iPhone 6s. The runtime extensions seem impressive here (71 percent for the 6s and 92 percent for the 6s Plus), but the actual increase in battery life will be far less since no real workload runs the CPU at 100 percent for several hours straight.

Clearly, the move to a smaller FinFET node is not enough to offset the increased energy demands of the PowerVR GT7600 GPU’s two extra cores and higher clock frequency, since both new iPhones show a regression in battery life during intense gaming. Looking at performance per watt, however, tells a different story: the iPhone 6s gets 13 percent less battery life but 23 percent better performance than the iPhone 6, while the 6s Plus gets 23 percent less battery life but 37 percent better performance than the 6 Plus. That’s a nice increase in efficiency, especially after factoring in the new iPhones’ 5 percent smaller batteries.

The other phones in this test all last longer than the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, but that’s only because they exhibit moderate to heavy thermal throttling. The Galaxy S6, for example, throttles back to about 50 percent peak performance to keep from overheating.

While not shown here, we also ran this test with Apple’s Low Power Mode enabled. The new battery-saving feature underclocks the CPU but leaves the GPU frequency alone, since we saw no difference in performance or battery life in GFXBench. So basically, you cannot play games and extend your battery life too.

Performance stability while gaming is excellent for both devices. Performance does fluctuate quite a bit, but it never drops below 95 percent for the iPhone 6s or 92 percent for the 6s Plus, even after an hour running T-Rex. The phones do get noticeably warmer, though, with temperatures up about 9 °F over the previous generation. The maximum skin temperature for the 6s Plus reaches 120 °F, which is considered the upper limit for comfort.

It’s unfortunate we do not see an improvement in battery life, but given the A9’s performance gains, avoiding a large regression is not so bad. The iPhone 6s still does not include wireless or quick charging either, which makes charging a somewhat inconvenient affair.

Conclusion

The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are not completely new phones, but they feel like it. Before we explain why, let's discuss the less significant changes starting with the design. Apart from a new Rose Gold color, the iPhone 6s looks the same as the iPhone 6. The stronger aluminum chassis are technically larger but not enough to notice, unlike the 6s Plus' extra weight, which gives it an extra hefty feel.

The displays are also unchanged, keeping the same size, resolution, and features. Performance parameters, including brightness, gamma, and contrast ratio are also similar to the previous generation, however, our test samples did show improved color accuracy.

Even the new 12MP iSight camera with deep trench isolation technology cannot hold back a sea of sameness. After taking pictures in a variety of conditions, it's difficult for us to see any appreciable difference in quality between the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6. Unfortunately, the iPhone 6s' heavy-handed noise reduction smooths away the very details its extra pixels are trying to capture. Using a more aggressive sharpening filter does slightly increase the perceived sharpness for parts of the image in focus. However, this extra sharpening can hurt the iPhone 6s in lower-light conditions where it tends to emphasize the noise grain. The 6s Plus avoids this problem by leveraging OIS to increase exposure time and reduce noise, a feature the smaller 6s still lacks. While the iSight camera in the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is one of the best you can get in a smartphone, Samsung's Galaxy S6 remains the leader in photo quality.

Battery life is another metric where the new iPhone 6s models only achieve parity with their previous generation counterparts. The roughly 5 percent reduction in battery size and increase in processor frequencies are equally balanced by the move to a more efficient FinFET process and lower-power LPDDR4 memory. This, plus a smaller screen, is enough to give the iPhone 6s a small advantage over the Galaxy S6 in daily use. Getting through a whole day with either the 6s or S6 without recharging can be a bit of a stretch, though, depending on your usage patterns. The iPhone 6s Plus compares more favorably to its peers and lasts a full day even with extensive use.

One of iOS 9's new software features is Low Power Mode, which underclocks the CPU and turns off some background tasks to extend battery life. Android users have had similar low-power modes, either built into Android or added by an OEM, for some time now. With Apple's usual focus on battery life, it's a bit surprising it has taken the company this long to implement a similar feature. When running the CPU intensive Basemark OS II, we saw an impressive increase in battery life. There's no way to quantify the real-world gains since everyone uses their phone differently, but it's safe to say that this feature does work as advertised.

The similarities documented above seem to suggest an iPhone equivalence principle, where the experience of someone using an iPhone 6 while standing on Earth will be the same as someone else's experience using the new iPhone 6s in an accelerating non-inertial frame of reference. The math, however, does not support this: 1GB of RAM is not equal to 2GB. This single change is enough to make the iPhone 6s feel like a completely new phone. The frequent and frustrating app and webpage reloads that made an otherwise fast phone feel slow are gone. Multitasking on the iPhone 6s is fast and fluid, as is the whole UI; it is easier to move data between apps and much easier to get work done. Sometimes I even leave my laptop at home and just work on the 6s Plus.

Most tasks on the new iPhones feel faster because of Apple's Twister CPU, which has the fastest single-threaded performance of any mobile chip, and custom NVMe-based PCI-E storage solution. Pairing the two additional USCs in the PowerVR GT7600 GPU with higher bandwidth LPDDR4 memory nearly doubles graphics performance too. Excellent frame rates, a large catalog of games, Apple's Metal API, and almost no thermal throttling make the iPhone 6s a good choice for mobile gaming.

Unlike iOS 7's completely new user interface and iOS 8's application extensions, which allow apps to work together and share data, iOS 9's enhancements are more subtle. The most immediate difference is the improved stability (no more SpringBoard crashes!) and generally less buginess compared to iOS 8. Apple's default apps gain some new abilities too, including public transit directions in Maps, better attachment handling in Mail, and Notes grows beyond a simple text editor. There's also a new news aggregator app appropriately called News, and the iCloud Drive app makes iCloud behave a bit more like a true cloud storage service. iOS 9 also resolves the keyboard's caps lock mystery by switching the keys between lowercase and uppercase rather than relying on the nonsensical coloring of the caps lock key alone. Even better, pressing and holding anywhere on the keyboard turns it into a trackpad that allows for more accurate cursor placement and text selection (this works on both the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus). There are a number of other improvements that you can read about in this full iOS 9 review.

This brings us to 3D Touch, a new usability feature exclusive to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus that adds another dimension, both figuratively and literally, to the standard multi-touch controls. Capacitive sensors integrated into the display's backlight measure the microscopic deflection of the cover glass when pressure is applied to the display. This data is combined with information from the touch sensor and accelerometer to adjust the sensitivity and to cancel out the influence of gravity. Haptic feedback is provided by Apple's Taptic Engine, which can reach peak output in only one cycle, providing a greater range of feedback events.

3D Touch enables several new actions. The one I consistently use and find the most useful is pressing on the left side of the screen to open the app switcher. This works well on the iPhone 6s, but it's a bit of a stretch for a right-handed user on the 6s Plus. It would be nice to have the option of choosing either the left or right side of the screen for this feature. After getting used to this method, double-clicking the Home button feels clunky and archaic.

In addition to pinch-to-zoom, we can now add Peek and Pop to our lexicon of touch-based gestures. Pressing lightly on the screen allows you to "Peek" at the underlying content, like pressing on a URL to see a preview of a webpage or pressing on an address to preview a map without leaving the current app. Pressing a bit harder will "Pop" it open full screen.

At the home screen, pressing lightly on an app icon opens a Quick Actions menu, similar to a right-click context menu, that provides access to common tasks. This feature is a bit hit or miss. First, not every app supports this feature. Second, it's not a big time saver. For example, the Quick Actions for the Camera app allow you to jump immediately into video recording mode, which is kind of useful, but the "Take Photo" option just opens the camera, requiring one extra step than just tapping the Camera icon like normal.

Ultimately, 3D Touch seems like a feature that smartphones should have always had rather than something revolutionary, like the computer mouse. It does contribute to a better overall user experience, though, and that's really what the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are about. Yes, the A9 SoC is extremely fast, the camera and display are very good, and the rest of the hardware is not bad either, but what sets these new iPhones apart from other phones—and even prior iPhones—is that they are not frustrating to use. I do not find myself shaking my head at poorly implemented features or rolling my eyes when the phone overheats and throttles or cursing under my breath at spontaneous reboots. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus pass two of my most critical tests: they run smooth and do not slow me down.

Apple iPhone 6s Plus

Apple iPhone 6s

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Matt Humrick is a Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware, covering Smartphones and Tablets. Follow him on Twitter.

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Introduction And Product Overview

It's been a long wait for mass-market virtual reality, and while we're not quite playing with the likes of the Oculus Rift or HTC's Vive yet, the Gear VR from Samsung and Oculus promises a glimpse at what the future holds. And you don't have to wait untold months to try it out. You can get a Gear VR today.

Samsung's Gear VR isn't the first VR headset available to the mass market, but it is the first head-mounted unit getting mainstream attention. The company partnered with Oculus to make the Gear VR hardware and software library stand out from the rest of the competition, and the two companies have put significant effort into getting the word out to the public.

In the next few months, we're going to see the big three VR headsets hit the market, but those products are going to come with high price tags that will limit their initial sales potential. Headsets designed to use your existing smartphone are much more affordable and therefore much more accessible.

For many people, a smartphone-derived experience will be the only VR they will have access to in the first generation of consumer VR. But with so many different competitors, does it really make sense to buy into the premium entry in this market?

What's In The Box?

Samsung's Gear VR HMD comes packaged in the same kind of box that houses the company's Galaxy phones, only somewhat larger. The headset is tucked snugly into a plastic insert along with the instruction manual and the two parts of the head strap.

Specifications

Product 360

One of the first things I noticed when I first pulled the headset out of the box was just how light the Gear VR really is. Brendan Iribe talked about how light it was when he announced the final product at Oculus Connect 2 in September, but it's hard to articulate what that really feels like until you have the device in your hands. The whole thing, even after installing the straps, weighs only 320 grams (Samsung claimed 318 g, but my scale read 320 g). With the phone inside the Gear VR, the headset weighs 457 g, but it feels significantly heavier. I suspect the uneven weight distribution affects the perception of weight. 

The Gear VR headset, despite feeling so light, doesn't feel cheap. It's clear Samsung paid attention to the fit and finish of its first foray into consumer VR. This should be expected after the company released two previous innovator editions, which were effectively beta tests for the hardware. The device's structure feels sturdy, and even when I tried to stress the plastic, there were no creaking sounds, nor did it feel fragile while I did so. 

The main body of the Gear VR is made of white plastic. On the right-hand side of the white section, you'll find a touch-sensitive D-pad and a reset button. Samsung tried to add some tactile feedback to the touchpad by adding a ridge around it and embossing the D-pad, which helps to situate your fingers in the right location. At the center of the touchpad is an additional button defined by its own ridge, helping you find the button. This button is used to select menu items and serves as an action button in games, though in practice, just touching the touchpad anywhere usually has the same effect. 

The section that holds the phone is made of black plastic, which contrasts nicely with the white body. This section is attached to a mechanism that slides the section forward and back within the white body and is adjusted with a dial found on the top of the headset. The motion adjusts the focus for different eyesight, but the Gear VR instructions indicate not to use glasses with the headset. Samsung suggests wearing contacts if corrective lenses are necessary. 

The adjustable section is also home to the volume controls, which can be found on the right side directly in front of the touchpad and the reset button.

The Gear VR is engineered to work with Samsung's Galaxy S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+ and Note 5. It can accommodate any of these phones without any adjustments. Samsung and Oculus came up with a clever design that automatically adapts to the varying sizes of these phones.

Along the top and bottom edges, near all four corners, there are three different-size rubber tabs that secure the phone. These tabs are spring-loaded, so they are pressed into the headset to get them out of the way if a phone with larger width is used.

The phone attaches to the headset via the micro USB port on the bottom of the phone. A male micro USB plug is found on the right side (when you're wearing it) of the Gear VR face. It's on a hinge to make removing the phone as easy as possible.

The section with the plug has two positions: A and B. Position A is for the larger Note 5 and S6 edge+, and position B pushes the connector closer to the center to accommodate the smaller S6 and S6 edge phones.

To adjust which position the plug is in, simply press down and slide it back and forth. There is a release button directly below the plug. It's possible to move the plug without pushing down, but this method is much harder on the mechanism, which will likely wear out quickly or even break if you remove it this way.

The opposite side has a clamp that automatically adjusts to size, because it is spring-loaded. When a phone is popped into the Gear VR, the clamp tightens up against the phone, making for a secure fit. The clamp also doubles as way to eject the phone.

Pull back against the heavy spring of the clamp, and it will pivot outward. The bottom of the clamp pushes the phone away from the headset. The hinged micro-USB plug on the other side ensures you won't have to worry about damaging the charge port of your smartphone. Just be sure not to twist the plug when you remove it.

Samsung and Oculus engineered the Gear VR to support many sets of headphones, but the companies didn't include an audio pass-through port in the design. Instead, there is an extra gap next to the volume-toggle buttons that provides direct access to the phone's headphone jack. A right-angle plug will likely not fit, but the space is large enough that it would be hard to find a straight plug that didn't fit.

I found it difficult to reach the plug with the cover installed over my S6, but once the plug was in, the cord did not interfere with putting the cover back on.

On the bottom right of the headset, near the D-pad, a micro USB port can be found, which lets you connect your phone to a charger without removing your phone from the Gear VR headset.

The Gear VR is, of course, designed to be attached to your face, so it's important that it have a comfortable fit. The headset includes a foam cushion to give it a soft feeling. The cushion is easily removable, held on simply by very fine Velcro, which should help when cleaning the material.

The Velcro is molded into a rubberized barrier that lets the headset fit around the shape of your face.

There is a large opening for your nose, though the cushion somewhat obstructs this opening. If you have a wide nose, you may find the fit to be a bit tight. I found the cushions squeezed my nose just enough to obstruct my breathing slightly, necessitating that I breathe through my mouth while using the Gear VR.

The head straps for the gear VR come in the box, but they aren't attached to the headset. You have to attach them yourself. The strap comes in two separate pieces. One part attaches to two loops on the sides of the headset and wraps around the back. It is held on with Velcro and is actually very easy to install. Simply flip the hinge of the loop outward and slide the strap through, starting from behind. Make sure the side with the leather backing is facing inward while you slide it through. You want the Velcro to be on the outside so it can be adjusted while it's on your head. The strap incorporates some elastic fabric, so if you aren't sharing the headset, you can set it and never have to adjust it again. The stretchable material allows the headset to be taken off and put on again without playing with the Velcro.

The second half of the strap goes across the top of your head. This requires attaching an additional loop to the headset, directly behind the focus dial. The top strap works the same way as the one that goes around your head, adjusting with two Velcro attachments. This strap doesn't have any flex to it, but the Velcro can be positioned anywhere along to top. So it should accommodate even the smallest of heads.

On the inside of the Gear VR, you'll find the two lenses that you must peer through to see the screen. These lenses provide a 96-degree field of view, which is 14 degrees less than the Rift will have. Unlike some of the other headsets on the market, the Gear VR does not provide a way to adjust the distance between the two lenses. The lenses sit 2 centimeters apart from each other and feature a 2mm bezel. Fortunately, the lenses themselves are 3.5 cm wide, so with the distance adjustment, most people should find a comfortable view.

Between the two lenses you'll notice a small sensor that detects when you put the headset to your face. This helps conserve battery life on your phone by turning the screen off until the Gear VR is actually in use.

The Gear VR includes a cover that really isn't necessary; its only real purpose is aesthetic. The cover is made of a dark, translucent, plastic material. It snaps on at all four corners, but it isn't very secure. It certainly doesn't add any reinforcement to hold the phone in place. It may prevent damage to your phone if you ever dropped the headset, but that's not a test I'm willing to perform.

Setup, Testing And Final Thoughts

Setting Up The Gear VR

For the purpose of this test we used a Samsung Galaxy S6. A larger screen may have provided a slightly better view, but this is what we had on hand, and it's likely that the majority of people buying these headsets will have S6 phones rather than Note 5 phablets.

To use an S6 or S6 edge in the Gear VR headset, the micro USB plug has to be set in position B. The phone will stay in place if you leave the plug in position A, but it won't be secure, and the display won’t be centered. Once the plug is in the correct position, pull back the clamp on the other side until it holds itself open. You'll feel it click, and the spring will take over as you pull back.

Next, take the phone, gently plug it into the Gear VR and press down until the clamp locks.

The clamp will snap into place once the phone is in the right position. The spring-loaded rubber tabs on all four corners ensure that the phone doesn't wiggle around within the headset.

Oculus Installation

The first time you plug your phone into the Gear VR, it will initiate the installation of the Gear VR software. You'll have to remove your phone immediately and install the software before continuing. Once the software is installed, you'll be asked to either log in to an existing account or create a new Oculus account. You'll be prompted for a credit card number during this process, which will be necessary to make purchases.

When you've created your account and logged in, you can plug the phone back into the Gear VR headset. The phone automatically detects when it is plugged into the headset. The software doesn't actually launch until you put the headset on your face, thanks to the embedded sensor, but as you place the Gear VR on your head, Oculus Home will launch. Here, you'll find yourself in a virtual room that looks like a deck overlooking the ocean. The floor is wood, as is a ceiling overhead. Above, you'll find a skylight in the shape of the Oculus logo, and in the distance there is a living room setup, complete with couch and big-screen TV. The menu system hovers in 3D space in front of your face and even somewhat wraps around on a slight curve.

VR Menus

You navigate through Oculus Home via a combination of moving your head and using the touchpad; a tutorial explains all the functions. Within the Oculus Home, you have a cursor trained to your head orientation, so when you want to launch the store, which is on the upper right, you simply crane your head in that direction and then tap the button in the center of the touchpad. To scroll up, down or side to side, simply swipe your finger across the touchpad. To go back, press the back button found above the touchpad.

Holding the back button down for a second will launch a separate menu system with a few options. From within any application, you can press and hold this button and it will let you get back to Oculus Home. On this menu, you'll also find the setting to enable the pass-through camera. The camera on the phone can be enabled to show live video. With this feature, you can see your surroundings without removing the headset. The cover will need to be removed from the Gear VR to use the camera, of course.

This menu will also give you the option to enable or disable Do-Not-Disturb mode, which will prevent your VR session from being interrupted. The brightness settings can be found here, and this is where you'll find the screen-orientation button in case you need to reset the zero point for the storefront or a game menu. This screen will also let you see the time, the phone's signal strength and the remaining battery life.

Using The Headset

Most people who purchase or receive a Gear VR will likely be inclined to try out some of the free content when they first try out the headset. Oculus made a big deal about its partnership with Netflix to bring the streaming video service to Gear VR and later to the Rift, so that's where I decided to start.

The Netflix application for Gear VR isn't really the first thing I would think of when imagining VR, but it seems there's a lot of interest in the concept of a virtual big screen to watch movies and TV. When you open up the app, you'll find yourself in a new virtual environment. This time you're on a couch in a home theater room. There are movie posters on the wall, and there are windows to the outside, to the left. In front of you is a large TV screen with the Netflix logo.

Click on the screen and you'll be prompted to log in to a Netflix account, which can be done within the VR app. While you're logging into the account and selecting something to watch, the room is lit like you would expect any home to be. Once the video starts playing, the lights go out in the room and the ambient light of the video illuminates the room, casting shadows and light just like a real TV would in a dark room.

The concept sounds great up until this point, but it doesn't work the way you'd probably want it to. Because of the way that the application calculates your orientation, you can watch Netflix on the headset only while sitting upright and looking forward. Sure, you can peer around the room in any direction, but this has the same effect as looking around a real room with a stationary screen: You only get a clear view of the screen when looking in the right direction.

This eliminates the idea of lying in bed with the Gear VR on and taking in a movie on a lazy Sunday morning. I tried doing this while lying on my couch, and I was forced to look straight down at my chest to view the screen while I was on my back. I even tried to use the orientation-reset option, but it always zeroed in on the same location. To me, this diminishes the value of this app greatly, as the most likely places I'd see myself using it would be while lying in bed at a hotel, flying in a plane or on a lounge chair in the backyard.

When I was sitting up correctly to watch the screen, it worked well, but the picture wasn't as clear as I had hoped. Even after I adjusted the focus to its optimum position, the virtual TV was nowhere near as clear as an HDTV in real life. It's not terrible, but it's not a replacement for the real deal. It's definitely more suited for traveling than for taking over for your living room entertainment system.

360-Degree Video And Images

Netflix might be something people are interested in for Gear VR, but it's not really what a headset like this is designed for. One of the major benefits of a head-mounted display is the ability to look around a scene. Oculus provides a few ways to realize those benefits at no extra cost. The Gear VR Oculus Home includes an application for 360-degree video content. You can stream videos from various content creators, including GoPro and Red Bull. This application also has the ability to stream Twitch channels on a big screen, similar to what the Netflix application can do. You get a choice of a few different settings, though, including a giant screen on the moon or a traditional movie theater.

The Oculus 360 Photos application is similar to the videos application. It has a selection of content to browse, including a selection of pictures of natural scenery, famous locations and space. Oculus even included images of its E3 booth from the June 2015 event. In addition to preloaded images, the 360 Photos app can access panoramic images stored on your device.

Perhaps the most compelling content within the Oculus 360 Photos app comes in the rendered 3D images. The fidelity of these scenes far surpasses the quality of the cameras used to capture the real images. This results in much more believable immersion.

Playing Games

VR and 360-degree video content is all well and good, but everyone knows the biggest interest in virtual reality lies in the games, and Samsung's Gear VR has no shortage of games to choose from. Since this is the hardware review, I'll leave the detailed game descriptions for separate reviews, but I did try a couple of different games to get a feel for what it's like playing on the Gear VR.

The first game that I tried was Drift. This is one of the more expensive products in the Oculus store, but it has also been getting fairly high praise. In this game, you fly around dodging objects and people as you look for specific targets. The game runs fairly well, but it also has fairly long load times, leaving you staring at a black screen while you wait. My time in this game was cut short when I met with an overheating warning after the first level. I had watched a Jaunt video before starting the game, but the Gear VR was only in use for a short period, perhaps 15 minutes, before I received the warning.

The following day, I tried Deer Hunter VR. In this game, you are in a first-person view, holding either a rifle or a shotgun, and hunting deer and other wildlife. To aim, you move your head around and the gyros in the phone track the movement. It's important to note that unlike the Rift DK2, CV1 there is no positional tracking. You can only look around, not lean in. To shoot you tap the touchpad. I played through the first 15 levels of the game without getting a warning about an overheating phone.

The next day, I tried out CCP's Gunjack. This is one of the most highly praised games currently available on Gear VR. The game takes place in the EVE universe, and you play as a gunner on a spacecraft fighting off enemy ships. You aim with your head and shoot with the touchpad. After close to 15 minutes of continuous game play, there were no warnings of overheating. But I quit playing to watch some video content in the Oculus 360 Video app and was met with the message during the second video clip.

Some of the games that are available for Gear VR require a controller, such as VR Karts, but most of the games are playable with just the headset itself. I didn't have a controller to test it with, but you can purchase bluetooth gamepads that will work with these games.

That's A Toasty Phone

For the most part, using the Gear VR is very easy and trouble-free, but that's not to say there were no problems. The most prominent issue that I experienced with the Gear VR came in the frequent notices that the Galaxy S6 was overheating and that it would need to cool down to maintain optimal performance. I experienced this multiple times while watching video content and playing games, and it occurred a lot sooner than I would have expected.

On my first evening with the Gear VR headset, I decided to take in a couple episodes of House of Cards on Netflix. The first episode played without issue, but the second episode was interrupted a little more than halfway through. I could dismiss the interrupting message and continue the show, but the warning popped up again 10 to 15 minutes later. At that point, it was clear the phone needed a break, which made me question the need for a charge port on the headset. If the phone overheats that quickly, you'll never have a situation that runs the battery down before the device needs a break anyway.

My experience watching content from Jaunt's 360 video app was very similar to what I encountered with Netflix and its interruptions. However, I was presented with the warning much sooner while watching 360 content than I was with Netflix's traditional video stream. The next day, I was able to play through a dozen levels of Deer Hunter before the phone started to overheat again, but the warning did eventually interrupt my game.

Comfort

It's hard to measure something like comfort, but it is important to talk about. You won't find yourself using the headset if you think it's uncomfortable when on your head. Unfortunately, in my experience, the Gear VR really didn't feel great on my head. Your experience may vary greatly, as everyone has a different shape and size head, but I didn't find the device comfortable.

I found the head strap is a little too tight. I don't have a particularly large head, and even on the loosest adjustment the straps still required a bit of stretch to get around my noggin. This resulted in the headset being pulled uncomfortably tight against my forehead, with a lot of the weight resting on my nose. Adjusting the top strap to shift the load distribution caused the discomfort to shift to the back of my head.

Ignoring the tight fit, the headset was otherwise comfortable. After an hour of Netflix, my face wasn't overheating, so Samsung and Oculus did a good job with ventilation.

It Could Be Better

I'm not going to lie — I've been a believer in virtual reality and its potential for most of my life. I was a kid the first time I tried a virtual reality headset, at Epcot Center in Florida, and for over 20 years, I've been longing for the day that we could all enjoy the same sort of experience at home. I'm probably more excited than most people about the coming era of consumer-grade VR, and because of that, you probably expect me to be over the moon about the Gear VR's availability, but frankly I'm not.

The Gear VR headset is certainly a compelling device for anyone who's never had the opportunity to try virtual reality. VR is incredibly exciting, and it really is something to behold, but I'm not going to pay lip service to the status quo just because Samsung beat most of the competition to market. The hard truth is that the Gear VR, as it sits today, is not what most average consumers are going to expect from a VR product.

The constant overheating that I experienced is a major detraction from enjoying the headset, and I fear it's going to have a negative impact on widespread adoption of VR as a whole. Next year, we'll have three premium headsets on the market, two for PC and one for the PlayStation 4, and those will carry higher price tags than most people will be able to afford. Products like Gear VR will be what those consumers will turn to, and their experience will weigh heavily on their decision to invest further in the medium or not. Virtual reality adoption will also be heavily reliant on early adopters showing their friends how amazing the experience is. A poor first impression will sour many people for a long time.

Samsung's Gear VR is far from a bad product. It actually does a lot of things remarkably well. The menu navigation is very intuitive; the storefront and Oculus Home are simple to use, and the phone-mounting mechanism is surprisingly clever. The problem is that it feels like the phone isn't ready to deliver.

Samsung's Galaxy S6 is a wonderfully powerful smartphone, but all that power generates excessive heat. There's really no way around this problem yet. VR and 360-degree content demands the highest-performance hardware and pushes it to the limit. Mobile VR will be far more compelling when a solution for this problem is developed.

Is It Worth Picking Up?

If you are thinking about picking up a Gear VR to enjoy virtual reality, you should consider a few things beforehand. First, have you tried virtual reality before? If you have access to an Oculus Rift DK2, or if you plan to pick up a retail headset in the next few months, you might want to pass on this one. The experience is interesting, but the positional tracking that the DK2's camera provides is much more compelling.

Second, don't buy a phone for VR. If you have never tried VR and don't have access to any other option for the foreseeable future, then a Gear VR will be something to behold. But I wouldn't suggest seeking out a Galaxy phone for the express purpose of VR at this point. For anyone who already has the necessary phone, a Gear VR headset isn't a bad purchase. I wouldn't go as far as some of the other websites with reviews of the HMD and say this is a must-have, but if you have $100 burning a hole in your pocket, there are far worse ways to spend your money. If you need to buy the phone too, it becomes a $700 buy-in. For this kind of money few people would be satisfied with the expense.

I really wanted to like the Gear VR, and honestly it is good for what it is. But as the first mainstream VR headset, it has some big expectations to weather, and I'm not so sure it will live up to what most people expect.

Kevin Carbotte is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware, covering Graphics. Follow him on Twitter.

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Over the last couple of years, Phanteks has gotten itself into the case building business, and the company has been doing a respectably good job at it, too. One of the noteworthy cases that the company makes is the Enthoo Evolv ATX, which today takes a new form as the Galaxy Silver version.

Aside from the color, there isn't anything different about this case over its predecessors. The internal chassis design remains similar to that of most ATX cases, but externally it is a whole different beast. Rather than using thin panels that fit together with nice small seams, the external panels are manufactured from 3 mm thick aluminum and overlap to create rough seams. The end result is that you don't get a case that uses various materials to achieve a certain look, but achieves a certain look by showing off its materials, if that makes sense. It isn't a typical appearance.

Inside the case there is room for up to an E-ATX motherboard and three dual-slot graphics cards up to 420 mm long without the hard drive brackets installed. Install them, and you'll have room for five 3.5" drives and two 2.5" drives, sacrificing the maximum GPU length to 300 mm (which is still plenty for most modern-day graphics cards).

Another strength of the case is its support for cooling. The external panels may be manufactured from solid slabs of aluminum, but due to the large seams and the internal structure, the air still largely throws through a filter, through up to three 120 mm fans up front, three up top, and one at the rear-exhaust location. When using 140 mm fans (three are included), you'll be able to mount two at the front, two at the rear, and one up top. For water cooling, the case has dedicated mounting points for the pump, reservoirs (yes, plural), and radiators. Mounting points for radiators is quite common, but dedicated mounting places for a pump and reservoirs isn't something we see every day.

The front I/O resides behind a small door hidden below the top seam and consists of the usual pair of headphone ports and two USB 3.0 ports. There is also a reset switch hidden behind the same door. The power button is mounted right at the top.

To open the case, the doors each swivel on a hinge at the back of the case, and the left door even has a window. To keep things looking tidy inside, the power supply and messy cable work are tucked out of sight in a separate compartment.

So far the case has been available in black and anthracite gray. The new color, Galaxy Silver, gives you the most natural aluminum look – almost white. Regardless of your choice of color, the power LED can also light up in one of four different colors.

There is one slight catch, though: It costs $179. If you can afford it, the Enthoo Evolv ATX Galaxy Silver should be available at Phanteks' usual re- and e-tailers by the end of the month.

______________________________________________________________________

Niels Broekhuijsen has been with Tom's Hardware since 2012, and works as a Contributing Editor on the news team. He covers mostly hardware, components, and anything else that strikes his fancy. Outside of work, he likes to travel, cook, and fix things that are broken.

You can follow him at @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

The Galaxy S6 edge+ is a device that puts us in a funny position. You'd think that considering that it is almost identical to the new Galaxy Note5 (except for its curved display and lack of an S Pen) that we'd have the same issues with it as we have with the Note5. However, the lack of a removable battery or microSD slot, doesn't bother us as much on the S6 edge+.

The difference is that the edge+ is not building on a legacy of a previous series of devices designed and built for enthusiasts. Although it is true to say that each successive generation of Note gained a wider audience, at the core the Note brand was built by what can be termed "power" Android users. The fact that Samsung decided to ditch two key features in the Note5 is a betrayal to those passionate users.

The edge+ doesn't have that problem because it is simply just a larger version of a new category of curved screen phones started with the Galaxy S6 edge. A phone that also doesn't have a removable battery or microSD slot. For those of you who liked the design of the original edge, but want something with a bigger screen, your ship has come in.

We'd also like to add, before someone points it out in the comments, that we do remember that there was also a Note Edge, too. However, that was more of a limited production concept device, rather than a widely available phone, so it doesn't count.

At Samsung's Unpacked event last week, we got to go briefly hands-on with the S6 edge+. Read on to hear more thoughts on it and watch our video.

Hardware Specifications

Since this will be the third article covering the new phones that Samsung just launched, we won't go into much detail about the edge+'s internal specs. Suffice to say it uses the same Exynos 7420 SoC as the S6 edge (and Note5), and only differs from it internally by having more memory (4GB), a bigger screen and a bigger battery (3,000 mAh). Even with these duplicated specs, the edge+ is still the most powerful large-screen phone current available (along with the new Note), thanks to the fact that the Exynos 7420 is currently the most powerful mobile SoC on the market.

So why are we OK with the S6 edge+ having the same sized non-removable battery and lack of internal storage, but knocked the Note5 for the very same thing? Well, to be blunt, we feel the mainstream user who is going to be interested in the edge+ isn't going to be as concerned by the lack of these features.

That kind of user, the one who makes up the majority of smartphone users, is not one of us. They aren't the hardcore phone geeks who push their devices to the limit every day, and find that they are out of juice before noon. They also aren't going to pack their phone's storage with episodes of some long out of circulation and obscure anime. The 3,000 mAh battery of the S6 edge+ and 32 or 64 GB of storage is going to be more than sufficient.

Samsung has also incorporated both wired and wireless fast charging on the S6 edge+ and claim that you can wirelessly charge it fully in only two hours. This impressive charging speed (for wireless) is due to it support the WPC's new Qi-based 15-watt fast charging technology.

Hands-On Video

Design

Just as its internal specifications are almost the same as its smaller brother, the S6 edge+'s external design is almost the same. It is as if Samsung simply took the S6 edge's schematics in its CAD software, hit the enlarge button, and simply typed "112 percent." Although we're half-joking, the S6 edge+ really does look indistinguishable from the S6 edge. You could call that unimaginative, but seeing as the S6 edge is a gorgeous slab of mobile technology, perhaps it was smart not to mess with success.

One of the issues we had with the S6 edge was that the curved display meant that its sides were thin strips of metal that made the phone hard to pick up and uncomfortable to hold. This issue continues with the S6 edge+, and perhaps the one reason Samsung should have deviated from the "make it like an S6 edge, but bigger" plan.

The top of the S6 edge+ has just the SIM card tray, and on the bottom is the USB 2.0 charging port, single speaker and headphone jack. As we noted in the Note5 hands-on, we wish that Samsung would recognize that people do appreciate stereo speakers on their phones. We'd have also perhaps liked to have seen a USB Type-C port for charging, too.

Camera

Just like the specs, we won't go into great detail about the camera other than to say that, again, the S6 edge+ uses the same hardware as its smaller relative. Also making a return is the camera bump. Although we realize that the combination of sensor and optics to enable all the features like OIS means a larger camera module, we do think that an increase in girth to reduce the bump wouldn't hurt. No one is going to complain if a phone as big as the S6 edge+ was a few millimeters thicker.

Software Updates

The Galaxy S6 edge+, like the Note5, runs Android 5.1.1 with a new version of Samsung's TouchWiz UI. This update has new icon designs with rounded corners that match the curved aesthetic of Samsung's current generation of phones. They do look nice enough, but they won't play well visually with the icons of many of the other apps on your phone that will be square.

Because the S6 edge+ does not have an S Pen, none of those new pen-related software features of the Note5 are found on it. What Samsung has done is update the edge screen features. On the original S6 edge there are four elements to what the edge screen could do -- edge lighting, People edge, Information stream and Night clock, and you can read how they work in our Galaxy S6 edge review. The addition to the S6 edge+ is App edge, which lets you assign your five favorite apps to a vertical menu that can be accessed by swiping in from the edge of the screen. You can see this in action in our video above.

Audio

Both the S6 edge+ and Note5 have ultra-high quality audio (UHQA), which you can read more about in our preview. You can also stream this audio over Bluetooth to compatible headsets, such as the new Level On Wireless headphones.

Pricing And Availability

It does appear as though, initially, North America will lose out a little in the color choice stakes. We only get the black and gold phones here (and in Canada, only the black). In other markets, there is also a silver and white S6 edge+, which can be seen below. The S6 edge+ will be available on a wide variety of carriers in both Canada and the U.S., listed above.

In the U.S., the 32 GB Galaxy S6 edge+ is $350 with a 2-year contract, and the 64 GB model is $450. Outright, the Note5 starts at around $800 for the 32 GB model and $900 for the 64 GB, depending on what carrier you choose.

In Canada, the S6 edge+ jumps in price considerably. The 32 GB model is $460 with a 2-year contract, and the 64 GB model is expected to be $560. Outright, the Note5 starts at around $950 for the 32 GB model and an insane $1050 for the 64 GB, depending on which carrier you choose.

New Edge, Samsung's Best Big Screen Phone?

In contrast to our thoughts about the Galaxy Note5, we think the Samsung has hit a bullseye with the S6 edge+. Even though it's simply an enlarged S6 edge, we think that it is probably the best large-screen phone for the average phone user. It has the most powerful mobile SoC and one of the best cameras found on any phone, wrapped in a beautiful glass-and-metal body with a unique-looking dual-curved display.

However, it is not going to be a phone for everyone, and it isn't a phone we'd recommend for power Android users looking for their new big screen device. We also think that perhaps the new Galaxy Note5 isn't that phone either. It will be interesting, then, to see which Android OEM steps up to the plate and makes a true successor to the Note 4.

Alex Davies is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware and Tom's IT Pro, covering Smartphones, Tablets, and Virtual Reality. You can follow him on Twitter. Follow Tom's Hardware on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Samsung announced two new flagship phablet phones today, an update to the venerable productivity-focused Galaxy Note series—the Galaxy Note5—and a media-centric, oversized Galaxy S6 edge called the Galaxy S6 edge+ (a convoluted name that even tripped up the PR reps).

Last year's Galaxy Note 4 impressed us, earning our top Editors' Choice award. It has an excellent screen, power-user features like a removable battery and expandable storage, software that takes full advantage of the large display, and a nice-looking design that blends the best qualities of aluminum and plastic. Combined with Samsung's S Pen stylus, the Note 4 is a unique device that, together with its predecessors, helped popularize the phablet category.

Despite this success, Samsung is pushing the Note5 in a different direction. It retains the 5.7-inch QHD (2560x1440) Super AMOLED screen from the previous Note and squeezes it into a smaller, redesigned body. Adopting the same styling and aluminum frame and glass back construction as the smaller Galaxy S6 (which we also liked a lot), the Note5 sheds its removable battery and microSD card slot. It is also the first Note phone without significantly more powerful internal hardware than its smaller predecessor.

By adopting the sleek design of the Galaxy S6, Samsung clearly believes it's time for the Note to move out of its niche towards a broader, more mainstream audience. The issue with this strategy is that what makes the Note series popular is different than what draws people to the smaller Galaxy S phones.

As for the Galaxy S6 edge+, it's interesting that Samsung's follow-up to the limited production Note Edge is not another Note product, but a giant Galaxy S6 edge. This means that there is no S Pen, of course. Like the Note5, the bigger edge is not much different internally than its smaller sibling, sharing the same design but using a larger 5.7-inch screen.

Samsung seems to believe there is a clear delineation between the kind of users who value a feature like the S Pen and those who appreciate the more stylish dual-curved screen of the edge. We do not see why, though, that the new Note cannot have the best of both worlds and feature the S Pen and the curved screen. It worked for the Note Edge (albeit with the curve only on one side), and Samsung would not need to promote two separate products. Perhaps Samsung's dual-phablet strategy will become clearer to us once we've been able to spend more time with the new phones.

Hardware Specifications

Samsung's current flagship phones are nearly identical in both features and hardware. The Note5 and S6 edge+ use the same 64-bit Exynos 7420 big.LITTLE SoC (clocked at the same speeds for both the A57 and A53 cores) along with the same ARM Mali-T760MP8 GPU. Previous Notes delivered higher performance than the smaller Galaxies, but with the S6 and S6 edge already using the fastest SoC currently available, Samsung had no other options.

Despite using the same silicon, we should still see slightly better performance from these new phones over the smaller S6s. The SoC will have more thermal headroom in the bigger chassis and thus should throttle less—not that this is a big problem for the 7420 built on Samsung's 14nm FinFET process.

These newer devices also come with 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM instead of 3 GB, giving TouchWiz more room to work and enabling better multitasking performance. The larger Galaxies also make the jump to Category 9 LTE, supporting up to 450 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload speeds.

The 5.7-inch screens are the real showpieces of these phones, with amazing pixel density and beautiful colors. Gone are the days of oversaturated AMOLED color; these screens looked sharp and well calibrated (though perhaps with a slight blue-green tint that may simply be the result of wonky conference room lighting). We were not told if the Note5's flat display is the same panel as the Note 4's, or a newer generation panel with higher brightness and improved color accuracy.

After the disappearance of swappable batteries and expandable storage from the S6 and S6 edge, we were hoping that Samsung would recognize that there is still a group of users who value these features. Unfortunately, these capabilities are missing from both the Note5 and S6 edge+, too. Sure, the new phones are available with up to 64 GB of high-performing UFS 2.0 NAND, but microSD cards are a relatively inexpensive way of adding additional, flexible storage space. What's even more upsetting is that the smaller S6 and S6 edge come with up to 128 GB of internal storage, while the productivity- and media-focused Note5 and S6 edge+ are limited to only 64 GB—less than what's available in the iPhone 6 Plus.

The 3,000 mAh batteries in the Note5 and S6 edge+ are an improvement over the 2,550 mAh and 2,600 mAh batteries in the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, respectively. Despite using the same internal hardware, however, the larger screens will certainly use more power, so it's hard to say if battery life will improve with the larger phones. The 3,000 mAh cells are also a bit smaller than the 3,220 mAh battery in the Note 4. Depending on workload, the Exynos 7420 should use less power than the Snapdragon 805, so battery life may actually be similar. And if the Note5 does use a more efficient, newer generation screen, it might even get better battery life than the Note 4 despite having a smaller battery.

Without the ability to swap batteries, charging becomes even more important. Both of the new phones support fast charging along with Qi and PMA wireless charging to top up the phone during the day.

Hardware Design

There is no question that the Note5 and S6 edge+ have adopted the 2015 design language of the Galaxy S6s, for better or worse. Gone are the flat metal sides and removable plastic back of the Note 4 and Note Edge. Rather, these new large-screen devices are clad in metal and glass. While this change certainly makes for sexier, fashionable phones, it comes with the same compromise that impacted the Galaxy S6: a non-removable battery. There is also the less critical compromise of the glass back being more fragile and susceptible to fingerprints, marring its finish.

The Galaxy Note5 design is interesting in that it's almost the reverse of the S6 edge+. The front is flat while the glass back curves down on each side. The S6 edge+, meanwhile, repeats the design of the S6 edge, with the display being curved on both sides, and its back being flat. This means that both models have the same thin metal sides of the S6 edge that made it harder and less comfortable to hold onto than the flat sides of the regular S6.

Both the Note5 and S6 edge+ have a minimal amount of bezel on the sides of the screen, which helps keeps their overall size down despite their big displays. The dual-curved screen on the S6 edge+ makes the phone appear nearly bezel-less. The characteristic Galaxy home button, which doubles as a touch-based fingerprint reader (the same as on the smaller S6s), still resides below the screen.

Other than how the edges curve, the only other significant difference between the Note5 and S6 edge+ is the inclusion of the S Pen on the former. On this year's model, the stylus is spring-loaded and pops out when you push on it.

Whether you are a fan (or not) of the new design inherited from the S6, one feature that has carried over that we can surely all agree should have been fixed is the camera bump. Although it's understandable that Samsung wanted to make these new phones as slim as possible, surely on such big devices a few more millimeters of girth to hide the camera bump would have been acceptable.

The Note5 and S6 edge+ feel sturdy and stiff, despite being thinner and lighter than the Note 4. The Note5 is about the same height as the Note 4 but is noticeably narrower. When compared to the Note Edge, the S6 edge+ is taller but considerably narrower, thinner and lighter.

Samsung's odd experiments with soft-touch plastics and faux stitching always seemed out of line with its attempts to be seen as a premium brand, although plenty of questionable design decisions are still apparent in the cases intended for these phones. These range from more fake leather to cases with the most glitter-per-square inch we've seen outside of a 4th-grader's arts and crafts project.

As for colors, in the U.S. the Note5 will be available in Black Sapphire and White Pearl. The S6 edge+ comes in Black Sapphire and Gold Platinum.

Camera

The Galaxy S6 is considered to have one of the best smartphone cameras currently available, and the Note5 and S6 edge+ use the same technology. The rear camera on both is a 16MP sensor with phase detect autofocus (PDAF), optical image stabilization (OIS), and an f/1.9 lens. What we are not sure of is if the Note5 and S6 edge+ will be participating in Samsung's camera sensor lottery.

On the S6 and S6 edge, you can either get a phone with a Sony Exmor RS IMX240 sensor or a Samsung S5K2P2 ISOCELL sensor. Which sensor you get depends on when and in what factory your phone was made. Although the sensors have identical specifications on paper and the optics in front are the same no matter the sensor, we did find that the Sony produced slightly better images. Because there is no way to tell what sensor you will get before you buy the phone, we did think it was a little unfair to Galaxy S buyers that some of them got a better camera. We do hope this does not happen with the Note5 and S6 edge+.

The camera app starts up blazing fast and is quick to focus and capture. Along with the camera options found on the S6, Samsung has capitalized on a recent trend to add a unique feature: built-in live streaming. From within the camera app, you can log into YouTube and create and broadcast a live feed. The app allows you to post your YouTube URL to social media or keep the feed private and send specific invites to friends and family. It looked fast, easy to use and remarkably intuitive. The feed is accessible from any device that can navigate to a YouTube URL.

Around front, we have the same 5MP camera as found on the Galaxy S6, along with the same f/1.9 lens.

Software Enhancements

With Android M not coming out until the fall, the Note5 and S6 edge+ both run Android 5.1.1. As Samsung phones, they also use the TouchWiz UI. TouchWiz already received a major facelift on the Galaxy S6, finally fixing many of the issues that plagued previous versions of Samsung's UI. The lag is gone, and navigation is quick and responsive.

Based on our limited time with the Note5 and S6 edge+, we found them to be just as quick and responsive, but they are running an even newer version of TouchWiz. Samsung did not go into great detail about this, and at first glance it does not look much different than the UI of the S6. However, Samsung has once again changed its icons to a new colorful design with rounded off corners. We wouldn't describe them as ugly, they are certainly very different than Google's stock icons and the style of icons used by many popular third-party apps. In fact, they look more like the icons you'd find on many Chinese Android devices, perhaps a conscious choice as China is a huge market for any phone manufacturer.

On the Galaxy S6 edge+, Samsung has enhanced the edge screen features. You can read about how edge lighting, People edge, Information stream, and Night clock work in our Galaxy S6 review, but the new feature for the S6 edge+ is Apps edge. This extends the concept of having five of your favorite contacts easily accessible by swiping in from the edge of the curved screen to your most used applications.

Also, unlike the S6 edge where People edge only worked from the lock screen or the homescreen, Apps edge will be available at all times on the S6 edge+. The added sidebar quick-access to contacts and apps is surprisingly useful, but it's unclear to us why Samsung could not also bring this convenience to the standard, flat-paneled phones.

The Note5's headlining feature, the S Pen stylus, also gets some enhancements. The Air command icon is now available from any screen at any time for faster access to S Pen functions. You now have the ability to annotate PDFs and even write a note on the screen when the phone is sleeping; what you wrote will be saved as a new note when the phone wakes up. Scroll Capture is another new feature that allows you to take a scrolling screenshot to capture long Web pages or documents.

Samsung Pay

By the time these devices launch, Samsung Pay should (finally) be active as well. Originally included with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, Samsung Pay can use either NFC or traditional magnetic stripe terminals, thanks to the Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology it acquired from LoopPay. Samsung Pay has gone through several stages of refinement, and the company said it's nearly ready for launch. Swiping up from the bottom of the lock screen brings up a list of your saved credit cards, and then a pin or fingerprint activates the card.

MST uses a coil in the phone to generate a pulsed magnetic field that mimics the movement of a credit card's magnetic strip. The upshot of this is that Samsung Pay can be used at any retailer that has a standard credit card reader. As an added layer of security, the phone does not broadcast your credit card number, but instead sends a token to the credit card company's servers to verify against Samsung's encrypted records of your card. The obvious caveat here is that Samsung has to get the major credit card companies to all agree to this system, but it claimed to have all the major companies on board.

Samsung has already started testing the technology in select markets and said that people started using Samsung pay about 30-40 percent of the time in these tests with no instruction or prompting. The commercial availability of Samsung Pay in the U.S. will be in September.

Audio Improvements

Another new feature Samsung is touting is ultra-high quality audio or UHQA. The idea is that an audio processor built into these phones uses interpolation to upscale audio to a higher bitrate (24-bit 192KHz). Any audio, whether played from the device's memory or from streaming services, could benefit from this conversion. It remains to be seen whether this will actually improve an average user's listening experience (outside of the controlled environment of a PR demo), but there does seem to be some interesting processing going on behind Samsung's tech.

There is also UHQA Bluetooth audio streaming, but this only works with Samsung's "next generation wireless audio accessories." One feature neither phone has is front-facing stereo speakers. This is an oft-requested feature, and if Motorola can incorporate them in the similarly-sized Moto X Style, surely Samsung could too.

Final Thoughts

The Galaxy S6 edge has proven to be more popular than Samsung expected, with production unable to keep up with demand. Looking to attract even more buyers, the Galaxy S6 edge+ retains the same curved-screen styling, aluminum and glass construction, speedy performance, and long list of features as the S6 edge but should appeal to people who prefer larger phones. The biggest issue we see with this new model is the 64 GB storage limit, which can easily be exceeded when dealing with lots of music, photos and video.

The Note5 seems like a bit of a gamble; you know what they say about fixing things that are not broken. Eliminating the removable battery and microSD card support likely will not sit well with productivity-oriented power users. Removing these features and adopting the same design as the Galaxy S6 also seems to create a lot of overlap with the more mainstream Galaxy S6 edge+. We would have preferred a Note5 that more closely adhered to the Note 4's ethos. We're not saying the Note5 is a bad phone, it's just not what we were expecting.

The Galaxy Note5 will be available in the U.S. with 32 GB or 64 GB of storage in Black Sapphire and White Pearl. The Galaxy S6 edge+ has the same storage choices and will come in either Black Sapphire or Gold Platinum. Both phones will be carried by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless. Pricing and availability is still TBA.

Update, 8/13/15, 3:05 pm PT:At today’s Unpacked event, Samsung announced the release date of the Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ in the US and Canada. It will be available very soon, on August 21. You can also pre-order it in the U.S. from AT&T, Best Buy, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon starting today.

In Canada, Telus is the first carrier to confirm that it is carrying both devices. One should also expect to see the Note5 and S6 edge+ available from all the major Canadian carriers such as Bell, Rogers, Wind and Videotron.

Samsung did not announce pricing at today’s event, but when you pre-order it, the 32 GB Note5 is $250 with a 2-year contract, and the 64 GB model is $350. The 32 GB edge+ is $350, and the 64 GB is $450 (!) on a contract. Outright, the Note5 starts at around $700 for the 32 GB model and $800 for the 64 GB, depending on what carrier you choose. The S6 edge+’s outright prices are even higher, at around $800 and $900 for the 32 GB and 64 GB models, respectively.

Pricing for Canada is still not available, but with the weakness of the Canadian Dollar, they should be considerably higher than the U.S. prices.

Samsung also elaborated on a few new features of the phones at the event. Both models have a new “Video Digital Imaging Stabilization” feature that works with the OIS for even smoother videos. They also both support wireless FAST charging, which uses the new 15-watt Qi fast charging standard. Samsung claimed it can fully charge a phone wirelessly in two hours.

Even though the Galaxy S6 is Samsung's latest flagship smartphone, Samsung has just launched another Galaxy S4-branded device called the Galaxy S4 Mini Plus, two years after the original Galaxy S4 Mini launched.

The Galaxy S4 Mini Plus seems to be some kind of successor to the two year old Galaxy S4 Mini, yet Samsung didn't believe it deserved a completely new name, so instead it added a "Plus" at the end.

Samsung seems to want to keep separate mid-range lines of devices that look different from each other. There's the S4 Mini line-up, then there's the S5 Mini, and there will likely be an S6 Mini, too.

However, all of this could end up confusing consumers, as they won't know what to expect from all of these "Mini" devices other than the fact that they look like their bigger brothers.

From its specs and its ~200 euro price, we expect this Galaxy S4 Mini Plus to compete against the new Moto G 2015. However, some of its specs don't seem nearly as strong.

Samsung's phone comes with an ARMv8 quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, an Adreno 306 GPU, 1.5 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, an 8MP rear camera with 1080p video recording, 1.9MP front-camera, and a 1,900 mAh battery.

The display is quite small by today's standards, even for people who may want smaller screens. It only has a 4.3" display with a qHD (960 x 540) resolution.

The Galaxy S4 Mini Plus seems to be for all intents and purposes a rehashed Galaxy S4 Mini that has a new processor with LTE integration (Snapdragon 410 over Snapdragon 400) and of course a new version of Android, which is also quite far from the latest, being only Android 4.4 Kit Kat.

The original S4 Mini cost significantly more than the S4 Mini Plus does now, so this seems to be Samsung's way of relaunching the same device at a much lower price point, but with some upgraded components that support a newer version of Android.

The Galaxy S4 Mini Plus, which will also be called the Galaxy S4 Mini "Value Edition," will be sold mainly in Europe, and it's already available in countries such as Germany, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria and Czech Republic for between 190 euro and 239 euro.

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In the past few years, we've seen a growing number of devices that support fingerprint readers for device authentication purposes. Apple added a fingerprint sensor to its phone starting with the iPhone 5S, and now that Android M will support fingerprint sensors natively, we're about to see a much bigger adoption in fingerprint sensors for Android smartphones, as well.

Synaptics, the company that gave the Galaxy S5 its swipe "Match-on-Host" fingerprint sensor, announced a new "Match-in-Sensor" solution that should drastically improve the security of fingerprint authentication.

This solution contains its own processor and storage so the fingerprint data doesn't need to leave the Match-in-Sensor at all. It also doesn't need to interact with the host OS and processor, which is typically a vector that could expose it to malware attacks.

Ritu Favre, senior vice president and general manager, Biometric Products Division at Synaptics, gave Tom's Hardware a few more details about how the fingerprint data is protected inside the isolated sensor, so that even if someone steals your device, they can't get your fingerprint data.

“The literal fingerprint image is not stored in the sensor, or anywhere else," she said. "A template of the fingerprint, which is an abstract representation based on the features of the fingerprint that are used by the matching algorithms to determine a match score, are stored in secure memory on the fingerprint sensor module."

In regard to host OS-to-sensor module communication, she added:

“The fingerprint data--the templates and images--are not communicated with the OS. This helps increase resistance to hacking. What is communicated between the sensor and host, via encrypted channels, is the match score. A higher score indicates a closer match to the template, a lower score indicated a poor match."

The company's previous solution, Match-on-Host, along with all of the other smartphone fingerprint readers on the market (including Apple's Touch ID and Qualcomm's upcoming Sense ID solution) kept the fingerprint data in an isolated domain, which still lives on the host processor. Although this solution should be relatively secure by today's standards, it's still far from impenetrable. Malware that has escaped sandboxes, VMs and other types of "secure domains" have existed before and will likely continue to exist, even if they are usually quite rare.

Keeping the fingerprint data completely separated from the host processor and OS should decrease the attack surface by a significant margin. As the mobile industry moves to supporting fingerprint authentication for more sensitive information such as mobile payments, logging into third party websites, and so on, this data will become increasingly more valuable to attackers. That's why it's probably wise that all fingerprint sensor makers move to adopting a solution similar to Synaptics' Match-in-Sensor.

As this sort of solution will need its own storage and SoC, it's likely to cost more, but the increased value it offers in security should more than make up for the expense. Most smartphone users would probably be happy to pay a few extra dollars for their devices if it means their credit card data is much more secure. Therefore, it will be up to device makers to start believing the same thing and demand similar physically isolated sensor modules from their fingerprint reader suppliers.

At the same time, security is not the only factor that users will appreciate. A fast and accurate response from the fingerprint sensor is still quite important if it is to be used at all by smartphone owners. Swipe sensors, such as the Synaptics sensors, have historically not been as good as touch sensors (such as Touch ID or the Galaxy S6's sensor) in regard to this issue.

Synaptics said that its sensor has a False Rejection Rate (FRR) of 3 percent and a False Acceptance Rate of 1 in 50,000, which in theory looks quite good, but it remains to be seen how it will work in practice.

There are also other types of innovations that are worth considering, such as moving to ultrasonics-based fingerprint sensors, which would allow for a decreased response time in different conditions (dirty, wet or oily fingers). It would also enable smartphone makers to put the sensor completely behind a smartphone's screen and obviate a physical home button, as that either wastes bezel space or is too small to be sufficiently accurate.

Ultrasonic fingerprint sensors also promise to scan a better "3D" model of the fingerprint than touch or swipe sensors. This makes it much harder to use a "spoofed" fingerprint against it.

Synaptics' completely isolated Match-in-Sensor introduces a novel security solution in the fingerprint reader market, which should be adopted by other companies as soon as possible. At the same time, Synaptics, as well as other fingerprint sensor makers, will need to adopt new ideas from competitors that make fingerprint sensors easier to use and better protect against spoofing, too.

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Introduction

For five generations of the Galaxy S, Samsung followed the same formula: throw in lots of features and technology, but hold design in disregard. This formula was wildly successful and helped make Samsung synonymous with Android in smartphones.

The smartphone market is fiercely competitive, however, with OEMs desperate to differentiate their products and gain an advantage. Software used to be a focal point, but Google’s tighter grip on Android makes this increasingly difficult, not to mention the customer backlash against feature bloat. We’ve seen several trends in hardware too: larger screens, more CPU cores, and higher camera and screen pixel densities. But with most of the OEMs buying hardware from the same suppliers, the spec sheets for flagship phones within the same generation end up looking fairly similar. With less room to innovate in these areas, OEMs are focusing their attention on product design and materials, which means the old Galaxy S formula no longer fits the data.

For several quarters now, Samsung has seen its sales and profits shrink. Increased competition in China, the world’s largest smartphone market by volume, is a contributing factor. Local manufacturers, including Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi have been steadily improving the quality and design of their products, while undercutting Samsung on price in the low- to mid-tier segments. According to the IDC, in the past year Samsung has fallen from first to fourth in smartphone market share, with shipments declining 53% in the first quarter of 2015 compared to the same quarter a year ago. Meanwhile, Apple holds the top position, with shipments expanding by 62% over the same period, fueled by the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

In addition to the increase in competition at both ends of the price spectrum, Samsung, along with every other smartphone OEM, is battling declining sales in mature markets. There’s fewer and fewer new smartphone customers, and existing owners are holding onto their phones longer, partly because what they have is “good enough” and partly because they have not seen a compelling reason to buy something new.

Starting last year, Samsung began adjusting the coefficients in its product development formula, adapting to the new market conditions by placing an emphasis on product design. The Galaxy Alpha was the first Samsung phone to incorporate an aluminum frame, a feature adopted soon after by the Galaxy Note 4. These designs kept the familiar removable plastic rear cover, a feature that disappeared when the lower priced Galaxy A3 and A5 were released, foreshadowing the new design philosophy for the Galaxy S6.

Samsung’s latest flagship phone looks like a mashup of the iPhone 6, Sony Z3, and Galaxy A5. The front and back are glass like the Z3 and the satin finished frame, with bottom mounted speaker and headphone jack, is similar to the iPhone 6. The chamfered edges and accents are polished like the Galaxy A5, and the front remains unmistakably Samsung.

Along with the new design language and materials, there’s also two different versions: the standard S6 with a flat screen and the S6 edge whose screen curves on both sides, similar to the Galaxy Note Edge. The curved screen gives the S6 edge a unique look and enhances the user experience in an emotional rather than practical way.

Radical change tends to polarize opinion, and the S6’s elegant new design is a prime example. Detractors disagree with Samsung’s decision to elevate form over function by eliminating useful features such as a removable battery, expandable storage, and environmental protection, features which attracted many buyers to the Galaxy S brand and created a group of loyal fans who are now frustrated they no longer have a clear upgrade path.

The loss of these features will disqualify the S6 from consideration for many buyers, but for those who can live without them, the latest flagship galaxy phones offer a tantalizing array of technology.

Technical Specifications

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Compared to the S5, the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge are just slightly taller but 2mm narrower. With the move to aluminum, the S6 is an imperceptible 7g lighter than the S5, and the S6 edge is a just-noticeable 13g lighter; most of this weight reduction comes from the thinner profile and smaller battery, and makes the HTC One (M9) feel heavy by comparison.

There are now three different internal storage capacity options: 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB. The larger capacity options are a necessity since the ability to supplement the internal NAND via SD cards has been eliminated. At least Samsung made the base option 32GB instead of the ridiculous 16GB like the iPhone 6.

Cellular

Samsung continues its tradition of offering a mind numbing array of model numbers, each catering to regional or carrier specific frequency band requirements. Different models also see some variation in silicon as well, particularly with baseband and RF chips, although there seems to be fewer permutations than what we saw in the Galaxy Note 4.

Samsung’s own Shannon 333 baseband and Shannon 928 RF transceiver powers all of the GSM based models. The 333 is a Category 6 LTE modem offering 300 Mb/s down and 50 Mb/s up with carrier aggregation. It incorporates most radio modes, including GSM/EDGE, UMTS (WCDMA, TD-SCDMA), and LTE (LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD), but lacks support for CDMA2000. This is why we see Qualcomm’s MDM9635M powering the models for Sprint, U.S. Cellular, and Verizon.

The MDM9635M is a fourth-generation Category 6 LTE modem built on a 20nm process, and supports all of the 3GPP Release 11 mandatory features. This baseband is likely paired with Qualcomm’s WTR3925 RF transceiver, which is the first single-chip solution from Qualcomm to support all of the 3GPP approved carrier aggregation band combinations. Without performing a teardown, we cannot say what other chips are used in the RF front-end for the Qualcomm based models.

Hardware Features

SoC

Samsung makes better use of vertical integration for the Galaxy S6. Unlike past Galaxy phones where SKUs for different regions used a mixture of Qualcomm and Samsung SoCs, both the S6 and S6 edge use Samsung’s Exynos 7420 SoC everywhere. This is the first time Exynos has been used exclusively in a flagship device, a big win for Samsung’s foundry.

Manufactured on Samsung’s 14nm LPE (Low Power Early) FinFET process, the Exynos 7420 is also the first SoC to reach the 14nm milestone. The new process uses a smaller gate pitch to increase logic and SRAM density, but retains the same metal interconnect pitch as the previous 20nm LPM process.

The big benefit of moving to FinFET, however, is the new 3D transistor structure, where the silicon channel gets extended into a vertical wall or fin and then wrapped by the gate. This improves the electrical characteristics of the transistor by decoupling it from the silicon substrate and allowing current to be controlled via three channel surfaces instead of one like the planar structure. Thus, the 3D transistor can operate at a lower voltage, reducing dynamic power and heat.

Being first to 14nm FinFET gives the Exynos 7420 the edge in both power and CPU performance over rival SoCs like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810, which is manufactured on TSMC's 20nm HKMG planar process. Like the 810, the Exynos 7420 uses four ARM Cortex-A57 and four Cortex-A53 CPU cores in a heterogeneous big.LITTLE configuration; however, Samsung uses some of its extra power budget to clock the higher performing A57 cores at 2.1GHz versus 2.0GHz for the 810.

Memory

Samsung pairs the Exynos 7420 with 3GB of its own LPDDR4 memory, which is located on the same package. The operating voltage for LPDDR4 is reduced by 50% compared to LPDDR3 by using low-voltage swing-terminated logic (LVSTL) I/O signaling. The newer memory also uses two 16-bit channels instead of a single 16-bit channel like LPDDR3, which reduces the signaling distance between the memory array and I/O pads. These changes result in an estimated power savings of 35-40 percent and enable higher signaling frequencies. For the S6 (when we say S6, we mean both the S6 and S6 edge unless otherwise noted), Samsung sets the memory bus to a maximum frequency of 1552MHz, giving it a theoretical bandwidth of 24.83GB/s.

Internal Storage

Thanks to more vertical integration from Samsung, the Galaxy S6 is the first smartphone to ship with UFS 2.0 based NAND. UFS has a more sophisticated architecture; it uses a serial interface rather than eight parallel lanes like eMMC, and it supports full-duplex data transfers (can read and write simultaneously) instead of the half-duplex (exclusive read or write) mode used by eMMC. UFS also uses the SCSI command protocols, giving it the ability to do command queuing. As shown in the chart above, all of these changes add up to better sequential and random I/O performance, which will hopefully translate to quicker app load times and fewer pauses for the S6.

Wireless Charging

Wireless charging has been optional on several Samsung phones before, but it now comes builtin with the S6. Of the three incompatible charging standards, the S6 supports two of them: WPC (Qi) and PMA. These are both tightly coupled inductive charging methods that require direct contact with a charging pad. Where they differ is in the power carrier frequencies used and how the transmitter and receiver communicate: The Qi standard modulates the power signal directly, while the PMA standard uses an RFID handshake.

Support for multiple standards is important, since we’re still in the early adoption phase and it is not clear yet which standard(s) will reach critical mass. Earlier this year, Starbucks began rolling out wireless charging stations in its stores using the PMA standard, while McDonald’s is doing the same but with Qi wireless chargers. Furniture maker IKEA is also integrating Qi wireless chargers into its products. With the S6, you will not have to worry about which standard is supported where, just place it on a charging pad and it should work.

Fingerprint Scanner

Samsung added a fingerprint scanner to last year’s Galaxy S5, a move many saw as a reaction to Apple adding Touch ID to the iPhone 5s. Unfortunately, Samsung went the cheaper route by using a swipe-style capacitive sensor. Less accurate and less convenient than the touch-style active capacitive sensor used in the iPhone, the S5’s scanner drew many complaints. Subsequent software updates helped improve the scanner’s accuracy, which we noted in our Galaxy S5 review, but it still fell short of Touch ID.

To address these issues, Samsung has swapped the old swipe-style sensor for a passive capacitive sensor from Synaptics. This new sensor gives the S6 the same touch-based activation as Touch ID, vastly improving its ease of use and performance. Fingerprint recognition is fast and accurate, with false rejections nearly nonexistent. The sensor recognizes the finger in any orientation (even upside down), and depending on how well you perform the training procedure, shifting the position of the finger relative to the sensor—from touching it with just the tip, the middle section, or at the base near the joint—does not adversely affect accuracy either. It still has issues with wet fingers or large swings in temperature, but the performance of the S6’s fingerprint sensor now seems to be on par with Apple’s Touch ID.

The finger enrollment process changes slightly, but is still a painless affair; it requires you to place your finger on the sensor about twenty times—it is recommended to vary the finger position slightly each time for better results—the last few times using just the tip of your finger. You will also need to create a backup password during the initial enrollment. As many as four fingerprints can be added, up from a maximum of three for the S5.

Samsung Pay

The improved fingerprint scanner works together with Samsung Pay. Unlike existing payment solutions which rely exclusively on Near Field Communication (NFC) and require special NFC enabled terminals—a limitation slowing its adoption rate—Samsung augments NFC with a new technology it acquired from LoopPay called Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST). This technology enables wireless payment transactions to work with traditional magnetic stripe credit card terminals. The combination of NFC and MST means that Samsung Pay can potentially work at roughly 30 million locations worldwide. While the S6 includes the necessary hardware to support Samsung Pay, we’ll have to wait for a future software update before it is enabled.

Samsung’s various semiconductor businesses have been busy lately, giving it a leadership position in memory (LPDDR4), storage (UFS 2.0 NAND), process technology (14nm LPE FinFET), and displays (SAMOLED). Better vertical integration, an improved fingerprint scanner, and standard agnostic wireless charging combine to give the Galaxy S6 an impressive list of hardware and new technologies, which we do not expect any other flagship phone released this year to match.

Hardware Design

The appearance and feel of the Galaxy S6 are a radical departure from last year’s Galaxy S5, even more so for the S6 edge. Samsung’s focus on design yields an elegant look that feels solid and well made.

Central to this new design philosophy is material choice. Until recently, Samsung has used plastic exclusively in its mobile products, a material that correlates with “cheap” for many consumers—an undesirable association for an expensive, flagship product. Of course there are other engineering reasons to use plastic besides cost such as weight and damage resistance, but many people buying smartphones do not design products themselves and so do not immediately recognize these benefits. Plastic phones do not have to look cheap either, since good design is material agnostic.

The new Galaxy S phones, however, shun polymers for aluminum and glass. The metal unibody is sandwiched between two sheets of glass, similar to the Sony Z3 or old iPhone 4/4s, which raises the issue of durability—glass tends to crack when dropped. For the S6, Samsung is using Corning’s latest Gorilla Glass 4, which offers either twice the fracture resistance at the same thickness or about a 25% reduction in thickness and the same strength as Gorilla Glass 3, while still offering the same scratch resistance as the generation three glass. Without knowing the glass thickness for either the S6 or S6 edge, we cannot say if they are any more or less fracture resistant than the S5 or Z3; however, with twice as much glass as other phones, there’s definitely a greater chance that a phone like the S6 will crack if dropped. And considering just how easily the glass slides on smooth surfaces, do not be surprised when it falls off a seemingly flat table (we’ve seen this happen several times already).

Despite the redesign, the front of both the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge retains a traditional Samsung look. Below the screen, the only difference between the S5 and the S6 is the size of the pill-shaped home button, which is now a little larger to accommodate the new touch-style fingerprint scanner. The capacitive recent apps and back buttons still sit to the left and right of the home button, respectively.

A chrome Samsung logo sitting below a slightly raised and perforated speaker also looks familiar. The notification LED, along with the proximity and ambient light sensors, move to the left side of the speaker, allowing the front-facing camera on the opposite side to move closer to the middle.

Despite the larger home button, the lower bezel is the same height as it was on the S5, which is also true for the upper bezel. The side bezels for the Galaxy S6 do shrink relative to the S5, raising the screen-to-body ratio just slightly.

The perimeter is now a lightly textured aluminum, whose chamfered and polished edges match the chrome accents around the home button and rear camera and flash modules. This combination of materials and textures—matte aluminum; chrome accents; and smooth, shiny glass—create a luxurious design that equals or exceeds that of any other flagship phone.

The curved screen on the Galaxy S6 edge necessitates some changes in the frame’s design. On the Galaxy S6, the frame is rounded except on the sides where machine cuts create flat regions that aid grip. A faint, raised ridge on the top and bottom wraps around the corners and blends into the flat sides. This ridge is absent on the S6 edge, as is the flat machined region on the sides. Instead, the thinner frame on the S6 edge is flat and tapered.

These differences are more than just cosmetic. The thin, tapered sides make the S6 edge feel a bit sharp when holding it in your hand. It’s not going to slice skin obviously, but it's definitely less comfortable to hold than the regular S6. Fortunately, the corners are still rounded, so they do not dig into your palm. The thin sides also make the S6 edge difficult to pick up when laying on a flat surface, especially when resting on its back. Since I do not have long fingernails, I usually pick up the phone by squeezing the top and bottom between my thumb and middle finger, which is a bit more awkward than picking it up by the sides.

The curved screen on the S6 edge is also to blame for the lack of a microSD slot. Its sides are far too thin to accommodate a slot, and with the various ports, speakers, sensors, antennas, cameras, and fingerprint scanner, there’s no room left on the top or bottom either. While the regular S6 has room for the slot on one of its sides, apparently Samsung did not want it to have a feature missing on the more expensive S6 edge.

The bottom of both S6 versions share a passing resemblance to the iPhone 6, with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the left, microUSB 2.0 port in the middle, and a series of small circular holes for the mono speaker on the right. There’s also a microphone next to the speaker.

The top is a little less crowded, particularly for the regular S6, which only has an infrared port and noise-canceling microphone clustered in the center. For the S6 edge, Samsung moves the microphone further to one side and places the nanoSIM tray on the other side of the infrared port (another reason why there is no room left for a microSD slot).

The power button is located just above center on the right side, with the nanoSIM tray just below it on the regular S6. The separate volume buttons are on the top-left side. All of the metal buttons are easy to locate by feel and operate with a positive click. Because of the smaller sides, the buttons on the S6 edge are thinner than those on the regular S6, further contributing to its sharper feel.

Around back, the rear camera sits in a raised square housing, that due to the phone’s reduced thickness, protrudes more than usual. The LED flash and heart rate sensors are in a separate housing to the side of the camera.

If the reason for Samsung’s newfound focus on design was to create a luxurious looking phone commensurate with its premium price, then it succeeded. The cost for this radical redesign extends beyond money, however. With glass replacing plastic, the Galaxy S6 is less durable than previous generations, and longstanding Samsung features such as a removable battery and SD card support had to be cut.

Options

In addition to the flat or curved screen options, Samsung offers a choice between 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB of internal storage. There’s also a variety of colors to choose from. Black Sapphire, White Pearl, and Gold Platinum are common to both models, while Blue Topaz and Green Emerald are exclusive to the S6 and S6 edge, respectively. Color availability is carrier or region specific, however; neither the blue or green colors are available directly from US carriers.

All of the colors look more sophisticated than flashy. The gold, blue, and green colors have metallic flecks, and they all have an opalescent shimmer that gives a sense of depth to the finish.

Display And Audio

When we reviewed the Galaxy Note 4, we noted how Samsung continues to improve the quality of its SAMOLED displays with each generation. Indeed, our tests confirmed what our eyes saw: a terrific looking screen with accurate colors or bright, saturated colors depending on your display mode preference. For the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, we’re happy to see this trend continue.

Like the Note 4, both versions of the S6 see improvements in display accuracy and resolution. Moving from the Galaxy S5’s 1080p resolution to the S6’s 1440p, while keeping the display size constant, increases pixel density by 33%. As many of our readers know, Samsung’s PenTile pixel layout contains fewer red and blue subpixels as compared to an RGB stripe LCD display, which caused some earlier PenTile based displays to appear grainy in certain conditions. The S6’s 1440p resolution nullifies this issue.

While both the S6 and S6 edge use Samsung made displays, their part numbers are different. This is hardly surprising, but we want to be clear that the S6 is not just using the S6 edge panel in a flat configuration. Thus, we expect to see some variation in the display measurements.

We’re using SpectraCal's CalMAN software and SpectraCal C6 colorimeter for display measurements. All of the charts below with a gray background were generated in CalMAN v5 Ultimate.

Full Brightness chart including values for APL=50 and auto-boost.

Since the brightness of an AMOLED display changes depending on what content is actually being displayed, we report brightness for two different conditions: APL=50% and APL=100% (APL stands for Average Picture Level). These APL values are a good upper and lower bound for what is seen during normal use.

All of Samsung’s SAMOLED displays, from the Galaxy S5 to the Galaxy Note 4 to both Galaxy S6s, achieve a max brightness of ~350 nits for an APL of 100%, a worst case condition. The new displays still fall shy of 400 nits—and the Galaxy S5—when the APL is adjusted to 50% as shown in the full brightness chart.

With peak brightness falling between 360-370 nits for most scenarios, the S6 screens can be difficult to see in direct sunlight. For just this situation, Samsung provides a “boost” mode that kicks in if Auto brightness is selected and the ambient light exceeds a certain threshold. This “Auto boost” mode increases max brightness to between 575 and 670 nits depending on APL, making content viewable in the summer sun. It’s best suited to checking email or viewing a short video rather than reading a novel at the beach, however, since the screen consumes more power and will eventually overheat, causing brightness to fall back to normal levels.

Like other recent Samsung Galaxy products, the S6 and S6 edge have four different screen modes with different gamma curves, color gamuts, and color saturation levels: Basic, Cinema, Photo, and Adaptive display. According to Samsung, the Adaptive mode “optimizes” display parameters based on the app that's being used. It’s limited, however, to a handful of Samsung apps, making it impossible for us to test. Instead, we'll focus on the other three modes. For testing purposes, the "Auto adjust screen tone" setting, which automatically adjusts the screen luminance based on the content being displayed, is turned off.

In the Basic and Photo screen modes, the average gamma for both the S6 and S6 edge comes close to the ideal value of 2.2, improving upon the average gamma level of the S5 and Note 4. Gamma varies little across the full range of grayscale values in both Basic and Photo modes for either device.

Cinema mode for both devices, however, shows significant variation, peaking at ~2.6-2.7 at the low-end of the scale—leading to darker shadows and a loss of highlights—and ~1.2-1.3 near the white-end of the scale—resulting in a significant loss of shadow detail.

Once again, the Basic and Photo modes produce very accurate results for both devices, the S6 being slightly closer to the ideal value than the S6 edge. Cinema mode adopts a cooler color temperature, typical in mobile displays, but is still an improvement over the S5. In all three modes, there’s very little variation in color temperature across a full grayscale sweep (values close to 0% are not accurate).

Looking at the RGB balance across a range of grayscale values shows why the Basic and Photo modes get so close to the ideal color temperature. For the S6, no single primary color varies by more than ±3% for any grayscale level, skewing towards green. The S6 edge graphs look similar, with color variation up slightly to about ±4% and a small emphasis on blue instead of green.

Cinema mode displays far less balance, with an increasing disparity between blue and red approaching the white end of the spectrum. This leads to an obvious blue tint for lighter shades of gray and white.

Grayscale accuracy in both the Basic and Photo modes is excellent, with average ΔE2000 for the S6 at 1.67 and never rising above three for any gray level. The S6 edge performs nearly as well, with error staying below three except at 100% white.

Grayscale error rises dramatically in Cinema mode due to the blue shift we saw in the RGB balance graphs above. At 100% white, error reaches a maximum of 7 for the S6 and almost 8.5 for the S6 edge, error values that are clearly visible to the naked eye.

The S6 does an excellent job adhering to the sRGB color space in Basic mode. The same is mostly true for the S6 edge, except its blue vertex extends just beyond the sRGB triangle. Photo mode maintains the same red and blue vertex points as the Basic mode but extends green tones beyond sRGB. Cinema is a true wide-gamut mode covering about 130% of the sRGB color gamut. Currently, without OS support and color space aware apps, all content viewed on a mobile display will be in the sRGB color space. Viewing this content on a wide-gamut display results in over-saturated, neon-like colors that do not look natural.

In the color saturation sweep, the S6 in Basic mode performs very well, with the display hitting the target boxes at each color saturation level. There’s also no hint of color compression. The S6 edge in Basic mode does almost as well, but its extended gamut leads to oversaturated blues and magentas at each 20% saturation step.

In Photo mode, both devices show some color compression for red (the spacing between measurement points is less than 20%) and magenta tones skew towards red. Once again, the S6 does much better than the S6 edge representing blue tones.

Neither device does well in Cinema mode, where nearly all measured points appear oversaturated. Green is particularly bad, where a picture showing green grass at a 60% saturation for example, will be displayed as a pure 100% green in the sRGB color space. There’s also significant color compression, mostly a result of the extended color gamut. We also see that the white point (the black box in the middle) shifts towards blue.

Color accuracy for the S6 in Basic mode is stellar. Most of the measured colors have an error below one, which is considered to be imperceptible. This is by far the most accurate display we’ve ever seen.

The S6 edge cannot match the accuracy of the S6 in Basic mode, although its results are still very good. Most colors show an error below two, with only a few colors such as cyan and orange going above three.

Color error climbs significantly in Photo mode, with the S6 edge again performing a bit worse than its flat-screened counterpart. Cinema mode is worse still, with very noticeable color deviations.

Full Size Images: [Color Palette: S6 Basic], [Color Palette: S6 Photo], [Color Palette: S6 Cinema], [Color Palette: S6 edge Basic], [Color Palette: S6 edge Photo], [Color Palette: S6 edge Cinema]

The color palettes above show the target color on the bottom versus the displayed color on the top and are another way of viewing color accuracy. For the Basic mode palettes, it’s very difficult to see any discernible difference between the target and displayed colors. In contrast, Cinema mode shows a clear deviation from each target color, clearly displaying the neon-like colors resulting from the wide-gamut support. There’s also an obvious blue tint to white and the various gray levels.

Whether you are a stickler for display accuracy or prefer more vibrant, saturated colors, Samsung’s display modes have you covered. Basic mode is a well-calibrated, proper sRGB mode that delivers accurate colors and grayscale values, while Cinema is a wide-gamut mode that produces more vivid colors and a cooler white point. Finally, Photo mode provides a reasonable compromise between these two extremes.

Viewing angles for both phones are excellent, with some color shifting only at extreme angles. The curved portions of the S6 edge’s display do exhibit some additional color shifting, although we do not find it distracting.

The display in the Galaxy S6 exceeds the already impressive display in the Galaxy Note 4 and simply looks amazing. The S6 edge’s curved screen also performs well, but cannot match the accuracy of the regular S6’s flat panel. Bottom line: the S6 and S6 edge have two of the best looking displays we have ever seen.

Audio Performance

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge use the WM1840 audio codec from Wolfson Microelectronics (acquired by Cirrus Logic in 2014), a big change from Qualcomm’s WCD9320 audio codec used in the North American version of the Galaxy S5 (and also Sony’s Z3). Wolfson audio codecs have a reputation among audiophiles for their accurate sound, so this is not necessarily a bad move. This new audio chip is paired with a Maxim MAX98505 mono Class DG amplifier.

The position of the single external speaker also changes, moving from the back of the phone to a bottom, down-firing position. While not as efficient at delivering sound to your ears as a front-facing speaker, it’s still an improvement over the rear-firing speaker in the S5.

Volume for the external speaker ramps up smoothly until about the 90% mark where there’s a sudden, substantial jump in output. Overall, output volume is fairly low compared to most other phones; the iPhone 6 and Galaxy Note 4 are significantly louder, although the S6 exhibits less distortion at max volume than the Note 4.

With only a single external speaker, the soundstage is obviously limited and bass and treble are lacking. Compared to the iPhone 6, which also has a single, downward-firing speaker, the S6 sounds a bit flat and hollow when playing music. Vocals do not stand out and it’s difficult to pick out individual instruments. The iPhone 6 definitely has the better external speaker.

Plugging in a set of NAD VISO HP50 headphones and leaving the S6’s equalizer on the default “Normal” setting results in a fairly dull listening experience. Bass notes lacked punch and higher frequencies rolled off quickly. Female vocals lacked power and it was difficult to isolate specific instruments in certain tracks.

Fortunately, a few adjustments to the EQ—adding gain at 60Hz and 3kHz, with smaller boosts at 1kHz, 8kHz, and 16kHz—improves the sound significantly, virtually eliminating the issues heard at the default setting. However, output volume remained lower than the iPhone 6, which could cause issues for higher impedance headphones.

Camera Features

Samsung has been steadily improving the camera experience in its Galaxy smartphones for several generations. Last year’s Galaxy S5 paired a 16 MP Samsung ISOCELL rear camera sensor with good optics, phase detection autofocus (PDAF), and an easy to use camera UI, which delivered decent performance but struggled with noise in low-light conditions. For the Galaxy Note 4, Samsung switched to a 16 MP sensor from Sony (at least for most markets) and added optical image stabilization (OIS), which produced stellar results and led us to proclaim that the Note 4’s camera was “one of the best currently available.” What improvements does Samsung bring to the S6, and will they be able to improve upon the Note 4’s experience?

A Tale of Two Sensors

The Galaxy S6 and S6 edge come with one of two different rear camera sensors depending on region, cellular provider, or perhaps just random chance. The most commonly used sensor seems to be the Sony Exmor RS IMX240—the same sensor used in the Galaxy Note 4—which is 1/2.6" in size with 1.12µm pixels and captures images in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Samsung also uses its own S5K2P2 ISOCELL sensor, which you may recognize as the same sensor used in the Galaxy S5 and the Galaxy Note 4 in select markets outside of North America. Like the Sony sensor, it’s also a 16 MP 1/2.6" sensor with 1.12µm pixels and a 16:9 aspect ratio.

So how can you tell which sensor an S6 will come with? Well, as far as we can tell right now there does not seem to be a pattern. The US T-Mobile units we tested (S6 and S6 edge) both have the Sony sensor. Our Canadian models of both versions for Bell and Rogers also have Sony sensors, but our Canadian S6 edge for the Telus network uses the Samsung sensor (see the next section for a quality comparison between the two sensors). A cursory search of the Web finds conflicting information, however. Perhaps the choice of sensor is governed by supply at the time of production.

While there does not seem to be a way to know which camera sensor you will get ahead of time, you can at least find out what sensor your phone has after you buy it by opening the text file “/sys/devices/virtual/camera/rear/rear_camtype” with a file manager app.

Fortunately, there’s no sensor lottery for the front-facing camera, which uses the Samsung S5K4E6 5 MP 1/4.1" sensor with 1.34µm pixels.

Optics and Features

Although the Galaxy S6 uses the same rear sensor as either the S5 or Note 4, the optical stack in front of the sensor is new. The S6’s lens uses a very fast aperture of f/1.9 versus the f/2.2 in the S5 and Note 4. Together with the change in focal length, the S6’s lens captures about 8% more light than the S5 and Note 4, 11% more than the HTC One (M9), and 44% more than the iPhone 6. This allows the S6 to shoot at a lower ISO, reducing the amount of noise seen in the final image.

The S6 also uses a wider 28mm focal length (35mm equivalent) than the S5 and Note 4 (31mm) or even the iPhone 6 (29mm). This increases the camera’s field of view and captures a greater portion of the scene.

Like the S5 and Note 4, the Galaxy S6 uses phase detection autofocus (PDAF) to improve focus speed and accuracy. The S6 also incorporates optical image stabilization (OIS), which was first used by Samsung on the Note 4. This feature physically moves the camera sensor/lens to compensate for camera shake, allowing the camera to hold the shutter open longer without incurring motion blur. The combination of a faster lens and OIS should give the S6 a big advantage in low-light performance over the S5.

Another new feature for the S6 is an infrared color sensor located below the flash that analyzes the scene and improves white balance and color accuracy. This should help immensely in low light conditions where accurate white balance was a bit of a challenge for previous Samsung phones. The LG G4 also has a similar feature, so we can expect to see this crop up on more smartphones going forward.

Tracking autofocus is another one of the headlining new features of the Galaxy S6’s camera. Being able to lock onto an object and keep it in focus is something that is widely available in full-sized cameras, but has not found its way to many mobile devices as of yet. Only a handful of phones have this feature, one of which is the Huawei Ascend P6. So while the S6 is not the first smartphone to have this, it’s the first globally available phone to use it.

Tracking AF is off by default but can be turned on in the settings menu. Once active, you simply tap the object you want the phone to track as either it or the camera moves, and the S6 will try and keep it in focus no matter where it is in the frame.

This feature makes the S6 great for taking action shots such as the moving vehicle in the example picture above or at a sporting event. This also works well for the inverse situation where you want to be able to move the camera around to compose a shot of a static object without constantly refocusing.

In general, we found the S6’s tracking AF to work pretty well. It does have a few limitations, however, like being able to select small moving objects on the screen with a meaty finger. Also, low contrast objects that blend in with their surroundings can be hard to select effectively. Once locked on, the fast PDAF system keeps up reasonably well and the object tracking maintains a good lock unless the moving object’s distance from the camera changes too abruptly, it passes behind another object, or passes in front of another object of similar color.

We’ll see if the S6’s improved optics, OIS, phase detection AF, and new infrared color sensor add up to produce great looking photos on the next page.

Camera Software

Samsung’s camera software has been improving for a few generations now, with a focus on streamlining the UI by reducing the number of superfluous pre-installed modes and features. This trend continues for the S6, where the selection of additional modes is further reduced by making most of them optional downloads.

The Camera app’s Auto mode screen, while similar to the UI found on the Galaxy S5 and Note 4, does have a few changes to the left-side controls: The effects, timer, and flash controls are now visible on the main screen instead of being buried in the settings menu. In addition to toggling HDR mode on or off, there’s a new “auto” setting that applies HDR processing when necessary. Considering how well Samsung’s HDR mode works—including a real-time preview with an icon to inform you when it’s being used—this will generally be the best option.

Like most cameras, tapping and holding the screen will lock the focus and exposure, and holding down the shutter button enables burst capture. The Android 5.1.1 update also adds a new exposure control to Auto mode, which is shown in the second image of the animation above. If you tap to focus on an object, a slider appears which allows you to darken or lighten the image.

Another big change is that all of the settings previously found in a pop-out menu, which was overlaid on the camera UI, have now been moved into a more traditional Android settings menu. This is where still image and video resolution, as well as advanced settings and UI controls, are set. Some of the camera controls such as ISO and white balance that were in the old settings menu have been moved to the new Pro mode.

The Camera2 API and Pro Mode

The Camera2 API, one of the new features in Android Lollipop, allows for full manual control of camera settings. Unfortunately, the Galaxy S6’s initial Lollipop 5.0.2 build did not fully support the Camera2 API for some reason. Using a third-party app, you could manually adjust shutter and focus, but not capture in RAW.

The recent update to Android 5.1.1 finally adds full Camera2 API support (as can be seen in this handy chart), including the ability to capture in RAW, which bypasses the S6’s post-processing and gives you ultimate control over the final image.

Despite its name, the new Pro mode is not really a proper manual mode; it’s more of a UI tweak, collecting the pre-existing controls from the S5 and Note 4 camera, along with a new manual focus control, on one screen, making them easier to access. Even in Pro mode, however, Samsung’s Camera app still does not capture in a RAW format. For this, and a complete set of manual controls, you’ll still need to use a third-party camera app.

In Pro mode, you’ll find that the metering control, which changes how the camera measures exposure, replaces the HDR toggle on the left-side of the screen. Along the right edge are several other controls, including exposure, ISO, white balance, focus, and tone mapping. However, like previous Samsung phones, these options are very limited. For example, ISO can only be set to 100, 200, 400, and 800. In Auto mode, the camera is capable of setting more granular ISOs, including values below 100. Similarly, there is no proper white balance option to select an exact color balance, just four presets. Again, the Auto mode has more flexibility in automatically selecting the best white balance for a given scene.

With the lack of manual shutter speed control and RAW capture, it’s clear that this Pro mode is far from being a true manual mode, and in most shooting situations you’d be better off just using the Auto mode. The manual focus, which is useful when shooting close-up and macro shots, is really the most useful feature. The proper manual modes on the HTC One (M9) and LG G4 are substantially better.

Virtual Shot

Virtual shot is a new mode for the Galaxy S6 and is available on both the front and rear cameras. By panning around an object in a circular motion, this mode stitches together a 180º view of the object. You can then tilt the phone and use the accelerometers to pan around the object. The result can then be exported as either a sequential series of images or as a video (which you can see below). It’s a little awkward taking virtual shots of small objects since moving the phone around them is difficult. This mode definitely works better with bigger objects that you can walk around instead.

Additional Modes

The other pre-installed camera modes include Panorama and Selective focus. The S6’s Panorama mode works very well, capable of capturing any field of view up to a full 360º. Once complete, there is a neat auto-panning option for reviewing the shot. Selective focus, which we covered in our Note 4 review, is rendered somewhat superfluous by the S6’s new lens and manual focus control.

There’s also eight additional modes available for download. Most of them are pretty self explanatory but Dual Camera lets you use the front camera to add a picture-in-picture effect, and Shot and More includes a number of shooting effects covered in our Note 4 review.

Front-Facing Camera

On the Galaxy S6, Samsung further improves the front-facing camera over the Note 4’s. It is now 5MP and has an f/1.9 aperture like the rear camera, improving its low-light capability. It also has digital image stabilization and the same real-time HDR as the rear camera.

The Wide-selfie mode makes an appearance again, which is a panorama mode for selfies. The new Virtual shot mode is also available for the front-facing camera, although it’s quite difficult to pan the camera around yourself and get a decent result.

The overall imaging experience on the Galaxy S6 is very good! The streamlined camera UI looks cleaner and places the most used controls within easy reach. The image preview displayed on the screen matches what’s shown in the captured image regardless of image aspect ratio, and HDR processing is also applied to the preview in real-time.

Our only real disappointment is that the new Pro mode is not a proper manual mode. Even with the Android 5.1.1 update you still have to use a third-party camera app to access the full range of Camera2 API features like RAW shooting. There’s also another issue specific to the S6 edge: The curved screen edges sometimes make it hard to see the top and bottom of the frame when composing an image.

Video

After monitoring SoC frequencies, it appears that the Galaxy S6 uses software based encoding for all H.264 video. The A53 CPUs hover around their idle frequency with the Camera app open. As soon as it starts recording video, however, all four A53 CPUs ramp up to 1.3GHz (the A57 cores remain idle), as can be seen in the graph below depicting A53 and memory bus frequencies while recording 1080p HD video. The other recording modes for both the front and rear cameras show a similar pattern. The penalty for using software encoding is that it uses more power than a fixed-function hardware block, reducing battery life.

The opposite is true when playing video; the S6 uses fixed hardware for decoding all video streams except 1080p@60fps, which is decoded in software on the A53 CPUs. We also noticed that the S6 appears to use the GPU (at a mild 266MHz) to power the front-facing camera's face detection feature.

Rear Camera Video Modes

Front Camera Video Modes

The Galaxy S6 offers the same selection of video modes as the Note 4. It records 4K@30fps with a 48 Mb/s bit rate, lower than the S5’s 57 Mb/s average bit rate. Samsung maintains the same 17 Mb/s bit rate for 1080p@30fps video it used on the Note 4 and S5, which is a little lower than the 20 Mb/s rate used by the LG G3 and OnePlus One. The S6 also supports 1080p@60fps, slow motion, and fast motion (time-lapse) video.

Several of the higher speed or resolution modes come with restrictions, however. HDR, video stabilization, tracking AF, video effects, and capturing still images while shooting video are all unavailable in the FHD 60fps, QHD (front and rear cameras), and UHD modes. Also, the S6 limits recording time to five minutes in the UHD and QHD modes, presumably to keep videos from consuming too much internal storage space. Unlike the Note 4, the S6 can use HDR and video stabilization at the same time for the modes that support these options. And just to make sure you’re thoroughly confused, turning on tracking AF disables video stabilization. Oh, you’re not confused yet? Well video stabilization also does not work in VGA mode.

Video quality from both the front and rear cameras is very good overall. White balance and exposure adjust automatically, producing accurate colors. The phase detection autofocus on the rear camera performs well, although it tends to focus in steps unlike the iPhone 6’s continuous autofocus. Turning on the tracking AF makes it behave more like the iPhone 6, adjusting focus incrementally as the object moves closer or further away. It still can not match the smoothness of the iPhone 6’s transitions, however.

Unlike other phones which disable OIS when shooting video, the S6 leaves OIS active. This may sound like a good thing, but it actually produces a weird, wobbly video effect when switching directions while panning. Turning on video stabilization does diminish this motion sickness inducing byproduct, but this option is unavailable when shooting in the higher quality video modes. The videos below show what this effect looks like, first without video stabilization, and then with stabilization turned on.

The S6 supports the same slow-motion speed choices as the S5 and Note 4 before it: 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. But unlike the previous Galaxy phones, whose slow-motion video looked choppy, suffered from artifacts due to its low bit rate, and did not include audio, the S6’s slow-motion video is more than a mere checkbox on a marketing slide.

This time warping feature is accessed by tapping the “MODE” button and choosing the “Slow motion” option. The resulting H.264 Baseline video is captured in 720p@120fps with a bit rate of 47.5 Mb/s. It also records 48kHz AAC audio at 256 kb/s. Once the raw video is captured, tapping the video preview square and then the slow-motion symbol opens the slow-motion video editor, where you can trim the length of the video and select the region to appear in slow motion using the timeline. After selecting one of the three speed options, you can then export the final video.

The resulting 1/4 speed video is just the original stream played back at 30fps. The 1/2 speed video also plays back at 30fps but drops every other frame. To get to the 1/8 speed setting, the original video plays back at 15fps. Both the 1/2 and 1/4 speeds play back smoothly and have sufficiently high bit rates. However, the lower frame and bit rates for the 1/8 speed video make it look choppy and of lower quality overall. All three speeds retain the recorded audio track, which also plays back in slow motion in sync with the video.

Camera Performance And Photo Quality

Samsung diligently promotes the performance and features of the Galaxy S6’s and S6 edge’s camera experience. Now it’s time to see if the S6 lives up to the marketing hype and improves upon the S5’s performance. We’ll also compare the S6 to the iPhone 6 and HTC One (M9), two of its prime competitors who bring sensors with different pixel counts to the fight. The S6 will also be compared to the Galaxy Note 4, which shares the same Sony sensor with the S6, to gauge the impact of software improvements and the S6’s new rear camera lens. Although we took the same pictures with both the S6 and S6 edge—each using the Sony sensor—we are only showing results from one of them since they turned out to be essentially identical.

To make things even more interesting (or confusing), Samsung equips the various S6 models with one of two different rear camera sensors. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on both, so we may explore the differences between an S6 with the Sony sensor and an S6 with the Samsung sensor.

All of the images shown below were taken using the Auto mode unless noted. Also, you can view the full-sized image for each photo by clicking the text links below the images that are within a slideshow album. All of the Samsung phones shoot natively at a 16:9 aspect ratio, while the other phones shoot in 4:3.

Outdoors

Daylight

Full Size Images: [S6: daylight cars], [S5: daylight cars], [Note 4: daylight cars], [iPhone 6: daylight cars], [HTC One (M9): daylight cars], [S6: daylight city], [S5: daylight city], [Note 4: daylight city], [iPhone 6: daylight city], [HTC One (M9): daylight city]

In the first set of images, all of the phones set the white balance correctly, which is to be expected considering there’s a white car in the foreground. The S5 leaves its shutter open the longest, producing the brightest image, while the HTC One (M9) image is just a bit dark.

At first glance both the S5 and S6 images look nice, but a closer look reveals several differences that favor the S6. The S6 produces a much sharper image with dramatically less aliasing on edges. This is easily seen by looking at the ammo belts feeding the guns and in the white car’s grille. Despite the S5’s noise reduction routine, which smears the text on the papers sitting on the foreground car’s dash, the S6 shows less overall noise. The yellow of the chairs in the background also bleeds outside the lines on the S5 image.

The M9 also employs significant noise reduction, which works well on the cars’ body panels, but reduces detail on the street and leaves some pixelated noise along edges. The iPhone 6 also shows less detail than the S6, not because of noise reduction, but because of its lower resolution sensor.

The Note 4 and S6 share the same hardware but there’s clear differences in software. Like the S5 and M9, the Note 4 employs more aggressive noise reduction, leading to a loss of detail on the street, the papers on the dashboard, and the under-hood graphics on the yellow Camaro. The Note 4 shows less noise on the cars themselves, but the S6 image is much sharper.

The pictures with the building show similar results, with the prime differentiator being the amount of noise reduction used. Edges appear much sharper in the S6 image, avoiding the noise reduction anomalies and smearing around the “Do Not Enter” sign in the S5 and Note 4 pictures. The Note 4 also shows noise and purple fringing along the light post edges, which are absent from the S6.

The iPhone 6 uses the fastest shutter speed of the group, relying on its larger pixels to gather more light. In this case, however, it could benefit from a longer exposure to brighten the image and reduce the amount of noise in the sky, clearly showing more than the S6. The S5 and M9 images also have noisier skies, with the latter showing obvious noise reduction artifacts around the edges of the truss structure on top of the building.

Night

Full Size Images: [S6: night building], [S5: night building], [Note 4: night building], [iPhone 6: night building], [HTC One (M9): night building], [S6: night lights], [S5: night lights], [Note 4: night lights], [iPhone 6: night lights], [HTC One (M9): night lights]

Reducing the available light in the first set of images, taken at dusk, does not phase the S6, which again turns in the best performance of the group. I forgot to turn off Auto HDR on the S6, giving it an unfair advantage for the areas in shadow.

Concentrating on the building and sky shows the S6 again producing a very sharp image with little noise, easily outperforming the Note 4 and M9. The S5 shows heavy aliasing along the power lines and its heavy noise reduction smears away detail on the building and makes the edges around windows fuzzy, all non-issues for the S6. The amount of noise in the iPhone 6 image is similar to the S6, but its noise reduction algorithm produces a splotchy pattern in the sky, and its disadvantage in resolution relative to the S6 is readily apparent when looking at the moon in the background.

In the images of the canopy taken at night, both the S6 and Note 4 effectively leverage OIS to hold their shutters open longer and drive ISO lower than their peers. While the Note 4 image is a little brighter, the S6 image clearly has less noise and is arguably the best of the group.

At the other end of the spectrum is the S5, it blows out the highlights on the canopy and creates more bloom around the lights. It also produces the noisiest image of the group. The M9 is not much better, creating weird halos around the overexposed highlights on the canopy and suffering from artifacts and loss of detail from its noise reduction.

The iPhone 6 comes the closest to the S6, producing a slightly brighter image without overexposing the highlights. The images from the two sixth generation phones also show similar levels of noise, although the S6 has a smoother grain pattern. We’ll call this one a tie.

HDR

Full Size Images: [S6: city - no HDR], [S6: city - HDR], [S5: city - no HDR], [S5: city - HDR], [Note 4: city - no HDR], [Note 4: city - HDR], [iPhone 6: city - no HDR], [iPhone 6: city - HDR], [HTC One (M9): city - no HDR], [HTC One (M9): city - HDR], [S6: car - no HDR], [S6: car - HDR], [S5: car - no HDR], [S5: car - HDR], [Note 4: car - no HDR], [Note 4: car - HDR], [iPhone 6: car - no HDR], [iPhone 6: car - HDR], [HTC One (M9): car - no HDR], [HTC One (M9): car - HDR]

Samsung is still the undisputed leader when it comes to HDR performance. In our review of the S5, we recommended leaving HDR on all the time after seeing its positive effect on image quality. Apparently, Samsung came to the same conclusion since the S6 now has an Auto HDR mode that’s enabled by default.

By comparison, the iPhone 6’s HDR effect in the building scene is almost unnoticeable. The M9 shows the opposite problem; its HDR effect does not keep to the shadows, but instead brightens the whole scene and overexposes the building and sky.

In the pictures of the Camaro interior, the iPhone 6 effectively reduces the glare on the exterior of the car, but does nothing to brighten the shadows inside. Its HDR effect also produces some purple fringing along the weatherstrip above the door and on the hood louvres. The M9 just makes everything brighter, making the glare on the outside of the car worse.

All of the Galaxy phones do a fine job eliminating the overexposed areas outside the car as well as lightening up the shadows inside. There’s some purple fringing on the white papers on the dashboard and some more on the bright section of the center console. The Note 4 shows more purple fringing on the seat stitching, which does not show up on the S6.

Indoors

The staged indoor shots below were lit by overhead LED lights, a CFL lamp from the front, and an incandescent overhead light in the background.

Bright Light

Full Size Images: [S6: indoor bright], [S5: indoor bright], [Note 4: indoor bright], [iPhone 6: indoor bright], [HTC One (M9): indoor bright]

Our standard set of indoor pictures present a bigger challenge for cameras since the artificial light varies in color temperature and there's far less available to work with. In this first lighting scenario, where all three light sources are turned on, the S6 excels while the others struggle.

Both of the other Samsung phones, the S5 and Note 4, are a bit overexposed, making the Doctors’ faces and the gold rock look too white. The S6, however, hits the right exposure, accurately reflecting the amount of light in the scene.

Almost all of the phones struggle with white balance under mixed lighting. The S5 is a little cold, making reds look washed-out and blues oversaturated. Even the iPhone 6, which usually does well with color, leans too far towards red. The M9 is by far the worst here; its image is so warm that the black fabric underfoot appears red. The S6 turns out to be the reference here, producing an image with the most natural looking color.

Samsung has progressively reduced image noise with each generation. The S5 has the most noise, not just of the Samsung phones, but of the whole group. The Note 4 reduces noise significantly, but the S6 is the best of all, with almost no discernible noise. Its sharp, detailed image is clearly the best of this group.

Low Light and Flash

Full Size Images: [S6: indoor low], [S5: indoor low], [Note 4: indoor low], [iPhone 6: indoor low], [HTC One (M9): indoor low], [S6: indoor flash], [S5: indoor flash], [Note 4: indoor flash], [iPhone 6: indoor flash], [HTC One (M9): indoor flash]

The low light scene was only lit by the incandescent light in the background. With less light to work with, several of the cameras had difficulty focusing. Even after several attempts, the iPhone 6, M9, and S5 could not focus properly. Only the Sony IMX240 sensor in the S6 and Note 4 was able to set the focus correctly.

With less light comes more noise and more software algorithms to smooth it out. This is certainly the case with the S5 and M9. Noise reduction creates soft, blended edges and a loss of detail (look at the pinstripes on the suit) in the S5’s image. The M9’s noise reduction is even more aggressive, wiping away detail on the rocks and even the Doctors’ mouths!

Fortunately, the S6 retains these important details and crisply captures the numbers on the book. Its image shows less noise on the Doctors’ faces and the book then the Note 4’s; however, the S6 does not do as well in the darkest areas: The Note 4 does a better job smoothing out the noise on the Doctor on the far left.

While neither the S6 or Note 4 is the clear victor when looking at noise, the S6 manages to avoid the green tint that plagues the Note 4. Colors are not perfect in the iPhone 6 image either, where the brown hat and hair looks almost black. Add everything up and the S6 produces the best image in this scenario too.

Most of the phones do well with the flash turned on, but there are subtle differences. The iPhone 6 image is a bit too red again, turning the blue pinstripes on the suit purple. The M9 image is a little darker than the rest, and once again, like the S5, it struggles with noise reduction artifacts. Both the S6 and Note 4 produce very clear images with sharp details, but the S6 image has less noise. Even though the faces are a bit too white, the S6 image looks the best overall.

Front-Facing Camera

Full Size Images: [S6: front camera indoors 1], [S6: front camera indoors 2], [S6: front camera outdoors]

Despite some blue artifacts and purple halos around the overhead lights, this selfie I took with a Duros I met in a Mos Eisley cantina turned out well. Colors are accurate, noise is minimal, and there’s a sufficient level of detail (A little too much in my case. I should have turned on the Beauty mode.).

The picture taken outdoors looks nice too, with nicely saturated colors and almost no noise in the sky. The resolution is high enough to resolve the pattern on my shirt.

Additional Sample Images

Full Size Images: [S6: sample Jawa], [S6: sample Cantina], [S6: sample Sign], [S6: sample Legos], [S6: sample Vertigo], [S6: sample Skyline], [S6: sample Flowers], [S6: sample Sunset], [S6: sample Ferrari], [S6: sample Corvette], [S6: sample Diner], [S6: sample Night], [S6: sample USB]

Sony vs. Samsung Sensors

After our initial camera comparison, we were able to get our hands on a Canadian Telus S6 edge with the Samsung camera sensor. The images below explore the differences between the two different sensors.

Outdoors

Full Size Images: [S6: Sony - White Flower], [S6: Samsung - White Flower], [S6: Sony - Purple Flower], [S6: Samsung - Purple Flower], [S6: Sony - Pipes], [S6: Samsung - Pipes], [S6: Sony - Deck], [S6: Samsung - Deck], [S6: Sony - Gas], [S6: Samsung - Gas], [S6: Sony - Bins], [S6: Samsung - Bins], [S6: Sony - Park], [S6: Samsung - Park], [S6: Sony - Trail], [S6: Samsung - Trail], [S6: Sony - Dusk], [S6: Samsung - Dusk], [S6: Sony - Night], [S6: Samsung - Night]

This series of outdoor shots in various lighting conditions shows some substantial shifts in white balance and saturation between the two sensors. In the first two pictures, the Sony sensor better captures the reflection of the late afternoon sun off the flowers and leaves, which appear oversaturated and less detailed in the Samsung versions.

The deck and gas station pictures are pretty similar, with the Sony images showing a slightly warmer tone and just a bit less noise in the sky.

The pictures in the park were taken at sunset and show a dramatic, if inconsistent, white balance shift. In the first one looking down the hill and towards the sun, the Sony image has a purple tint. The Samsung sensor does better with color here but lacks detail on the grass and trail. The next image was taken at the same time but looking away from the sun. In this orientation, the Samsung image takes on a purple tint and the Sony sensor sets the white balance more accurately. There’s also more noise reduction employed in the Samsung version, wiping away detail in the grass, leaves, and road in the background.

The pictures of the intersection were taken just minutes after the ones in the park and again the two sensors capture the scene differently. The white balance in the Samsung image is far too cool, and it shows more noise on the buildings. In contrast, the Sony sensor nails the white balance and shows surprisingly little noise given the minimal light.

Indoors

Full Size Images: [S6: Sony - Bag], [S6: Samsung - Bag], [S6: Sony - Veggies], [S6: Samsung - Veggies], [S6: Sony - Market], [S6: Samsung - Market], [S6: Sony - Flowers], [S6: Samsung - Flowers], [S6: Sony - Books], [S6: Samsung - Books], [S6: Sony - Books Dark], [S6: Samsung - Books Dark]

The S6 edge with Samsung sensor does poorly in the first picture, creating an image that looks too yellow. It also has more noise than the Sony image and the aggressive noise reduction wipes away some of the leather grain on the purse and fine detail in the feather.

When confronted with a wall of vegetables, however, the Samsung sensor produces an image essentially identical to Sony’s. The pictures inside the market are also very similar, but noise reduction in the Samsung version smears away some detail on the floor.

Flowers and purses just do not seem to appeal to the Samsung sensor. It misses the white balance setting for the indoor flower stand, giving the image a yellow tint. The loss of detail from the noise reduction also gives the image a foggy appearance.

Based on these sample images it appears that an S6 with the Sony IMX240 sensor produces better overall results than one with the Samsung S5K2P2 sensor. While the two may be considered equal in certain scenarios, the S6 with Samsung sensor has difficulty setting the white balance correctly, produces oversaturated colors, and suffers a greater loss of detail due to software noise reduction.

Camera Performance

One of the new features for the Galaxy S6 is the quick launch camera. Samsung says that tapping the Camera icon or double clicking the Home button—from the home screen or any app—will open the camera in less than one second (slightly longer from the lock screen). We put this claim to the test and compare both the S6 and S6 edge to several other phones in the chart below.

We measured the camera launch time with a high-speed camera and averaged the times over three launches, rebooting the phone after each try to ensure the camera app was not already loaded in memory.

With a launch time hovering right around one second, Samsung’s claim looks to be pretty accurate. The average time to launch the camera from the S6’s lock screen was just a bit longer at 1.20 seconds, still faster than the Note 4. One of the tricks Samsung employs to get its camera to open so quickly is to preload the Camera app at boot time and then always leave it loaded in RAM. Even if you force close the Camera app, it immediately reloads itself in the background. Both the Galaxy S5 and Note 4 employ this little trick as well, so it appears Samsung made some additional software optimizations to the Camera app itself to further improve load times on the S6.

Everything about the camera is quick, really. The PDAF auto focus performs well and shot-to-shot latency is right around one second. The burst mode takes ~15 shots per second at 16 MP.

We took a lot of pictures with the S6 and S6 edge and were very pleased with the results. It’s a dramatic improvement over the S5, and because of the improvements Samsung made to the post-processing software, it even manages to consistently produce better images than the Note 4 despite using the same Sony camera sensor. Not only does the Galaxy S6 have the best camera of any Samsung device, it has the best camera of any smartphone we’ve ever tested.

Software

Samsung has been focused on clearing clutter from its TouchWiz UI for the last few generations, dialing back on the number of pre-installed apps and making them optional downloads from its own app store. For the latest version included with the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge (the software is the same except for some edge specific features), Samsung’s design goal was to simplify its custom UI and make interacting with it more intuitive.

The redesigned TouchWiz better aligns with Google’s material design philosophy, swapping dark backgrounds for white. It also uses color more consistently within apps to aid navigation, similar to what Apple did in iOS 7. To make the interface more intuitive, descriptive text replaces sometimes cryptic icons and symbols. Often used controls in various applications have also been moved to make them easier to reach when using the phone with one hand. The video below, which shows the S6 running the initial Android 5.0.2 software (the 5.1.1 update is covered further down the page), serves as a good introduction to the design and features of this new UI.

The S6’s home screen does not see any drastic changes but rather small refinements. The very bright and colorful Samsung icon set receives an update, although some skeuomorphism remains. Drop shadows now appear below the icons, but only on the home screen and not in the app drawer.

While this latest version of TouchWiz does adhere more closely to Google’s material design language, there are notable exceptions. For example, the Clock app still relies on skeuomorphism (still a vintage 1970’s flip clock), and the word “More” replaces the vertical ellipsis for the action overflow menu. Samsung also adds its own flare to the Samsung S Planner calendar app and the Messaging app (shown below) as well as replacing other stock Android apps.

New to this version of TouchWiz is a powerful theming application. With Android Lollipop, Google implemented elements of Sony’s excellent theming engine into the core of Android, allowing other OEMs to leverage it. The Samsung Theme Store currently has over fifty themes in a wide variety of styles and color schemes.

Some branded themes like the one for the Avengers let you turn your S6 into a Captain America super-fan’s dream device. Others are gaudy, cartoon-style eyesores. But there are gems in the collection such as the stock Android inspired Material theme we installed, shown in the third screenshot above. All of the themes seem to be free currently, but with this moniker is noted on each theme, we assume there may be paid themes in the future.

Running Lollipop means the S6 includes the new notification system, including lock screen notifications. In the S6’s settings, notifications can be set on a per-app basis—either blocking them, setting them to priority so they always appear at the top of the notification panel, or hiding the payload on the lock screen. A global setting allows you to disable lock screen notifications entirely. The Android 5.1.1 update also adds the ability to swipe up on a notification to dismiss it from view but still keep it in the notification tray as a reminder for later.

The do not disturb mode, which can be activated manually or on a set schedule, allows calls and alerts to be muted. Exceptions can be made for all alarms, calls, and messages. There’s also a more granular option for calls and messages, providing exceptions for all contacts or just favorite contacts. Calendar events and reminders can also be allowed through.

Samsung’s keyboard has a clean layout, and its word prediction engine seems very accurate. The keyboard’s vertical size is adjustable, and it can even be undocked and moved around the screen like a floating window. There’s also a continuous input option to create a Swype-style experience or to control the onscreen cursor by sliding your finger across the keyboard. The optional haptic feedback experienced while typing is subtle and not distracting like on some other phones which overdo the effect.

Samsung’s S Voice control is still present on the S6, and it works well enough that you will not miss the “OK Google” voice control of stock Android. Activating it with the similar sounding “OK Galaxy” command, gives you access to a variety of voice controls, which are useful for hands-free use when driving. Google’s excellent voice search is still present though when using Google Now.

Samsung’s app bloat reached its zenith with the Galaxy S4, and ever since Samsung has been working to reduce clutter. On the S6, only its core apps are included such as Gallery, Music, S Planner and Messaging. Other Samsung apps are tucked away in folders but most apps, like the actually useful S Translator and Kids mode, are optional downloads from the Samsung App Store.

Because of Samsung’s new agreement with Microsoft, reached soon after the settlement of a patent dispute, the S6 includes OneNote, Skype, and OneDrive, including 115GB of free storage for two years. It’s a bit odd that Hancom Office is still the pre-installed document editing application instead of Microsoft Office. Perhaps the standalone Office apps were not ready in time for the S6’s launch.

Samsung’s trademark Multi Window mode is present, and while we think this feature less useful on the S6’s smaller screen than on the Note series, Samsung does make some usability improvements in this latest version of TouchWiz. The side menu, which let you select which apps to display by long-pressing the back button, is gone. Multi Window is now fully integrated into the task switcher, where compatible apps show an extra icon next to the close button for opening them in a split-screen view. Tapping this icon opens the app on the top half of the screen. The lower half of the screen still shows the task switcher for opening another app; swiping to the right shows icons for additional apps compatible with this mode. Long-pressing the multitasking button when using a Multi Window app fullscreen automatically shrinks it to half the screen with icons for launching another app shown below, which is a more direct route than the task switcher.

Twenty-nine of the S6’s preloaded apps are compatible with Multi Window, including Google apps such as Chrome, Hangouts, and Maps; Samsung apps such as Gallery, Music, Messages, Memo, and Calendar; and third-party apps such as Skype, Instagram, and Facebook.

There’s a slider for adjusting how much screen space each app uses in split view. You can also swap apps top to bottom and minimize or maximize them.

Multi Window also allows apps to work in separate floating windows. Swiping diagonally from either top corner of a fullscreen app turns it into a smaller floating version that can be placed anywhere on the screen. The windows can be resized, within a small range, and multiple floating windows can be open at the same time. The toolbar at the top of each window provides options for closing the window, maximizing the app, or minimizing it to a persistent floating icon which can be placed anywhere on the screen. There’s also an option for dragging and dropping content between windows.

Overall, Multi Window works pretty well, although it does take some time to get proficient using it. The biggest issue really is just remembering that you can use this mode if you’re used to only having fullscreen apps.

Smart Manager is a new dashboard that shows power, RAM, and storage levels and Device security in once place. If you tap on one of these panels, you are taken to a more detailed settings panel. For example, in the Battery settings page you can configure the Power and Ultra power savings modes.

The Galaxy S6 of course comes with Samsung’s KNOX active protection, although it is turned off by default. You can also install the free Samsung mobile device management tool My KNOX for even more device security and control. Knox creates a separate work profile the keeps all the applications and data within separate from your personal profile as shown in the third screenshot above. Using the My KNOX User Portal allows you to manage access to the work profile and do things such as remote locking and wiping it without impacting any personal data.

Edge Screen Features and Functionality

The curved screen on the Galaxy S6 edge offers more than just aesthetic appeal. Like last year's Galaxy Note 4 Edge—Samsung’s first foray into phones with curved screens, albeit only on one side—the curved edges of the S6 edge are used to add additional functionality not possible on a flat-screen device, namely Edge lighting, People edge, Information stream, and Night clock. It's important to note that since the S6 edge is curved on both sides, these features can be assigned to either side, which is great for left-handed people; the Note 4 Edge's single right-side curve made it more suitable for right-handers.

The People edge feature, shown above, allows you to assign five contacts to five slots, with each contact assigned a unique color. These contacts are then quickly accessed by swiping in from the edge of the screen. Tapping one of the colored circles brings up shortcuts to various communication options. Also, if you get a notification from any of these five contacts, a tab corresponding to their color appears on the edge of the screen. Swiping in on this tab from either the home or lock screen produces a cool looking animation and more shortcut icons. While this feature works well and looks pretty cool, it does seem a bit redundant. Lollipop's standard notifications, either on the lock screen or in the notification drawer, serve the same purpose and provide more information within them prior to opening the full app to take action.

Edge lighting is an extension of People edge. When you get an incoming call or notification from one of your five edge contacts, the edge of the screen glows in their color if the phone is face down. Again, while this does work as advertised, we’re not sure how useful it is. How many people rest their phone screen-side down on a table? Without a screen protector you risk scratching the screen. The other issue is that the glow of the screen is also only visible in lower light, which makes this feature useless during the day.

Information Stream is a ticker of info that scrolls right to left along the side of the S6 edge's screen when active. You access this feature by quickly swiping your finger back and forth along the edge of the screen when the phone is in standby. Out of the box, the S6 edge comes with a clock that also shows the date and weather and streams for notifications, Twitter trending topics, Yahoo! news headlines, Yahoo! stock prices, Yahoo! sports scores, and Flipboard briefings. You can see how each of these streams look in the image below.

Some of the streams are configurable, allowing you to select which app notifications appear in the notification stream, choose what stocks appear in the Yahoo! stock stream, and choose what sports team’s scores appear in that stream. As of now, the Yahoo! Sports stream is limited to showing info from the major North American and European leagues, but it would be nice to have scores from other sports such as golf, tennis, or auto racing included. There are also a couple of third-party streams downloadable from the Samsung app store.

While these streams put the edge screen to good use, activating it can be a challenge since the phone can easily move when you swipe back and forth across the screen’s edge. Perhaps a gesture-based activation using the sensors on the front of the phone, like waving or hovering your hand over the screen, might work better.

Our opinion of the S6 edge's unique features are mixed. While they do add something to the smartphone experience, they really do not radically alter it in any way. It almost seems like Samsung needed to come up with some kind of software uses to justify the expense of incorporating the curved screen. Do these features or the curved screen’s appearance justify the S6 edge’s higher price?

What’s New in 5.1.1

Running Android Lollipop 5.0.2 initially, the Galaxy S6 devices are currently being updated to Android 5.1.1, which brings several bug fixes and refinements to the UI. Many of the software changes are shown in the slideshow above, with screenshots from 5.0.2 on the left and 5.1.1 on the right.

The 5.1.1 update does not actually change too much on the S6. You can now remove (finally!) the S Finder and Quick connect buttons from the quick settings panel in the notification drawer, making more room for notifications. There’s also an option to turn off the 3D wallpaper effect for those who find it annoying or who want to squeeze a little extra battery life from their phone. The link to the Theme Store in the Themes settings page moves to a more prominent position at the bottom of the screen.

One thing still missing from Samsung’s version of Android Lollipop are user accounts. In the 5.1.1 update, a guest account feature was supposed to be added, but for some reason this was not present in the update we received for T-Mobile. Perhaps this will appear in a later update.

In addition to Android Lollipop’s numerous memory leaks (not all of which were fixed in the 5.1 update), the S6 suffers from its own specific memory issue, which reduces multitasking performance by causing frequent app reloads. While not a memory leak, this issue is caused by Samsung’s aggressive memory management on the S6. There were rumors that the 5.1.1 update would mitigate this issue, so we decided to investigate.

After rebooting each phone, we loaded the apps in the table above in the same sequence, checking the total amount of memory in use after launching each one and also checking to see if either the PCMark or 3DMark processes were still active with the ‘ps’ shell command.

After rebooting the S6 (and waiting a minute for everything to load) it uses over 70% of available memory. The S6 edge appears to use a little more, likely due to the additional software for the edge specific features. After opening only a few apps, we see total memory use plateau for both the S6 running 5.0.2 and the S6 edge running 5.1.1. Opening additional apps does not increase memory usage beyond 85%, indicating that some apps are already being killed in the background. Opening GFXBench on the S6 edge causes a large drop in memory usage as several apps get killed, including PCMark. The same thing occurs on the S6 one step later.

Based on this simple test, the S6’s 5.1.1 update does not bring any changes in memory management. Samsung still employs an aggressive memory culling strategy that appears to activate at a threshold value of ~86% total memory use. This means users will continue to see frequent app or browser tab reloads when moving between apps or content. While this is undesirable, at least the S6 loads apps quickly.

While not perfect, we think that the S6’s version of TouchWiz is definitely the most attractive yet. Its bold, bright colors and default icons might not appeal to everyone, but at least you can now use the Theme Store to change the S6's look without rooting and installing a custom ROM. The lag that plagued the UI on previous Samsung phones is gone. TouchWiz on the S6 is responsive with smooth animations and transitions. Its large memory footprint requires aggressive memory culling, however, leading to slower multitasking performance and random slowdowns within apps.

CPU And System Performance

Comparison Units

In this section, we evaluate system-level performance by running a series of synthetic and real-world workloads, along with some browser-based Web tests. There are several facets to overall device performance, including single- and multi-threaded CPU performance, memory and storage speed, and GPU rendering, all of which will be probed by our suite of benchmarks. If you're interested in learning more about how these benchmarks work, what versions we use, or our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device system performance.

The four ARM Cortex-A57 CPUs in the Galaxy S6 easily outpace the Krait CPUs in both the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 by up to 34% in the single- and multi-threaded CPU System test, despite Krait's clock speed advantage.

The real surprise in this test, however, is that the S6 is more than twice as fast as the HTC One (M9), even though they both use the same A57 and A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. Looking more closely reveals that the S6 utilizes its higher performing A57 cores, keeping the CPU frequency between 1.3GHz and its rated maximum speed of 2.1GHz. The M9 behaves much differently, leaning more heavily on its A53 cores and only sporadically using the A57 cores. When the M9 does employ the A57 cores, it’s at a much lower frequency (0.85GHz to 1.25GHz) and with no more than two active at a time. Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process gives it the advantage over the Snapdragon 810 SoC in the M9, allowing it to use its CPUs more aggressively.

In this OpenGL ES 2.0 based graphics test, there’s only about a 9% difference between the S5 (Adreno 330), iPhone 6 (PowerVR GX6450), Note 4 (Adreno 420), and S6 (ARM Mali-T760MP8), although the gap should widen in more demanding tests. The Adreno 430 in the One (M9) does manage to outpace the S6 by an impressive 31%, however.

While the Memory test is meant to measure the speed of the internal NAND storage, on these high-end devices it turns into a memory test due to how the OS uses a RAM cache to buffer storage access. So it’s no surprise then to see the LPDRR4 based devices with higher throughput.

The Galaxy S6 takes the overall performance crown in AndEBench 2015, with an overall score 23% better than the S5 and 37% better than the HTC One (M9).

Once again we see that CPU performance is a weak point for the M9, with the S6 outpacing it by a whopping 72% in CoreMark-HPC. At the beginning of the test, the S6 pushes all four A57 cores to 2.1GHz, but throttles them back to between 1.3GHz and 1.7GHz about a third of the way into the test, then cranking up all A53 cores to 1.5GHz. The M9 starts the test with the A57 cores at 1.54GHz but quickly throttles them back to no more than 0.96GHz, preferring to use all four A53s at 1.56GHz instead. It should be clear by now that the HTC One (M9) is more thermally constrained than the Galaxy S6.

All three devices using the new LPDDR4-1600 RAM rise to the top in the memory bandwidth test, with the S6 showing almost twice the throughput as the LPDDR3-933 RAM in the Galaxy S5. Despite using the same memory as the S6, the M9 runs its memory bus at a lower max frequency, reducing bandwidth by 28% compared to the S6 in this test.

The scale tips in favor of LPDDR3 in the memory latency test, where the S6 trails the two Snapdragon SoCs by 23%. The M9 fares even worse, achieving less than half of the S6’s score. Since the latency test measures the time it takes to traverse a block of memory arranged as a linked list with randomized elements, it would appear that Snapdragon 810’s memory controller is optimized for serial rather than random memory access, much like Apple’s A7 and A8 SoCs.

The new UFS 2.0 based NAND in the Galaxy S6 pulls ahead of the eMMC variety used in the S5 by 54% and the Note 4 by 12% in the storage test. However, because the overall value is a geometric mean of the individual throughput results, it can mask what’s happening for larger file transfers. To get a better idea for the performance difference between the S6 and the Note 4, we’ll need to examine the individual results in the table below.

The Galaxy S6 sees a modest 20% improvement in write performance over the Note 4. Read performance gets a bigger boost, averaging about 30%, with more impressive gains for larger reads. While UFS 2.0 does not elevate the storage performance of the S6 to SSD levels, it does provide tangible gains. Opening apps and browsing through photos was noticeably faster with the S6 than with other phones such as the Note 4 or HTC One (M9).

The Exynos 7420 performs well in Geekbench, outperforming the Note 4 by 50% and essentially tying the iPhone 6’s A8 CPU in single-core integer performance. The A57 CPU’s additional SIMD cryptography instructions, which are part of the 64-bit AArch64 ISA, are partially responsible for this uptick in performance as we discussed in our Snapdragon 810 Performance Preview. If we remove the AES and SHA1 encryption test results, then the S6's advantage in single-core integer performance drops to 20% over the Note 4. It remains essentially tied with the iPhone 6 (1.7% slower), since the A8 includes its own specialized cryptography instructions.

Apple’s improved Cyclone CPU holds a 19% advantage over the A57 in single-core floating-point performance. The S6 does pull ahead of the Note 4 and S5 though by 34% and 42%, respectively.

Pushing all four A57 cores to their max frequency, the S6 dominates when it comes multi-core performance. The M9 falls behind once again, showing a preference for its lower-performing A53 cores and largely ignoring the power-hungry A57s. With only two CPU cores, the iPhone’s A8 slides to the bottom of the multi-core chart.

The S6 scores the highest overall in PCMark, but shows only a 12% gain over the Galaxy S5. When testing more realistic workloads like this, however, the behavior of the CPU governor has as much, if not more, influence on performance then the underlying CPU architecture. In the Web Browsing test, for example, we see the S6 push its A57 cores to 2.1GHz, giving it a 58% lead over the M9, which limits its A57 cores to 1.5GHz. It’s a similar story in the Writing test, where the M9 barely uses the A57 cores at all. The Galaxy S5 and Note 4 both use two of their Krait cores at max frequency in both of these tests.

The results flip in the Video Playback test, where the S6 trails the Snapdragon devices. Playing video is not computationally intensive, so the S6 idles its big A57 cores and caps the A53 cores at 900MHz. The M9 also idles its A57 cores, but keeps all four A53s at their peak frequency of 1555MHz. The Note 4 also scores better than the S6 by keeping up to three of its Krait cores at 1500MHz.

There are no real surprises in the Web browsing tests, with the S6 and M9 showing similar performance and holding a small lead over the previous generation phones. The largest differential is 31% between the S6 and S5 in Browsermark.

The combination of fast LPDDR4 memory, UFS 2.0 storage, and the Exynos 7420 make the Galaxy S6  and S6 edge the highest performing Android phones right now, and probably for the rest of the year (assuming the Galaxy Note 5 uses the same hardware). The UI feels incredibly fluid and apps launch noticeably faster than on the Note 4. Web pages render quickly and scroll smoothly too.

Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process gives the Exynos 7420 a clear advantage over the Snapdragon 810. While the HTC One (M9) prefers to use the lower-power A53 cores, keeping its A57 cores idle most of the time and essentially capping them at 1.5GHz when in use, the Galaxy S6 enlists the aid of its A57 cores more frequently, for longer periods of time, and at a higher 2.1GHz max frequency, giving it significantly better performance.

GPU And Gaming Performance

Mobile GPU performance is becoming increasingly important as people begin to see their phones and tablets as portable gaming machines. This section explores GPU performance with several synthetic and real-world game engine tests. To learn more about how these benchmarks work, what versions we use, or our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device GPU performance.

The Galaxy S6 improves upon the S5’s graphics score by about 15%, but trails the other Adreno GPUs in 3DMark. When it comes to vertex processing, the Mali-T760MP8 GPU in the S6 matches the Galaxy Notes 4’s Adreno 420, but is 24% slower than the Adreno 430 in the HTC One (M9). In the second graphics test, which focuses on pixel processing, the Adreno 420 is 17% faster than the Mali in the S6, and the Adreno 430 is 44% faster.

The Physics test focuses on CPU performance, so it’s no surprise to see the S6 lead the pack. Similar to the AndEBench memory latency test, the 3DMark Physics test uses a data structure that requires random memory accesses, which the Snapdragon 810 in the HTC One (M9) seems to struggle with, further suggesting that the 810’s memory controller is optimized for sequential accesses like the A8 in the iPhone 6.

The Mali-T760MP8 performs well in Basemark X, topping the performance chart at the medium quality setting. When rendering offscreen, the S6 shows a 67% improvement over the S5 in Dunes and 46% in Hangar, even though it never pushes the Mali GPU past 700MHz.

Despite having to render almost twice as many pixels, the Galaxy S6 still manages to outpace both the S5 and M9 in the onscreen test.

Changing the quality setting to high produces similar results. The S6 uses its superior memory bandwidth to extend its lead over the previous generation S5 to more than 2x in Dunes and 2.5x in Hangar. To handle these more challenging tests, the S6 pushes GPU frequency up to the maximum of 772MHz.

We saw in 3DMark that the Mali-T760MP8 performs better, relative to the Adreno GPUs, in the first graphics test, which emphasizes vertex processing. Basemark X can use up to five times as many triangles as 3DMark: Ice Storm Unlimited, which seems to play to its strengths.

While the Adreno 420 and 430 perform well in the GFXBench synthetic tests, this advantage does not extend to the shader heavy OpenGL ES 3.0 based Manhattan. The S6 edge, which holds a slim lead over the regular S6, outperforms the M9 by 20% and the Note 4 by 41% when rendering offscreen at 1080p. It’s also more than twice as fast as the Adreno 330 in the S5 and maintains an advantage even when rendering at a higher onscreen resolution.

T-Rex results look similar to Manhattan, with the curved-screen S6 having an edge over the regular S6 and extending its lead over the M9 and Note 4.

Something seems to be amiss in the Alpha Blending test. We should see performance remain about the same or decrease when rendering onscreen versus offscreen. This is indeed the case for all of the phones except the S6 and S6 edge, which actually perform significantly better in the onscreen test. Since we do not see this behavior in any of the other benchmarks, this is likely caused by a driver quirk or in how the test is coded.

Adreno wears the crown in the ALU test, where even the Adreno 330 in the S5 outperforms the S6. While we know next to nothing about the Adreno architecture, we do know that the Mali-T760MP8 can process 160 FP32 FLOPs/clock. The PowerVR GX6450 in the iPhone 6 can process 256 FP32 FLOPs/clock, but because of the S6’s higher GPU frequency, it should have the advantage in ALU performance, which it does. The results in this test reflect Qualcomm’s focus on improving ALU performance over the past few generations, and it certainly appears like the Adreno 430 has more ALUs than the Mali-T760MP8.

The S6 sees a 26% improvement over the S5 in the Fill test. Both the Mali-T760MP8 and the PowerVR GX6450 can process eight texels per clock, but due to the difference in GPU frequency (700MHz for the S6 and ~450MHz for the iPhone 6), the S6 should have a 56% advantage, which happens to be very close to the 52% difference we measured.

For the Adreno 420 in the Note 4, Qualcomm increased the size of the texture cache and optimized the ROPs. Based on performance results, it does not seem any further changes were made to cache sizes or the later stages for the Adreno 430. Still, the improvements introduced in the 420 give the latest Adreno GPUs an advantage over the Mali in the S6 in the Fill test. With up to a 50% lead in offscreen performance, the Adreno 420/430 likely have more ROPs than the Mali-T760MP8 too.

The Galaxy S6 sees a significant upgrade in GPU performance over the S5, even when rendering at its higher onscreen resolution. With a max frequency of 772MHz, the Mali GPU in the S6 also outperforms the PowerVR GPU in the iPhone 6. The comparison between the S6, Note 4, and M9 is less clear, however. Both the Adreno 420 and 430 offer better synthetic performance in GFXBench, but trail the S6 in the Manhattan, T-Rex, and Basemark X game engine tests. Regardless of who’s faster for a given scenario, the Galaxy S6 has the performance to fuel a premium gaming experience.

Battery Life And Thermal Throttling

Battery life may be the most important performance metric for a mobile device. After all, it does not matter how quickly a phone or tablet can load webpages or how many frames per second the GPU can crank through once the battery runs down and the device shuts off. To learn more about how we test this critical facet of mobile computing, please read our battery testing methodology article.

Thanks in part to its larger battery (2600mAh), the S6 edge lasts nearly an hour longer (16%) than the regular S6 and its 2550mAh battery. Checking the performance scores, we do see that the S6 edge falls behind the S6 just a bit—by as much as 6% in Photo Editing—so some of its extra battery life comes from not pushing the A57 cores as hard.

Comparing the two PCMark progress charts above, we see that the S6 seems to have a higher thermal cap, keeping the battery temperature around 32 ºC. The S6 edge holds the battery temperature to 30 ºC, causing some additional thermal throttling, lowering performance and extending battery life.

The S6 edge manages to outlast the Galaxy Note 4 by a few minutes, even while providing better overall performance. The M9’s larger battery (2840mAh) is not enough to overcome its inefficiency, shutting down 53 minutes sooner than the S6. And even though it allows the battery temperature to reach 40 ºC, it still exhibits more throttling, and thus lower performance, than the S6.

Both S6 versions outperform the Galaxy S5 in PCMark, but the extra speed—coupled with smaller batteries—reduces runtime; the S5 lasts 5% longer than the S6 edge and a more noticeable 22% longer than the S6.

This test is an indicator of battery life under CPU intensive workloads. Because of the A57 CPU’s higher power draw, we see both the Exynos 7420 and Snapdragon 810 fall to the bottom of the chart. The Galaxy S5 outscores the S6 by 9%, although the S6 still fares better than the M9.

Once again we see a slight disparity (about 5%) between the S6 and S6 edge. During the test, the S6 edge hit a maximum skin temperature of 117 ºF, indicating that thermal throttling is a factor. The single Basemark OS II battery score takes into account both runtime and performance, making it difficult to separate the two criteria, but the S6 did average higher CPU utilization than the S6 edge during the test, which agrees with the PCMark results.

The GFXBench 3.0 battery test focuses on the GPU and is an indicator of battery life during intense gaming. It also effectively gauges a device’s ability to dissipate heat.

For example, both the S5 and Note 4 last significantly longer on a charge than the other phones in this chart, but that’s only because they have to throttle back the GPU frequency to mitigate heat buildup. The iPhone 6, meanwhile, exhibits the opposite behavior; it runs at max performance for the duration of the test, never throttling, and drains the battery faster.

Neither S6 model does well in this test. They both experience thermal throttling, offering similar levels of performance to the S5 but with significantly less battery life. The HTC One (M9) also offers better performance with similar battery life.

The S6 edge outperforms the regular S6 by 23%, and looking at the battery drain and performance graphs for the GFXBench battery test clearly shows why. The S6 throttles immediately, dropping to a low of ~40% peak performance before ending the test at ~50%. The S6 edge, however, does not throttle back until three minutes into the test, never drops below 50% peak performance, and sustains a higher average level of performance over 30 minutes.

The two S6 models share the same components, but they actually have different motherboard layouts. This becomes obvious when examining the thermal images showing the back of each device during the GFXBench battery test. The S6 locates its SoC closer to the top in order to make room for the SIM tray. This design truncates the heat spreader, which does not extend over the SIM tray. On the S6 edge, the SIM tray is located on the top, allowing the heat spreader to extend almost the full length of the motherboard (you can clearly see where the motherboard ends in the picture from the abrupt change in temperature). This allows the S6 edge to dissipate heat over a greater area and can even utilize more of the aluminum edge as a heatsink.

Because of its ability to better cope with the heat generated by its SoC, it’s a bit odd that the S6 edge seems to have a lower thermal limit than the S6 in CPU-constrained workloads. Perhaps Samsung is just trying to get the most from the S6 edge’s larger battery.

The S6s’ smaller batteries, relative to the S5, were definitely a concern when we initially saw the product specs, especially since you cannot just swap in a fresh one. After some testing, our concern is only partially mitigated. In light workloads and in standby, the S6 and, especially, the S6 edge offer comparable battery life to the S5 and even the Note 4. More intense workloads that fire up the A57 cores for extended periods, or games that really push the GPU, definitely take their toll on battery life, causing both S6 models to fall short of last year’s S5.

Similar to other Samsung devices, the S6 includes a power saving mode that limits CPU performance, and screen brightness, turns off nav button lights and vibration feedback, and turns the screen off more quickly after receiving notifications. There’s also an “ultra power saving mode” if you’re really desperate, that switches the display to grayscale, restricts cellular data, and turns off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Like the Note 4, the S6 and S6 edge support Samsung's Fast Charge feature (compatible with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0), which can charge the battery to 50% in about 30 minutes—up to 30% faster than the S5—according to Samsung.

Conclusion

Since the release of the Galaxy S5, Samsung has been restyling itself to better compete in the current market. We’ve seen its new design-focused philosophy coalesce with each new product launch, culminating in the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. The new Galaxy phones’ aluminum and glass construction and aesthetic detail are a radical departure from the S5.

The glossy exterior—along with the edge’s curved screen—may draw the most hype, but it’s what is inside that peaks our interest. The Exynos 7420 is the first mobile SoC built on a 14nm FinFET process, allowing the Mali-T760MP8 GPU and four A57 CPU cores to reach higher clock speeds for longer periods of time, or to consume less power when using the four A53 CPU cores for less intense workloads, relative to the last generation 20nm planar processes. Feeding the SoC with data is 3GB of LPDDR4 memory, which operates at higher frequencies and uses less power than last year’s LPDDR3 RAM. The Galaxy S6 is also the first device to use Samsung’s latest UFS 2.0 based NAND, whose ability to perform full-duplex data transfers and use of SCSI command protocols help apps launch faster and files save quicker.

Thanks to these new technologies, the S6 delivers excellent performance. It proves superior in nearly every CPU and system test, clearly outpacing the HTC One (M9), one of its primary competitors. Apps also open much more quickly—sometimes by as many as several seconds—on the S6 relative to other current generation phones. Gaming performance is also strong, topping the iPhone 6 in raw throughput primarily due to its Mali GPU’s higher clock speed. Comparisons to Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs are more difficult since each architecture excels in different areas, with the Note 4 and M9 performing better in synthetic tests and the S6 scoring higher in actual game tests.

Samsung also includes several new or enhanced features for this generation. Coiled beneath the rear cover glass is the integrated wireless charging, supporting two of the three standards: WPC (Qi) and PMA. The S6 also gets serious about fingerprint authentication, swapping the cumbersome swipe-style sensor used in the S5 for a capacitive touch-based sensor, which is much more convenient to use and nearly as accurate as the iPhone’s Touch ID. This feature pairs nicely with Samsung Pay, a mobile payment system similar to Apple Pay, but capable of working with not just NFC enabled terminals but also traditional magnetic stripe credit card terminals.

The S6’s SAMOLED display is also much better than the Galaxy S5’s. It moves from a 1080p resolution to 1440p, increasing pixel density by 33%. While screen brightness remains on par with the S5 and Note 4, the improvements in grayscale and color accuracy make the S6’s display (in the Basic screen mode) the best looking we’ve ever seen. The curved screen in the S6 edge is also very good, but cannot match its flat-screened counterpart’s performance.

The S6’s overall imaging experience sees vast improvements as well. For starters, opening the S6’s Camera app is both easier (double-clicking the home button from anywhere) and faster (around one second). Once inside the app, there’s some new shooting modes and a refined Pro mode for making easier manual adjustments to camera parameters.

More importantly, the S6 takes great photos. The front-facing camera uses its new sensor’s larger pixels and higher resolution to capture detailed images with accurate color and minimal noise. The rear camera includes phase detection AF for faster, more accurate focusing; a new infrared color sensor for better white balance; OIS to reduce camera shake; and a faster lens which allows more light to reach the sensor—either the Samsung ISOCELL sensor from the S5 or the Sony sensor from the Note 4. In our comparative testing, the S6 with the Sony sensor produced stunning results, placing it ahead of the already impressive Note 4 and iPhone 6 in every lighting scenario it faced. Using the Samsung sensor, the S6 struggles with setting the correct white balance in less than perfect lighting and suffers from overly aggressive noise reduction algorithms. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a way to know ahead of time which sensor an S6 will come with.

The rear camera lottery is not the Galaxy S6’s only transgression. The lack of a removable battery and microSD support, prominent features of past Galaxy phones, are certainly the most obvious and serious, but there are other minor issues too. While battery life is on par with the S5 at idle or when running light to moderate workloads, the S6’s higher performing SoC drains its smaller battery faster—around 10% to 20%—with more intense operations. The external speaker is weaker than the iPhone 6’s, and you need to fiddle with the equalizer to get good sound from the headphone jack. Also, the S6 edge’s thin sides and buttons make it feel a bit sharp when using it and difficult to pickup when laying on a table.

These relatively minor issues cannot eclipse the innovative hardware and useful features in the latest Galaxy phones, provided you can live without a removable battery and microSD support. Samsung’s stylish new flagships are the trailblazers for this generation—the benchmarks for performance and features. For this reason, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge are Editor Recommended.

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Matt Humrick is a Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware, covering Smartphones and Tablets. Follow him on Twitter.

Alex Davies is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware, covering Smartphones and Tablets.

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AT&T announced the Samsung Galaxy S6 "Active" for AT&T's stores. The Galaxy S6 Active is a durable smartphone that's also waterproof and dust proof and has virtually the same specifications as the original Galaxy S6 with a significantly larger 3,500 mAh battery (compared to the original 2,550 mAh battery).

The Galaxy S6 Active isn't quite as thin-looking as the original and looks more like a typical rugged device. It comes with an IP68 rating (dust and water resistant up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes), and it also passes the military's MIL-STD-810G standard, which includes protection against salt, dust, humidity, rain, vibration, solar radiation, transport and thermal shock.

The smartphone's screen also comes with the latest Gorilla Glass 4 protection, which is twice as tough as the previous generation, making screen cracks significantly less likely.

Much like the original Galaxy S6, the "Active" also brings an Exynos 7420 SoC with an octa-core 64-bit CPU (a quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 cluster and a quad-core 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57 cluster) and a Mali-T760 GPU.

It also has a 5.1" 2560 x 1440 resolution display, 32 GB of storage, 3 GB of RAM, a 16MP camera on the back that can shoot 4K videos, and a 5MP wide-angle camera on the front (ideal for selfies). It supports 4G LTE, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1.

The 3,500 mAh battery can last up to 24 hours of talk time, and 50 percent of it can be charged within 30 minutes if you're using the fast charging feature and an AFC (Adaptive Fast Charging) wall charger. The device can be charged wirelessly as well, although the wireless charger is sold separately.

The Galaxy S6 Active will arrive with Android 5.0.2 on board as well as Samsung's other customizations, which include an "Activity Zone" app that gives you access to a stopwatch, barometer, compass, weather and more, all in one place.

The Galaxy S6 will be exclusively available on AT&T's website and in its stores beginning June 12. The device will come in Camo White, Camo Blue, or Gray and will be sold for $200 on a two-year contract. You could also buy it with AT&T's "Next" plan, which includes a range of price points from $23.17 per month for 30 payments to $34.75 per month for 20 payments.

Introduction And Specifications

Samsung remains the most prolific Android OEM, partly because they aren't afraid to experiment with new device classes, covering everything from Galaxy Gear wearables to the 12” Galaxy Note Pro tablet. While some of these trials miss the mark and leave us scratching our heads, many of its devices are among the most popular in their category. Probably Samsung's most successful gamble is the Galaxy Note line of smartphones.

Samsung's original Galaxy Note, while not the first phablet (remember the Dell Streak?), generated interest in larger phones, and through its utility, won a loyal following. With each generation of the Note series, more people embraced the concept and the Note's popularity grew. While the size of phablets aren't for everyone, the influx of large phones by other manufacturers indicates there’s a growing market for phones blurring the line with tablets.

The most noticeable feature of the Galaxy Note 4 is clearly the size of its screen, which has grown each generation from 5.3- to 5.5- to 5.7-inches in the Galaxy Note 3, a dimension which remains unchanged in the Note 4. Screen resolution, however, continues to climb, up from 1920x1080 in the Note 3 to 2560x1440. Samsung has also improved the quality of what's displayed on the screen by calibrating it with better precision.

The big screen isn't the Note line's only distinguishing feature. The S Pen is what defines the Note brand, and along with Samsung's supporting software, it's a true differentiator from other competing devices and can change the way you use your phone when fully embraced. Sure, you can write notes with it and use it as a pointer, but it can also be used to initiate a phone call, map an address, or markup images and PDFs. Paired with the big screen, the S Pen is a useful navigation aid and helps get real work done.

For the 4th generation Note, Samsung has also improved the design and construction. Like the Galaxy Alpha that preceded it, the Note 4 has a machined aluminum frame that surrounds a magnesium and plastic chassis. This aluminum frame looks great and the magnesium chassis adds rigidity.

Like the Galaxy S5, the Note 4 also uses Synaptics’ Natural ID capacitive fingerprint reader integrated into the home button. It works exactly the same as on the S5, requiring you to swipe a finger across it to authenticate. This method is a little frustrating to use when compared to the iPhone’s Touch ID (and the new sensor in the Galaxy S6) that simply requires you to touch the sensor. The Note 4’s physical size makes the swipe sensor even more challenging to use. At least Samsung has improved the fingerprint reader since it debuted on the S5, making it less fussy about swipe speed and partial and off-angle finger swipes.

The fingerprint scanner can be used to unlock the phone, log into your Samsung account, and gain access to items that have been protected by Samsung’s "Private Mode" feature. You can also use it with a select number of 3rd party apps such as PayPal and LastPass. Being FIDO-compliant, it can also be used to log into websites when using the Samsung browser, but not with Chrome. Business users who use Samsung’s KNOX can also enable two-factor authentication when logging into their work profile using the scanner.

Another new focus for Samsung with the Galaxy Note 4 is health and fitness. The Note 4 has hardware sensors capable of counting the number of steps you take each day, as well as your heart rate, blood oxygen level, stress level, and even the UV index. These sensors work together with the S Health app, which is fairly comprehensive in its own right, including support for Samsung’s line of wearable fitness products.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Tech Specs

It's only taken a few years for the large-screen smartphone category to become rather crowded. Every OEM from Apple to ZTE offers a phone with a 5.5-inch or larger display, creating fierce competition. Fortunately, the Note 4 isn't all about screen area. Its aluminum frame surrounds some very nice hardware. The Snapdragon 805 SoC still offers great performance even though it has been surpassed by the newer Cortex-A57 based Snapdragon 808/810 and Exynos 7420 chips. The 3GB of RAM is a generous amount and still the standard for current flagship phones. There's also a reasonable 32GB of internal storage, which can be expanded with removable SD cards.

Compared to the previous generation Note 3, there's a few big changes. Screen resolution has been increased from HD to QHD for the Note 4, reducing the graininess that can result from using a PenTile pixel structure. The Note 4 also includes an upgraded Snapdragon SoC and new front and rear camera sensors. Overall dimensions are very similar, with the Note 4 being ever so slightly taller and thicker than the Note 3. The aluminum frame increases the Note 4's rigidity, reducing flex and giving it a premium feel, but at the cost of 8g of additional weight.

Cellular

There are 22 different model numbers for the Galaxy Note 4, each supporting different regional or carrier specific frequency bands. Some versions substitute a Samsung Exynos 5433 [ARM Cortex-A57 (4x @ 1.9GHz) + ARM Cortex-A53 (4x @ 1.3GHz), Mali T760MP6 GPU] for the Snapdragon 805 SoC. There's also differences in audio codecs, voice processors, and baseband processors, with some using an Ericsson M7450 and others using Cat 6 basebands such as the Intel XMM7260 and Samsung's M303. To keep things from getting too complicated, the table above focuses on just the North American models.

Qualcomm's MDM9x25M baseband is a third-generation Category 4 LTE modem built on a 28nm HPm process offering 150 Mb/s down and 50 Mb/s up with carrier aggregation. It also supports HSPA+ Release 10 for 84 Mb/s down using dual-carrier HSDPA. The MDM9625M incorporates all major radio modes, including GSM/EDGE, UMTS (WCDMA, TD-SCDMA), LTE (LTE-FDD, LTE-TDD) and CDMA2000.

The Note 4 uses Qualcomm's WTR1625L transceiver paired with another WTR1625, rather than the more common WFR1620 receive-only transceiver, in order to bond two 10MHz channels and reach full Category 4 LTE speeds, a requirement when carriers don't have 20MHz LTE channels.

The RF front-end uses Qualcomm's QFE1100 envelope tracker, which dynamically adjusts voltage to the power amplifiers, wasting less energy and reducing heat generation, but none of the other components in Qualcomm's RF360 suite.

Options

The North American versions of the Note 4 all come with 32GB of onboard storage, and color options are limited to Charcoal Black or Frost White.

As evidenced by the impressive hardware specifications and premium pricing, the Galaxy Note 4 is targeted squarely at the high-end market. For consumers willing to spend top dollar on the ultimate smartphone, the question becomes one of comparative value in regards to other devices in the same category. A question answered by the design of the Galaxy Note 4 and the value added by hardware and software features.

Hardware Design

If you’ve owned or used any of the Samsung Galaxy S phones over the last several years, the Galaxy Note 4 will be familiar, though there are some fit and polish changes. The aluminum frame, modeled after the Galaxy Alpha with slightly indented and flattened sides that make it easy to grip, has a painted matte finish that matches the color of the phone, either white or charcoal grey. This finish is very durable, since over the months that we have been testing the Note 4 it hasn’t worn or scratched off. The edges of the metal sides are beveled and polished, giving them an attractive chrome finish that accents the Note 4’s design. The edges of the metal buttons on either side, the home button, and the rear camera components also receive the bevel and polish treatment.

In spite of the large display the phone is relatively lightweight, and feels incredibly thin. Because of the height and width of the phone you’ll often find yourself adjusting your grip in order to reach various edges when operating the device with one hand. We tested a white AT&T model and white and charcoal Telus models. Both colors have a leather-like texture on the back which helps maintain a hold on the phone while changing your grip. However, the white model’s texture has a slightly different, smoother feel when compared to the charcoal. This is likely to make the white finish more impervious to dirt and grime.

The top of the Galaxy Note 4 features a 3.5mm headphone jack, located toward the left of the device as it’s facing you. A slight bump on the back of the top edge is a result of the width of the headphone jack. The right side houses an Infrared LED, which allows the device to function as a remote control in conjunction with an app. A microphone used for the speakerphone and noise cancellation is also located on the top of the device.

The face of the Galaxy Note 4 is dominated by the 5.7-inch QHD Super AMOLED display which spans nearly the entire width of the device. There's an RGB LED in the top-left corner, cleverly hidden when not in use, which provides visible feedback of pending notifications and charging status when the screen is off. Centered above the screen is the phone earpiece and a chrome Samsung logo. The 3.7MP front-facing, wide-angle camera is located in the top-right corner above the display.

Note: The charcoal model has a screen protector applied.
Centered below the screen is the home button/fingerprint sensor, the only physical button on the face of the device, with Samsung's classic arrangement of capacitive buttons to either side—recent apps on the left and back on the right. The bezel to either side of the display is minimal in order to keep the device width manageable, while the bezels above and below are large enough to accommodate the navigation buttons and sensors, as well as providing something to grasp when using the device in landscape mode. The bezel has a pattern of horizontal lines below the glass, adding a bit of a textured look to the front of the phone.

The metal volume rocker is located toward the top of the left edge and either end of the rocker is raised slightly to facilitate controlling the volume by feel. The rocker gives an audible and tactile click when the button is fully pressed.

The metal power button is near the top of the right edge and provides the same tactile click as the volume rocker. It's slightly offset from the volume rocker on the opposite side, minimizing the chances of accidentally squeezing the volume rocker with a finger when clicking the power button with the thumb. Lefties will have a bit more trouble with this, since the left thumb naturally falls on the volume rocker.

Around back, the plastic rear cover retains the faux leather look seen on the Note 3, but ditches the over-the-top stitching around the perimeter. The 16 MP camera is housed within a square hump, with a rounded rectangle containing the LED flash and tricorder-like sensors for measuring your heart rate and blood oxygen levels as well as a sensor for measuring the UV level in sunlight. The lone speaker sits in the lower-left corner, which is not our preferred location. Other markings on the back are device specific and may include the Samsung logo, carrier logo, or Galaxy Note 4 branding.

The Note 4 has a removable rear cover which exposes the 3220 mAh battery, a microSD slot which accepts up to 128GB cards, and a slot for a micro-SIM card. This feature should be especially appealing for people looking to upgrade from an older Galaxy S phone who do not like the redesigned Galaxy S6. Unlike the S6, however, the Note 4 does not natively support wireless charging, although the Qi standard can be added with optional Samsung rear covers and cases.

Gone is the Note 3's USB 3.0 port, replaced by the more common but slower microUSB 2.0 variety centered on the bottom edge. The smaller port is bracketed by two microphones. The S Pen docks in the holder located on the right side of the bottom edge.

The S Pen stylus that comes with the Note 4 uses Wacom technology, so does not require any power source. It is pressure sensitive, which makes it a great tool to use with drawing applications that support this feature, such as the included Samsung S Note app and Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro. There is a button on it too, which is used to bring up the radial "Air Command" S Pen action menu and perform other actions with the pen such as selecting text. Compared to the Note 3’s S Pen, the Note 4’s is slightly larger and has double the pressure sensitivity—2048 pressure levels versus 1024.

Accessories

The Galaxy Note 4 ships with a USB charger and a microUSB cable. The included charger uses Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Charging technology (compatible with Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0), that gives you 50% battery capacity in only 30 minutes and 100% capacity in just under 2 hours.

Samsung’s S-View Flip Cover cases have a window which allows viewing and interacting with a portion of the display when closed. Some of these actions include the ability to respond to incoming phone calls, take pictures, or use the heart rate sensor. Thanks to the SAMOLED display, only the visible portion of the screen is powered on when the cover is closed saving power. S-View cases for the Galaxy Note 4 retail for $49.99 and come in Charcoal Black, Frost White, Bronze Gold, and Plum Red.

Another unique case for the Note 4 is Samsung’s LED cover. At first glance, it looks like a traditional windowless flip cover, but it actually has embedded low-power LEDs in the front that light up. They are used to show you various information such as the time, music info, and notifications about messages and missed calls. The LED cover comes in Charcoal Black, Bronze Gold, and Plum Red and retails for $69.99.

If you want to add Qi wireless charging to the Note 4, you can buy replacement back covers that add this feature for $34.99, or a version of the S-View Flip Cover with Qi charging for $69.99. You’ll need a charging pad to use wireless charging of course, and Samsung sells one for $49.99.

The other accessory what Samsung is making available for the Galaxy Note 4 is the Samsung Gear VR headset, which is powered by Oculus. The Note 4 is inserted into the front of the Gear VR headset, using the QHD display to present a virtual reality gaming experience using a combination of head movement and touch controls. The Samsung Gear VR headset is available for $200.

Display And Audio Performance

With each generation, Samsung improves its SAMOLED display technology, achieving higher brightness levels and more accurate colors. The Galaxy Note 4 is no exception. In addition to these improvements, screen resolution has been increased from HD to QHD for the Note 4, which helps compensate for the PenTile pixel layout having fewer red and blue subpixels as compared to an RGB stripe LCD display. Even after accounting for the discrepancy in subpixels, the Note 4 has a higher pixel density than a 1080p LCD.

In an effort to improve our mobile reviews, we are now using SpectraCal's CalMAN software and SpectraCal C6 colorimeter for display measurements. All of the charts below with a gray background were generated in CalMAN v5 Ultimate.

Full Brightness chart including values for APL=50 and auto-boost.

We are now reporting two different brightness levels for AMOLED displays: APL=50% and APL=100% (APL stands for Average Picture Level). If you are unfamiliar with APL, here is a good article explaining what it means. Basically, the brightness of an AMOLED display changes depending on what content is actually being displayed. The APL values we chose to measure provide a good upper and lower bound for what's practically achievable.

At an APL of 100%, which serves as a worst case condition, the Note 4 manages to exceed 300 nits, matching the brightness of the display in the newer Galaxy S6. This is also significantly higher than the AMOLED display in the Nexus 6, although it's still less than what LCDs can achieve. Looking at the full brightness chart shows only a modest brightness increase for an APL of 50%, again tying the display in the GS6 but a little shy of the Nexus 6. With a max brightness between 333 to 363 nits, the Note 4 is sufficiently bright for any indoor scenario, but not bright enough for outdoor viewing in sunlight.

Fortunately, Samsung provides a little trick for just this situation. If the Auto brightness mode is activated and the ambient light exceeds a certain threshold, the display brightness gets a significant boost. In this "boost" mode, max brightness shoots up to between 500 and 630 nits, equaling or even exceeding the best LCD displays. While no OEM will ever be able to make a display that can compete with the sun's brightness, this at least makes the screen visible. Of course a boosted display uses more power, and it can only maintain this brightness level for a short period of time before the screen overheats and the brightness falls back to normal levels.

The Galaxy Note 4 has four different screen modes with different gamma curves, color gamuts, and color saturation levels: Basic, Cinema, Photo, and Adaptive display, which automatically adjusts—or "optimizes", according to Samsung—these screen parameters based on the app that's being used. This mode is rather limited, however, only affecting six specific apps, making it difficult to test. Instead, we'll focus on the other three modes. For testing purposes, the "Auto adjust screen tone" setting, which automatically adjusts the screen luminance based on the content being displayed, is turned off.

The average gamma for the Note 4's Cinema mode comes the closest to the ideal value of 2.2; however, its gamma curve tells a different story. Below a grayscale level of about 55%, gamma spikes to 2.56 leading to darker shadows and a loss of highlights. Above 55%, gamma drops to a minimum of 1.34 resulting in a significant loss of shadow detail.

In contrast, gamma remains very consistent across a full grayscale sweep in both the Basic and Photo modes, coming in just above the ideal value.

Color temperature is spot on in both the Basic and Photo modes, with essentially no variation across a full grayscale sweep (values close to 0% are not accurate). Cinema mode eschews absolute accuracy and instead opts for a cooler color temperature similar to what we see in most mobile displays.

Looking at the RGB balance we can see why the Basic and Photo modes land so close to the ideal color temperature: no single primary color varies by more than ±4% for any grayscale level. Cinema mode on the other hand clearly emphasizes blue over red, leading to its cooler color temperature.

The grayscale accuracy for the Note 4 in both the Basic and Photo modes is excellent, nearly matching the exceptional accuracy of the Galaxy S6. Average ΔE2000 is below two and error at any single grayscale level remains below three. Grayscale error goes up dramatically when switching to Cinema mode, climbing steadily towards white due to the blue shift we saw in the RGB balance chart and producing visible errors similar to what we saw with the Nexus 6.

The Note 4's Basic mode does a good job of covering the sRGB color space, only missing on the blue corner of the triangle. Photo mode is similar, but extends green tones beyond sRGB. Cinema is a true wide-gamut mode covering about 130% of the sRGB color gamut. This leads to over saturated, neon-like colors that do not look natural, just like we saw with the Nexus 6.

In the color saturation sweep, we see the Basic mode perform very well once again. Each saturation level hits the target and there's no hint of color compression. Photo mode shows a slight red shift in magenta tones, but still no significant color compression. This trend does not hold when activating Cinema mode, where we see significant color compression for all colors. Each box/dot pair is a 20% step in saturation, so, for example, anything above 80% saturation for green essentially looks the same.

These graphs also show the effects of using a wide-gamut screen to view sRGB content. In Cinema mode, for example, a picture showing green grass at a 60% saturation would be displayed at 100% saturation relative to the sRGB gamut, effectively making the grass look "too green" or vivid.

Color accuracy for the Note 4's Basic mode is very good, with nearly every tested color showing an error of less than three. Things get progressively worse for the Photo and Cinema modes, however. Cinema mode is nearly as bad as the Nexus 6; most tested colors have an error above five and a maximum error of almost 13.

Full Size Images: [Color Palette: Basic], [Color Palette: Cinema], [Color Palette: Photo]

The color palettes above show the target color on the bottom versus the displayed color on the top and are a less abstract way of looking at color accuracy. Since our content system automatically applies additional compression to JPEG images, we've included links to the originals devoid of the heavy compression artifacts.

The display in the Galaxy Note 4 is one of the best currently on the market. Max brightness for AMOLED screens may still trail LCDs, but Samsung's auto-boost feature makes up the difference for extreme visibility cases at least.

Irregardless of your display preferences, you should find one of the Note 4's display modes to your liking. Basic mode is a well-calibrated, proper sRGB mode that delivers accurate colors and grayscale values that purists will enjoy. For those less concerned about accuracy and who like their colors brighter with more "pop," there's Cinema mode. Finally, Photo mode provides a reasonable compromise between these two extremes.

Audio Performance

Naming a product "Note" is a clear indication that its primary purpose is not for playing media, a decision exemplified by the mono external speaker. Located around back, it's mostly an afterthought. A single-channel class D amplifier from Maxim Integrated helps it get reasonably loud without succumbing to distortion, but obviously bass notes sound anemic.

Having the speaker firing in the opposite direction of your ears hurts both perceived loudness and the sound that eventually reaches you. Since your basically listening to reflected sound, the treble is attenuated and everything sounds a bit hollow. Cupping and orienting your hand behind the phone just right improves the volume and sound dramatically, but this is hardly an ideal way to hold your phone and the sound still falls short of other devices. Also, when watching a video on the Note 4 in landscape, our fingers would fall directly on top of the speaker, partially blocking the sound. A similar problem occurs when setting the phone down on a table. The raised ridge in the middle of the speaker ensures a small air gap between it and the surface it's resting on, but it still sounds muffled. This applies to voices on conference calls too. Raising the phone off the table surface by wedging a pen or something underneath helps voices sound much clearer.

It's probably best to just leave the external speaker for ringer duties and use some nice headphones for everything else. Thanks to Qualcomm's WCD9330 audio codec, headphone output is excellent. Based on our subjective listening tests, the Note 4 rivals the Sony Z3 (which uses the previous generation WCD9320 codec) and iPhone 6 in quality. Also, twisting the plug while seated in the headphone jack did not produce any static like it does on the iPad Air 2.

Camera: Hardware And Software

The Note series has always been a platform for Samsung’s premium mobile imaging experience (if you don’t count the Galaxy Camera), and the Note 4 is no different. Each version of the Note has added a stand-out feature: The Note 3 added 4K video capture, while the Note 4 adds optical image stabilization (OIS).

Other than the addition of OIS, the Note 4’s camera specs appear similar to the Galaxy S5 and the Note 3. The Note 4 has a 16 MP sensor with phase detection autofocus (PDAF) like the S5 but uses a Sony Exmor RS IMX240 sensor instead of Samsung's own ISOCELL unit. Its 31mm f/2.2 optical stack is also similar to the Note 3's.

Compared to its phablet competitors, the Note 4's 16 MP sensor is physically the largest at 1/2.6", but maintains the same 1.12μm pixel size as the 13 MP sensors in the Note 3, Nexus 6, G Flex 2, and OnePlus One. The iPhone 6 Plus, with only an 8 MP resolution, trades pixel quantity for pixel size, which should give it an advantage in low-light performance. It's interesting that all of these phones are using some kind of Sony sensor, a testament to Sony's strength in this market.

As for the optics, the Note 4's f/2.2 31mm lens is comparable to its competition. It's only this year that we're seeing flagship phones such as the LG G4 and Galaxy S6 move to faster sub f/2.0 optics for the rear camera. All of the current premium phablets even have OIS, apart from the OnePlus One.

The front-facing camera on the Note 4 uses a Samsung S5K6D1YX sensor, which we haven’t seen in any other phone. Images have a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 3.7 MP (2560x1440) resolution. Paired with a 90-degree f/1.9 lens, it seems to be a better front camera package, on paper at least, than what's offered by its competitors, except for the OnePlus One's 5 MP shooter.

The Sony Exmor RS IMX240 sensor in the Note 4—the same sensor being used in the new Galaxy S6—is a bit of an unknown quantity. We can’t find any official documentation for it, but it seems to be a custom design for Samsung and is not found in any other vendor's phones. While it may be a custom chip, it does seem to be largely similar feature-wise (apart from resolution) to the upcoming Stacked CMOS 21MP IMX230 sensor that just started shipping in April of this year.

As now seems to be standard on Samsung’s phones, the IMX240 captures images natively at a 16:9 aspect ratio. It also supports phase detection AF (PDAF), allowing the Note 4 to focus on its subject very quickly, greatly improving the overall camera experience. However, unlike the advanced HDR features of the IMX230, the IMX240 is not capable of using HDR when shooting video in 4K, or anything beyond 1080p at 30fps.

The optical image stabilization that Samsung has combined with this sensor is what it's calling Smart OIS, which is a combination of both optical and digital stabilization. It provides 2-axis stabilization, but not 3-axis like the OIS found on the LG G3 and G4. Despite that, the Smart OIS system should improve the Note 4’s camera performance in lower-light conditions when shooting hand-held by minimizing camera shake.

Note 4 Camera Software

The camera interface is virtually unchanged in the Lollipop update. Some of the UI icons are slightly smaller, but the control layout and settings have remained the same, except the options for fast and slow motion video are now specific modes, accessible by tapping the "MODE" button.

It's disappointing that the Note 4's Lollipop update does not support Google’s new Camera2 API. This API, introduced with Lollipop, allows for full manual control of the phone’s camera, including focus and shutter speed. It also adds support for RAW image capture. Unfortunately, this limitation extends beyond the stock camera app, affecting 3rd-party apps such as Camera FV-5. Perhaps Samsung wanted to reserve these features for the GS6, since there's no technical reason why the Note 4 can’t support this API.

The main camera UI screen puts all the basic camera controls, except for flash, within easy reach. Touching the gear icon on the bottom-left brings up a quick settings menu for toggling the shot timer and flash. The top button brings up the full settings menu. You can also quickly change the camera resolution from the native 16 MP (5312x2988) down to 2.4 MP (2048x1152). The middle button allows you to apply live image filters to your pictures. There are twelve filters pre-installed, and you can download more from the Samsung App store. These filters cannot be applied if HDR is on.

The screenshots above show some of the options available in the settings menu. ISO can be manually adjusted up to a maximum value of 800. One thing to note is that when HDR is turned on you cannot adjust exposure, ISO, or metering modes.

Selective Focus

The "MODE" menu lets you choose between nine different camera modes. One of the more interesting ones is Selective Focus, which tries to replicate the bokeh effect you’d get if you were taking a close-up shot with a lens set to a much lower aperture, such as that on a DSLR camera. It does this by taking multiple pictures of a subject that is less than 20 inches from the camera and combining them in software, allowing you to shift the focus point and blur the background. After taking the shot, you can choose between Near focus, Far focus, and Pan focus before saving the final version of the image.

Full Sized Image: [Note 4: selective focus]

The picture takes a few seconds to take making this mode unsuitable for moving subjects. Also, in order for the effect to work properly, there has to be a clear separation between the subject and its background, otherwise the software gets confused and applies the soft focus to the wrong part of the image.

“Shot & More” Mode

Shot & More mode consists of a number of different effects that can be applied to images taken of subjects in motion. In the slideshow below are a series of images showing the process of using each of these Shot & More effects (apart from Best face).

Full Size Images: [Note 4: Shot & More Best Photo], [Note 4: Shot & More Drama Shot], [Note 4: Shot & More Eraser], [Note 4: Shot & More Panning Shot]

The Best photo effect allows you to scroll through a series of shots of a subject in motion and choose the best one. Drama shot combines multiple images of a subject in motion, so it repeats throughout the shot. Eraser lets you remove moving objects from a picture. Lastly, panning shot applies adjustable motion blur to the background.

There's several other special camera modes too, including Rear-cam selfie and Panorama. Virtual tour stitches together still images taken while moving through an interior space to create an animated GIF, while Dual camera mode that lets you use the front-facing camera to create a picture-in-picture shot superimposed on the rear camera image.

Front-Facing Camera

The Note 4 has several modes and options for the front-facing camera too. Beauty mode, which applies a softening filter to detected faces, is on by default, but can be turned off. Resolution is adjustable from 0.3 MP (640x480) with a 4:3 aspect ratio to the full 3.7 MP (2560x1440) with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The same twelve filters available when using the rear camera are also available, and you can manually adjust exposure levels. The exclusive mode for the front-facing camera is "Wide selfie," which stitches together multiple images to create a wider image, perfect for fitting in more people in a group selfie. For video, you can shoot up to QHD (2560x1440) resolution.

Video

The Snapdragon 805 in the Note 4 is capable of encoding and decoding up to 4K UHD H.264 video in hardware, which brings better performance and lower power consumption. While it can also decode 4K UHD H.265 video in hardware, encoding must still be done in software. Therefore, all video on the Note 4 is encoded in H.264.

Rear Camera Video Modes

Front Camera Video Modes

The Note 4 offers a good selection of video modes, including 60fps 1080p, slow motion, and fast motion (time-lapse) video. At 4k, the Note 4 records at a 48 Mb/s bit rate, higher than the 42 Mb/s used by the Nexus 6 but lower than the Galaxy S5's and OnePlus One's 57 Mb/s average bit rate. The Note 4 records 1080p video at the same 17 Mb/s bit rate as the Galaxy S5, which is just shy of the 20 Mb/s rate used by some older phones in this size range such as the LG G3 or OnePlus One.

Video quality from both the front and rear cameras is very good overall, with good white balance and exposure. There's very little noise from the rear camera in most conditions, although some noise artifacts do appear in video shot with the front camera. The rear camera does a good job maintaining focus even during transitions, only getting flustered in some high dynamic range or lower-light conditions. The iPhone 6's PDAF autofocus is still the best we've seen, but the Note 4 is not too far behind.

When shooting 30fps video at any resolution, the video gets pretty jerky while panning. This is especially noticeable for any objects with straight edges. To be fair, all phone cameras exhibit this behavior when shooting at 30fps, however, on the Note 4 it seems to be just a bit more pronounced. Switching to the 1080p 60fps mode eliminates this issue, producing buttery smooth pans.

There are a few restrictions when shooting at higher speed or resolution though. Video stabilization and HDR are unavailable in the 1080p 60fps mode. Both the UHD and QHD modes have a five minute time limit for any single clip. Also, choosing either of these modes disables dual camera mode, HDR, video effects, and video stabilization. Turning on HDR in any of the HD modes also disables video stabilization.

There's three different slow-motion speed choices: 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. To capture slow-motion video, you first tap the "MODE" button and then select the "Slow motion" tile. The resulting H.264 Baseline video is captured in 720p @ 120fps, with a rather low bit rate of 6 Mb/s. Next, click the video preview square to open the slow-motion video editor and use the slider controls to trim the length of the video and select the region you want to appear in slow motion. After using a toggle to select one of the three speeds, you can export the final video.

All of the exported videos playback at 15fps. The slowest 1/8 speed is just the original 120fps video played back at 15fps. At 1/4 speed, every other frame is dropped and at 1/2 speed, only one in four frames are kept, resulting in choppy looking video. The low bit rate further degrades the video quality, showing significant compression artifacts and loss of detail. The Note 4 also does not record audio in slow-motion mode.

Camera: Performance And Photo Quality

Camera hardware specs and software features mean nothing if the photos produced are of poor quality. It's time to see how the Note 4 compares to several other large-screened phones, including the iPhone 6 Plus, Nexus 6, LG G3 (same camera as the G Flex 2), and HTC Desire Eye (13MP Sony IMX214 sensor and f/2.0 lens). Unfortunately, we did not have the Note 3 and OnePlus One available for this test.

All images were taken using the Auto mode unless noted. Also, you can view the full-sized image for each photo by clicking the text links below the images that are within a slideshow album. Both the Note 4 and Desire Eye shoot natively at a 16:9 aspect ratio, while the other phones shoot in 4:3.

Outdoors

Daylight

Full Size Images: [Note 4: outdoor car], [iPhone 6 Plus: outdoor car], [Nexus 6: outdoor car], [LG G3: outdoor car], [HTC Desire Eye: outdoor car], [Note 4: outdoor boxcar], [iPhone 6 Plus: outdoor boxcar], [Nexus 6: outdoor boxcar], [LG G3: outdoor boxcar], [HTC Desire Eye: outdoor boxcar]

Despite being taken in the late afternoon, the light when the car was photographed was enough that all the phones apart from the Desire Eye were able to select very low ISOs. The shutter speed selected was also high enough that there are no focus issues from camera shake. However, the iPhone 6 Plus was able to select the highest speed because the bigger pixels of its 8MP sensor were able to capture more light.

When it comes to detail in these conditions, the 16MP camera in the Note 4 trumps its competitors, but the 13MP sensors in the Nexus 6, G3, and Desire Eye are not far behind. The color accuracy and saturation of the Note 4’s image is pretty good. However, the auto white balance is perhaps a little too cool, as is the Nexus 6’s and Desire Eye's. The iPhone 6 Plus produces the most accurate color in this case. Also, while the Note 4’s dynamic range in this picture is good, the iPhone 6 Plus’s shot does look better in this department, successfully capturing the blue sky.

The image of the boxcar was shot in brighter light and allowed all the phones to select a low ISO and a very fast shutter speed. All five cameras produce a decent image in these conditions with good dynamic range. The yellow in the Note 4's image skews slightly towards green, but when zoomed in close to the rusty patina on the boxcar, the Note 4’s 16MP sensor has captured the most detail, especially when compared to the iPhone’s 8MP sensor.

Overall, the Note 4 performs very well in daylight, but to be honest, so does nearly every other current smartphone. We'll need more challenging conditions to see how good its camera really is.

Night

Full Size Images: [Note 4: outdoor night], [iPhone 6 Plus: outdoor night], [Nexus 6: outdoor night], [LG G3: outdoor night], [HTC Desire Eye: outdoor night], [Note 4: outdoor Gremlin], [iPhone 6 Plus: outdoor Gremlin], [Nexus 6: outdoor Gremlin], [LG G3: outdoor Gremlin]

When the light drops below a certain threshold, the Note 4 activates a night shooting mode that seems to take and combine multiple images to produce a single, brighter shot. This means shot-to-shot shooting time is slower and ghosting can be an issue for moving objects. There's also no ISO or shutter speed info recorded while in this mode. The only way to turn this mode off is to set the ISO manually. However, 800 is the highest you can set this way and it may not be enough in very low light.

The first Note 4 image in the slideshow is one shot in this mode. Zoomed out it looks ok and is brighter than that of the iPhone 6 Plus and Nexus 6, but when zoomed in you can see that the detail is soft due to the aggressive noise reduction. You can also see some haloing around some of the bright areas. Of the other images of the candy apple red 30’s Ford sedan, the iPhone 6 Plus’ is clearly the winner. Its sensor’s large pixels and OIS allowed it to take a crisp, in-focus image with a longer exposure time, while reducing noise with an ISO of 200. Still, the Note 4’s picture looks to be the runner-up, since the others either have too much noise from being taken at very high ISOs, are too dark, or in the case of the LG G3, a less effective long exposure mode.

In the second image of the white Gremlin, the Note 4 does not use its special night mode, capturing a clear image at ISO 250 and a shutter speed of 1/12 seconds thanks to its OIS. Again the iPhone 6 Plus trumps the competition, being able to produce a decent image at even lower ISO and less noise thanks to its larger pixels. However, its 8MP shot at ISO 64 is not that much more detailed than the Note 4's 16MP shot at ISO 250.

The Note 4’s low light image quality is the best of the current crop of large-screen Android phones, and certainly a step above that of its predecessors, the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 3. However, the iPhone 6 Plus’ larger pixels and effective OIS mean that its low-light pictures look the best, but only by a slim margin.

HDR

All of the cameras being compared have the now obligatory HDR modes, though their implementations are slightly different. The Note 4 leverages the sensor and the SoC’s ISP to preview the HDR effect in real time, so you can see how it looks when composing the shot. The other phones, apart from the Desire Eye, apply HDR as a post-processing effect only after the photo is taken, so you will not know how the picture will look before taking it. The Desire Eye does show you a preview of the HDR effect when composing your shot, but this preview does not always reflect what the final HDR image looks like.

Full Size Images: [Note 4: no HDR], [Note 4: HDR], [iPhone 6 Plus: no HDR], [iPhone 6 Plus: HDR], [Nexus 6: no HDR], [Nexus 6: HDR], [LG G3: no HDR], [LG G3: HDR], [HTC Desire Eye: no HDR], [HTC Desire Eye: HDR]

In general, these comparison images show that all of the phones here have issues with dynamic range when shooting in conditions like this. In the non-HDR images the sky is overpowering the subject of the shot, so using HDR is the only way to get a good image in this light. The challenge, though, for a good HDR mode, is to brighten the areas in shadow but keep from overexposing the already bright areas.

The Note 4, G3, and Desire Eye all do a great job, though we’d have to say the Note 4 and G3 HDR images look the best. The Desire Eye goes a little too far and creates an image that looks unnatural. As for the iPhone 6 Plus and Nexus 6, their image processing is not aggressive enough and the HDR effect is minimal at best.

Additional HDR Images

Full Size Images: [Note 4: no HDR 1], [Note 4: HDR 1], [Note 4: no HDR 2], [Note 4: HDR 2], [Note 4: no HDR 3], [Note 4: HDR 3], [Note 4: no HDR 4], [Note 4: HDR 4], [Note 4: no HDR 5], [Note 4: HDR 5], [Note 4: no HDR 6], [Note 4: HDR 6], [Note 4: no HDR 7], [Note 4: HDR 7]

The Note 4's HDR mode produces some dramatic results, whether it's a street scene shot at dusk or an interior shot with a bright window in the background. Samsung definitely has the best HDR implementation right now, from the live HDR preview to the quality of the final shot. It's so good in fact, that we recommend just leaving it on all the time.

Indoors

The staged indoor shots below were lit by overhead LED lights, a CFL lamp from the front, and an incandescent overhead light in the background.

Bright Light

Full Size Images: [Note 4: indoor bright light], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor bright light], [Nexus 6: indoor bright light], [LG G3: indoor bright light], [HTC Desire Eye: indoor bright light]

Even with all of the lights turned on, the scene is not exceptionally bright, forcing all of the Android phones to raise their ISO value. The Note 4 and Nexus 6 hold ISO a bit lower, reducing noise and producing reasonable images. Both the G3 and Desire Eye exhibit a noticeable amount of noise, even under these lighting conditions. The iPhone 6 Plus is the only camera that produces an image with lower than 100 ISO, though its detail level is noticeably less when viewed closely due to its lower resolution. As for color accuracy, the Desire Eye's and iPhone 6 Plus' white balance looks the best, while the other images are a little too cool.

There's no clear winner for this scene, but we'd say it’s a toss-up between the Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Low Light

Full Size Images: [Note 4: indoor low light], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor low light], [Nexus 6: indoor low light], [LG G3: indoor low light], [HTC Desire Eye: indoor low light]

This scene was only lit by the incandescent light in the background, creating a very challenging scenario. The Note 4 engages its special night mode and creates an image with roughly the same brightness as the iPhone. The Note 4’s image also retains a lot of detail and is not too noisy. However, its white balance is off, giving the whole picture a green tint. The iPhone 6 Plus does well with white balance and effectively uses its OIS to hold its shutter open longer and ISO at only 250, reducing noise; however, its noise reduction algorithm leaves some odd artifacts. The rest of the phones fall down in this test. The Nexus 6’s shot is much too dark and noisy, taken at ISO 1196. The G3’s night shot is the brightest, but unnaturally so, and the color balance skews heavily towards red. Lastly, the Desire Eye’s picture is a dark, unusable mess shot at ISO 2500.

The iPhone 6 Plus has a slight edge over the Note 4 in lower-light situations, but the Note 4 is pretty close and clearly the best of the rest.

Flash

Full Size Images: [Note 4: indoor with flash], [iPhone 6 Plus: indoor with flash], [Nexus 6: indoor with flash], [LG G3: indoor with flash], [HTC Desire Eye: indoor with flash]

Both the Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus take very nice images with the flash turned on. The Note 4 has the edge in detail, but the iPhone 6 Plus' True Tone flash produces more natural looking colors. While the flash on the Nexus 6 and G3 is capable of adequately lighting the scene, the color is too cool and the images are overexposed.

Front-Facing Camera

Full Size Images: [Note 4: Front-facing camera sample 1], [Note 4: Front-facing camera sample 2], [Note 4: Front-facing camera sample 3]

The samples from the front-facing camera were taken with the unnatural "Beauty mode" turned off. The last image is an example of the Note 4’s "Wide selfie" mode.

Additional Sample Images

The slideshow below contains a selection of images taken with the Note 4 in a variety of locations and lighting conditions, and should give you a good idea of the kind of photographs it's capable of taking.

Full Size Images: [Note 4: sample 19], [Note 4: sample 20], [Note 4: sample 21], [Note 4: sample 18], [Note 4: sample 8], [Note 4: sample 13], [Note 4: sample 14], [Note 4: sample 11], [Note 4: sample 12], [Note 4: sample 9], [Note 4: sample 15], [Note 4: sample 3], [Note 4: sample 2], [Note 4: sample 10], [Note 4: sample 1], [Note 4: sample 16], [Note 4: sample 17], [Note 4: sample 5], [Note 4: sample 6], [Note 4: sample 4], [Note 4: sample 7], [Note 4: sample 22]

Overall Camera Performance

The Note 4's camera system, from its lens to the Sony IMX240 sensor to the Snapdragon 805’s ISP (image signal processor) to Samsung's software, work in harmony to make it one of the best cameras of any smartphone. It's capable of producing excellent high-resolution images that are better than all its large-screened Android peers. Only in lower light do we see the iPhone 6 Plus surpass the Note 4, and even then not by a significant amount. The Note 4 also has a number of useful camera modes, such as "Selective focus" and "Shot & more" that can produce some great-looking, unique images without having to take them into an image editor.

With PDAF, the Note 4 can focus on its subject in approximately 300ms, which is faster than the Galaxy S5's PDAF system and the G3's laser autofocus system, along with most other current smartphones. Only the iPhone 6 Plus' PDAF can focus faster. Combining this with the Note 4’s shot-to-shot performance, which is also very good and one of the quickest we’ve seen, means you won't miss capturing that fleeting moment.

Software

Samsung has taken some heat in years past for its TouchWiz UI, both for its cluttered design and feature bloat. For this iteration, Samsung cleans things up a bit by making some of its less-used software optional rather than installed by default. Few would call TouchWiz uncluttered, but it does add several features that are particularly useful for the Note 4, such as Multi Window, S Pen integration, and special modes for one-handed use, that are accessible via the Settings menu, widgets, or popup menus.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 shipped with Android KitKat 4.4.4 when it launched last fall. It took quite awhile to update its flagship devices to Lollipop: The AT&T Note 4 we tested didn’t get updated until March 2015, and the Canadian Telus unit we tested didn’t get the update until April 2015. With the update to Lollipop, one would expect to see quite a few changes. However, Samsung decided to keep using the same version of their TouchWiz UI as was found in the KitKat build, rather than using the redesigned version included with the recently released Galaxy S6. In the slideshow below you can see some comparison screenshots, with KitKat on the left and Lollipop on the right.

These screenshots show very little difference between KitKat and Lollipop on the Note 4. The most noticeable change is the implementation of Lollipop’s new notification system. On the TouchWiz lock screen, you can only have two Lollipop notifications, with additional ones shown as icons in an overflow section below.

The homescreen, icons, quick settings buttons, task switcher, and menus have not changed much. However, Samsung has tweaked the appearance of some system fonts, controls, and apps, such as Phone and Messages, to be more inline with Google's Material Design, giving TouchWiz a cleaner, less crowded look, with nicer color choices. The TouchWiz launcher did not not get the same streamlining treatment the Galaxy S6 received, however.

One-Handed Features

One-handed use of the Galaxy Note 4 can be problematic due to the dimensions of the screen, but the Note 4—like the Note 3—offers a couple of software features which can greatly increase usability with a single hand. The "Reduce screen size" option is aptly named, shrinking the size of the entire screen into something more reasonable for one handed navigation. Once enabled, you can swipe your thumb quickly from one edge of the screen to the middle and back to the edge to shrink the screen. Repeating this gesture, or tapping the button in the top-right corner of the screen, restores the screen to its original size. This miniature view can be resized by dragging the top corner or repositioned by holding the top bar and dragging. There's even soft-key versions of the Android nav buttons and volume controls located below the window, putting them within easy reach. App compatibility in this mode appears to be a non-issue, as the entire display is simply scaled down.

Another one-handed feature shrinks some onscreen controls, including the dialing keypad and in-call buttons in Phone, the Samsung keyboard, the Calculator, and the unlock pattern on the lock screen. The shrunken controls can be moved to one side of the screen or the other for ambidextrous use.

The side key panel is a small fly-out menu that holds up to four shortcuts chosen from the following list: recent apps, Home, Back, more options menu, reduce screen size, and app drawer. The panel can be repositioned and snaps to either the left or right screen edge. It autohides when not in use and appears as a small tab on the edge of the display. Swiping over it exposes or hides it from view.

Multitasking with Multi Window

Samsung's Multi Window feature makes good use of the Note 4's large display for multitasking. A Multi Window compatible app can be docked to one half of the screen with another app docked to the opposite side, much like Windows 8 apps, in either portrait or landscape orientation. The divider between the two apps is adjustable to show more of one app and less of the other. You can also open compatible apps in a pop-up view, where the active app appears in a resizable and movable window that hovers above apps in the background. The pop-up views can be minimized to a small, circular icon that remains visible at all times.

Apps can be launched in Multi Window view from the recent apps menu by clicking the stacked rectangle button next to the close button. You can also enable the Muti Window tray, which is activated by pressing and holding the Back button. Dragging and dropping an app from the tray to the main window opens it in split-screen view. Tapping the app icon will open it as a pop-up window.

Multi Window mode works reasonably well, although there are some app compatibility issues. Expect a learning curve with the Multi Window features, as well as a period of assimilation, since it will not feel natural until you’ve used it for awhile. Once you get the hang of it though, there are some compelling use cases. For example, you can have Maps open in the background for walking directions and the camera open in a pop-up window for quick access. You could also take notes while watching a video or surfing the Web, even copy text or an image from one window to another.

S Pen

One of the defining hardware features of the Galaxy Note line since the beginning has been the S Pen. Much more than a simple stylus, the S Pen integrates tightly with the Note 4 both at a hardware and software level. Simple actions like removing the S Pen from its silo will activate the Air command menu, which gives you quick access to some of the more common tasks you can perform with the stylus. The S Pen is so essential that the Note 4 gets separation anxiety if you walk away and forget it, alerting you to go back and retrieve the accessory. This attention to detail is apparent throughout a wide range of use cases for the S Pen and the Note 4 as a whole.

Many of the S Pen features revolve around OCR (Optical Character Recognition), the software that converts written text into digital type. The Note 4’s OCR software runs solely on the internal hardware—no network connection required—good news for privacy proponents and users who frequently function in Airplane Mode or other scenarios with limited connectivity.

The active nature of the S Pen allows you to interact with the display without physically touching the stylus to the screen. Samsung calls this Air view, and it is off by default. Hovering the stylus over the display will present a cursor that can be placed over certain hotspots, such as links, calendar items, or images in your gallery, to show a preview of the contents. The improved S Pen now recognizes 2048 pressure levels, which makes for a smooth writing experience and is particularly useful for drawing applications.

The S Pen overall is very usable from all perspectives. Though the cross section of the stylus is rectangular, the rounded edges and a subtle texture make it both comfortable and easy to use. The action button and pressure sensitivity are very responsive, and inking with the S Pen is very precise with no noticeable lag.

The Air command menu (activated when the stylus is removed or the stylus button is pressed) gives you quick access to four common tasks: action memo, smart select, image clip, and screen write. Action memo is quite versatile, allowing you to jot down an email address, phone number, or street address and place a phone call, start an email, or get directions to a location with just a few taps. Action memo items can be saved to S Note or pinned to your home screen for easy access later.

The remaining three options in the Air command menu are more focused in their use cases. Smart select can be used to make a rectangular selection of whatever is on the screen, either saving the image or converting detected text into easily usable characters. Image clip is also used to capture a region of the screen, either using a full rectangle, an ellipse, or a freeform selection. Screen write performs a screen capture of the full screen and imports it directly into an editor where you can mark up the image with notes and then share it through another app or service.

S Note

The utility of S Note is more than simply capturing thoughts and saving them to the cloud. S Note offers templates—everything from schedules to recipe cards—with which you can initiate a new note using the format that best fits your needs. If you find it difficult to write small enough to fit the given space in your chosen template, S Note can provide you with a zoomed in view, making it much easier to achieve the desired level of accuracy within the required space. Handwritten text can then be selected and converted to digital type as desired. Notes can be shared or exported using a number of different formats including S Note, PDF, text, or an image.

S Health

One of the more recent developments in the personal technology arena is the rise of wearables such as smart watches, fitness bands, and the like. While there is no shortage of devices that can track your activity and use that data to provide feedback on your health (Samsung already has multiple wearable products), this functionality is starting to make its way to smartphones in the form of pedometers, heart rate sensors, and similar technology.

Samsung S Health interfaces with the Note 4's pedometer and heart rate sensor as well as other fitness oriented wearables like the Galaxy Gear Fit (see middle screenshot above) in order to monitor sleep patterns and other health related measurements. S Health also supports the use of the heart rate sensor in order to calculate measurables such as stress level or SpO2 (oxygen saturation in your blood) levels. You can also manually enter other data pertaining to food consumption or your current weight.

CPU And System Performance

In this section, we evaluate system-level performance by running a series of synthetic and real-world workloads, along with some browser-based Web tests. There are several facets to overall device performance, including single- and multi-threaded CPU performance, memory and storage speed, and GPU rendering, all of which will be probed by our suite of benchmarks. If you're interested in learning more about how these benchmarks work, what versions we use, or our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device system performance.

The Galaxy Note 4 uses the same Snapdragon 805 SoC as the Nexus 6, so we should see similar levels of performance. In Basemark OS II, they do indeed perform about the same. The Exynos 7420's four Cortex-A57 CPUs in the Galaxy S6 outperform the Note 4's older Krait 450 cores by 34% in the single- and multi-threaded CPU System test despite Krait's clock speed advantage. Interestingly, the Adreno 420 GPU in the Note 4 offers similar performance to the PowerVR GX6450 in the iPhone 6 Plus and the Mali T760MP8 in the GS6 for this OpenGL ES 2.0 based graphics test.

The Note 4 performs well overall in AndEBench, pulling ahead of the Nexus 6 in the 3D Graphics and CPU-centric Platform tests. In CoreMark-HPC, another test for single- and multi-threaded CPU performance, the GS6 once again outperforms the Note 4 by 31%. The GS6 also outperforms both Snapdragon 805 devices in the Memory Bandwidth test even though they all have the same theoretical max bandwidth of 25.6 GB/s.

We previously discussed the Nexus 6's storage performance issue, which results from using full disk encryption. It's no surprise then to see the Note 4 pull well ahead of it in this test. It is a little surprising to see it match the performance of the UFS 2.0 based NAND in the GS6 though.

In Geekbench, both the Note 4 and Nexus 6 perform virtually the same. Compared to the Snapdragon 801 phones, the Note 4's Krait CPU is clocked 8% higher and performs 6% to 14% better in the two single-core CPU tests depending on which device we're comparing. There's a wider 20% gap in memory performance over the 801, but in everyday use the Snapdragon 805's advantage will not really be noticeable.

On the surface, the Cortex-A57 CPU seems to give the GS6 a noticeable advantage over the Note 4 in single-core performance, posting a 50% higher integer score and a 34% higher floating point score. Remember however, that the A57 uses the newer 64-bit AArch64 ISA, which includes additional SIMD cryptography instructions. This was discussed in our Snapdragon 810 Performance Preview, where we broke down the performance gains in each Geekbench Integer subtest. If we remove the encryption tests, notably for AES and SHA1, then the GS6's advantage in single-core integer performance drops to 20%. The floating point delta stands, since it does not include any encryption tests.

Turning away from the synthetic benchmarks to a more realistic workload, the GS6's performance advantage drops to 13% overall. Breaking this down further shows the newer GS6 with a substantial 64% advantage in the Web Browsing test and 26% in the Writing test. The Note 4 manages to best the GS6 in the Video Playback test however.

Performance between the Note 4 and Nexus 6 is pretty close, with the Note 4 holding a slim lead in most workloads. Compared to the previous generation Snapdragon 801 in the LG G3, the Note 4 performs 25% better overall. The 805's advantage diminishes when compared to other 801 devices however: 20% better than the Sony Z3, 15% better than the HTC One (M8), and only 2% better than the Galaxy S5. Differences in CPU governor behavior accounts for the variation. For the G3, LG shows a preference for battery life over performance (likely to offset the effects of the QHD display) maintaining a lower average CPU frequency than the higher performing Galaxy S5.

There's no real performance difference between the Note 4 and Nexus 6 for web browsing. The performance delta between the Note 4 and the GS6 varies between essentially nothing in JSBench to 26% in Browsermark.

The Note 4 is a bit slower than the Nexus 6 when it comes to scrolling a web page and UI responsiveness in general. Where browser scrolling is mostly a smooth affair on the Nexus 6, there's definitely some stutter with the Note 4. When scrolling within a web page, the Note 4 sets the CPU frequency to 1190MHz compared to 1497MHz for the Nexus 6 running Android 5.1 (it used 1728MHz with Android 5.0). The two devices also use different touch input boost frequencies: 1267MHz for the Note 4 and 1497MHz for the Nexus 6. The smoother experience on the Nexus 6 comes at the expense of battery life however.

Overall, the Galaxy Note 4's system performance is very good, matching or slightly exceeding the performance of the similarly equipped Nexus 6. Since the Krait CPUs in Snapdragon 805 receive only an 8% bump in frequency, we don't see a substantial difference in performance between the Note 4 and the older Snapdragon 801 phones. And while the newer Galaxy S6 definitely offers better performance, the Note 4 really is not that far behind.

GPU And Gaming Performance

Mobile GPU performance is becoming increasingly important as people begin to see their phones and tablets as portable gaming machines. This section explores GPU performance with several synthetic and real-world game engine tests. To learn more about how these benchmarks work, what versions we use, or our testing methodology, please read our article about how we test mobile device GPU performance.

The Adreno 420 GPU in both the Galaxy Note 4 and Nexus 6 perform well in this OpenGL ES 2.0 benchmark. Not surprisingly, it pulls ahead of the Snapdragon 801 based phones (Adreno 330 GPU and only 14.9GB/s memory bandwidth) in the Graphics category by 25% to 45% depending on the device. The bulk of this advantage is due to improvements in pixel shading and texturing.

It’s a bit more surprising to see the Note 4 top the Graphics score of the Mali T760MP8 in the Galaxy S6. Both devices perform about the same when focusing primarily on geometry setup. The Note 4 gains its advantage when doing pixel shading and texturing operations.

At the medium quality setting, Basemark X shows a similar 20% to 25% performance delta between the Note 4 and the Snapdragon 801 based phones (The LG G3 is an outlier, with lower than average graphics performance.) The Note 4 can't keep pace with the GS6, falling behind the newer phone by 28%.

At the higher quality setting, the two Snapdragon 805 devices pull ahead of the iPhone 6 Plus, otherwise the results remain the same.

GFXBench Manhattan is an OpenGL ES 3.0 based benchmark that puts an emphasis on pixel shaders. This was one of the things Qualcomm focused on when developing the Adreno 420 and it shows: The Note 4 scores ~60% higher than Adreno 330 equipped phones.

While the Note 4 is competitive with the GS6 in 3DMark: Ice Storm Unlimited, even outpacing the newer phone in pixel shading duties, it falls behind in this more demanding test by 31%. Perhaps the synthetic tests will provide an answer.

The Note 4 experiences some thermal throttling in T-Rex, which is why it falls behind the Nexus 6. Once again, the Snapdragon 805 shows a 25% to 30% advantage over the previous generation 801 (disregarding the G3).

The synthetic tests don't show any particular weak points for the Note 4, its extra memory bandwidth put to good use in the Alpha Blending and Fill tests.

It's curious to see the Galaxy S6 outperform the Note 4 in both Manhattan and T-Rex, but fall so far behind in the synthetic tests. Monitoring clock frequencies shows that the S6 hits its max GPU frequency of 772MHz in Manhattan as expected; however, it only ramps to 700MHz in the synthetic tests and 3DMark. A 10% deficit in clock speed can account for some of the deficit, but not all. Seeing the low scores in Alpha Blending and Fill, I thought the memory bus may not be reaching its max frequency. According to the GPU frequency table, however, the memory bus runs at max frequency as long as the GPU is clocked at 600MHz or above. There's no obvious explanation for this discrepancy.

The Adreno 420 in the Note 4 is not the top dog in the GPU race anymore, but still offers excellent performance running modern games. Rendering enough pixels to fill the QHD display with a complex 3D scene is still too much for the Adreno 420. Fortunately, most games render at reduced resolutions offscreen so this should not be an issue in most cases.

Where this limitation does come into play is when using the Samsung Gear VR. With your eyes so close to the screen, even a QHD resolution on an AMOLED panel is not enough to mask individual pixels. The need for higher resolution panels for VR/AR applications will continue to push GPU development. Until GPUs catch up, the complexity of VR content will be limited.

Battery Life And Thermal Throttling

Battery life may be the most important performance metric for a mobile device. After all, it doesn't matter how quickly a phone or tablet can load webpages or how many frames per second the GPU can crank through once the battery runs down and the device shuts off. To learn more about how we test this critical facet of mobile computing, please read our battery testing methodology article.

The Galaxy Note 4 manages to last an impressive 6 hours 49 minutes in PCMark, currently our best test for real-world battery life. It even outlasts the Nexus 6 despite using the same SoC. One reason for this has to do with CPU frequency. In the chart above, the Nexus 6 was still running Android 5.0, where it maintained a higher average CPU frequency, even holding two cores at max frequency (2649MHz) for the Writing test. The Note 4's CPU governor, in comparison, allows the frequency to bounce around, rarely going above 1497MHz.

Having full disk encryption enabled and handled solely in software also hurts performance and battery life on the Nexus 6. The PCMark workloads have several small read and write operations that add up over several hours, particularly in the Writing and Photo Editing tasks. The Android 5.1 update for the Nexus 6 disables the CPU thread migration boost feature, improving battery life to 354 minutes but slightly lowering performance.

At first glance, the Note 4 appears to do well in the GPU/gaming focused GFXBench battery test, lasting longer than the Nexus 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. It's not until we look at the performance chart that we understand why. The Note 4 shows a 40% reduction in performance relative to the Nexus 6 due to thermal throttling. With the GPU frequency scaled back, it uses less power and lasts longer.

Looking at the battery drain and performance graph above from the GFXBench battery test, we can see the Note 4 throttle back to less than 50% about 8.5 minutes into the test before recovering to about 70% of the original value over the last half. Heat dissipation is a design weak point, which is evident in the thermal image of the back cover taken during the same battery test. It's certainly obvious where the SoC is located (the yellow circle is the rear camera and the green rectangle in the upper-right is the battery). The chassis does a poor job of spreading and dissipating the heat generated by the GPU, making the Note 4 more susceptible to thermal throttling.

You should not have an issue getting through the day on a single charge with the Note 4; however, it does have a power saving mode that restricts background data transfers and performance, even an optional grayscale display mode, for stretching battery life a little further. If you're really desperate, the ultra power saving mode limits what apps can be used and switches to a simple black-and-white display mode.

The Note 4 comes with Samsung's Fast Charge feature, which is compatible with Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0, that can charge the battery to 50% in about 30 minutes, according to Samsung.

Conclusion

Samsung’s Note series has gained a loyal following by combining premium hardware with phablet defining features. They aren’t flashy or hip or trendy. They are meant for power users and professionals who use their phones for getting real work done. Sure, you can still have fun with a Note too, but it’s not a phone designed for the masses.

The Galaxy Note 4 extends the Note tradition as a flagship phablet starting with its most recognizable feature, the 5.7-inch SAMOLED display. For this generation, Samsung bumps the resolution from a so-last-year 1080p (386 PPI) to 1440p (515 PPI). Some may question the need for so many pixels, but for AMOLED screens, whose PenTile matrices have a subpixel deficit compared to LCD panels, this is a good thing.

Looking at all of these pixels is a real joy thanks to a well-calibrated, proper sRGB display mode, making this one of the best looking screens currently on the market. We also appreciate Samsung continuing to provide multiple display modes for people who prefer the more vibrant and saturated colors that result from using an extended gamut. Choice is a good thing.

Surrounding the screen is an aluminum frame, a new material for the Note line. While the overall appearance remains similar to the Note 3, the metal frame, painted with a color-matched finish and highlighted by polished, chamfered edges, looks classy and gives the Note 4 a solid feel, free from any flexing or creaking.

The plastic back panel is still removable, providing access to the removable battery and SD card slot. A feature sure to make road warriors happy. It retains the faux leather finish of the Note 3, but the fake stitching is gone.

While no longer the fastest SoC on the block, the Snapdragon 805 packed inside is still very quick and capable. It’s paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of speedy internal storage. A category 4 LTE modem from Qualcomm keeps the data flowing.

The camera in the Note 4 is one of the best currently available. It's 16 MP Sony sensor with OIS delivers high-resolution images of good quality, and the phase detection autofocus is very fast. We occasionally saw small misses in white balance leading to images with a slight green cast, and the iPhone 6 Plus still holds a small edge in some lower-light scenarios. However, Samsung is the current leader when it comes to HDR, providing a live preview onscreen and producing great results with virtually no processing lag.

S Pen is another notable feature. Effectively doubling the number of pressure sensitivity levels from the Note 3, the S Pen delivers a smoother and more natural writing experience. The Pen is more than just a simple stylus, however. The integrated Wacom digitizer enables additional features like being able to hover the pen over the screen to show context sensitive menus. TouchWiz also makes good use of the pen via the Air Command menu that opens when it’s removed from the silo, providing quick access to common tasks, and functionality is extended through apps such as S Note and integrated OCR.

The Note 4 now runs Android Lollipop, but doesn’t use the more refined TouchWiz UI that comes with the new Galaxy S6. Although there are still a few rough edges when it comes to UI design and functionality, Samsung provides additional software features that make good use of the bigger screen. The ability to shrink the display size, place input controls within easy reach, and add shortcuts to the side key panel make it possible to still interact with the phone using a single hand when necessary. Multi Window is great for multi-tasking and receives some usability improvements for this generation.

The Note 4 is a great phone, but we do have a few minor quibbles. Despite the fast processor, browser scrolling and UI interactions still exhibit some stuttering due to Samsung’s conservative CPU governor settings. This does improve battery life though, so this might not be a negative depending on your priorities. The Note 4 is also more susceptible to thermal throttling than other phones when the GPU is pushed hard. Samsung needs to do a better job using the metal chassis to spread and dissipate heat. The rear mounted external speaker is less than ideal, reducing audio quality and producing muffled sound when sitting on a table.

Despite these few minor flaws, the Note 4 is a powerful phone, whose hardware and software features set it apart from all the other phablets flooding the market. For this reason, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 earns our Editors’ Choice award.

Tim Ferrill is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter.

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Last month, Samsung opened its digital doors for pre-orders on the Gear VR Innovator Edition for the Galaxy S6 and the S6 edge. Today, both versions of the mobile VR headset are finally available online for $199.

This new version of the Gear VR Innovator Edition only works for the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. The original head-mounted display (HMD) featured a Galaxy Note 4, but the updated HMD doesn't support backwards compatibility with the Galaxy Note 4.

For those who want to try out the Gear VR Innovator Edition in person before making a purchase, the HMDs will be on sale at select Best Buy retail stores on May 15. The Gear VR Innovator Edition will also continue to expand to more Best Buy locations throughout the summer.

Considering the cost of the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, it might be a while until you get your hands on a Gear VR Innovator Edition, but if you want a taste of what's to come for mobile VR, this is likely going to be one of the best experiences to date.

Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

For the past couple of years, we've seen a pattern emerge when it comes to new Android smartphone releases. Each spring heralds the launch of the new mainstream flagship phone from the three biggest Android OEMs – HTC, LG and Samsung. This year, both HTC and Samsung have already started selling their flagships, the HTC One M9 and the Samsung Galaxy S 6, so LG is going to be the last one to arrive to the party. It is announcing its contender, the LG G4, later today.

Of the last round of flagships, LG's G3 was arguably the weakest. It had an overly ambitious screen spec that pushed its other hardware (SoC, battery) too far. If LG wants to be on top with the G4, it needs to up its game.

Design, Materials and Dimensions

Last year, both Samsung and LG were offering all-plastic devices. HTC's M8 was the only Android flagship constructed from metal, for which it was widely praised. The others were plastic. 

If LG hopes to compete on the design and materials front with HTC and Samsung this spring, then the G4 must be made from more than just plastic. However, we don't necessarily subscribe to the notion that it has to be all metal, or metal and glass. That design decision usually precludes having a removable battery, a feature we think is essential. We do still hope, though, that LG has managed to incorporate some premium materials into the G4's design.

As for dimensions, in 2014 the G3 managed to squeeze a 5.5-inch screen into the body of a 5-inch device. The G3's screen-to-body ratio was 76 percent, which was substantially better than the S5's and One M8's. Also, because LG placed the volume and power buttons on the back (as it did on the G2), the G3 was still comfortable to use with one hand. If LG sticks with the same screen size and dimensions, then the G4 will continue to have the best screen-to-body ratio of this latest round of flagships.

It looks like LG is going to incorporate a premium material into the G4, but it's not the one we were necessarily hoping for. In leaked images from an LG Korea microsite that accidentally went live briefly, then later confirmed by the Korean teaser video below, it looks like the LG G4 will come with a leather back. That's real hand-stitched leather, not the faux-leather Samsung used on the Note 3. There will apparently be other leather colors to choose from, too, although we also expect a more traditional plastic-back option.

We want to at least see some metal in the G4's construction, so let's hope that at least the band surrounding the bezel is actually metal this time.

Display

In 2014, the LG G3 was the first Android handset to ship with a 2560 x 1440 QHD IPS display. This was a noticeable achievement and resulted in the G3 having a much higher PPI (538) than its competition's 1920 x 1080 FHD displays (the S5 had 432 PPI, the One M8 441 PPI). Unfortunately, taking this route did have its drawbacks.

When we tested the G3, we found that the screen itself was "good but not great," underperforming in nearly every test -- brightness, contrast, color accuracy -- compared to the S5 and One M8. Another big drawback was that the pairing of a QHD display, the Snapdragon 801 SoC and 3,000 mAh that the G3 used was not ideal. The QHD screen was too power-hungry, despite optimizations such as dynamic display clocking that LG incorporated to address this. Further, the Adreno 330 GPU was not powerful enough to push the larger amount of pixels of the QHD screen. This lead to lag in the UI and poor performance when playing graphically-demanding games.

For 2015, LG faces even stiffer competition on the display front. The Galaxy S 6 has an even better display than the S5, and it's equipped with an SoC capable of powering it. If LG hopes to compete this year, it will have to equip the G4 with a substantially better screen than the G3.

Fortunately, we expect an "IPS Quantum Display" that promises a 25 percent brighter and 20 percent wider color range than the G3. We're not sure these improvements will make for a better-quality screen than the one found in the S 6, though. The one area LG will have a chance to improve on is power consumption. The S 6's QHD screen has a big impact on its battery life; if LG can equip the G4 with a more efficient display, it will have a big advantage.

We're perhaps reaching a bit here, but we can't help but wonder if that "Quantum Display" could incorporate LG's color-enhancing Quantum dot technology found in TV displays. 

Camera

2014's mainstream flagships all took different approaches to producing the best smartphone images. HTC stuck with its low resolution 4 MP UltraPixel sensor and f/2.0 lens, which traded resolution for better low-light performance. Samsung decided to go in-house and produce its own 16 MP ISOCELL sensor for the S5 that featured extremely fast phase detection autofocus (PDAF) paired with an f/2.2 lens. LG strangely decided to stick with the same Sony 13 MP IMX135 sensor (paired with an f/2.4 lens) that the G2 used, and just upgraded its OIS (optical image stabilization) and added super-fast laser autofocus.

Our testing showed that while the G3's laser AF and OIS+ did help it produce good photos, its older sensor and slow lens impacted its performance.

For 2015, LG has to contend with an even better Samsung camera. The S 6 uses the same 16 MP Sony sensor with OIS as the Note 4 and pairs it with a very fast f/1.9 lens. The 20.7 MP camera on the HTC One M9 is very disappointing, so LG only has one competitor in this category. If LG wants to beat the S 6, it will need to stick with the good features of the G3, the AF system, and OIS+, and upgrade the G4's sensor and optics.

On the software side, while the G3's camera UI was good, and its auto mode worked well, the G3 did suffer from a lack of configurable options. With Android Lollipop allowing for more manual control of the camera, both Samsung and HTC have added modes that let you make manual adjustments to the camera, and LG will need to add the same.

The first of LG series of G4 teaser videos highlighted the f/1.8 lens, which looks to currently be the fastest lens of any smartphone. This should mean that the G4 will have excellent low-light performance, and be able to take close-up pictures with SLR-looking out-of-focus (bokeh) backgrounds without having to resort to software tricks to achieve this. LG then put out a second video about the G4's camera (see below), that also mentions two new features.

The first is more accurate color reproduction in photos, and the second is a new manual mode that gives you full control of all the camera settings. The only question remaining is what sensor will the G4 use? Information from the unconfirmed GFXBench results indicated it will be 16 MP, which suggests LG might be using the same Sony sensor as the Galaxy S 6.

SoC, Storage and Battery

Last year, all three flagships shared the same SoC, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801. Although there were some minor differences, overall, if you don't take the impact of the G3's QHD screen into consideration, they all performed similarly. This year's flagship race is a totally different story, and if some of the rumors are correct, we may end up with three competitors all running different SoC's.

The Galaxy S 6 utilizes Samsung's Exynos 7420 that has a 4 x 2.1 GHz Cortex-A57 and 4 x 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 CPUs in a big.LITTLE configuration. The 7420 has a Mali-T760 MP8 GPU.

HTC decided to stick with Qualcomm again, and the One M9 utilizes the latest and most power Snapdragon, the 810. The 810 is also a big.LITTLE chip, and it has a 4 x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A57 and 4 x 1.5 GHz Cortex-A53 cores with an Adreno 430 GPU. Unfortunately, this choice was probably not the best one, as the 810 runs very hot, meaning that when under load its speed has to be substantially throttled, which impacts its performance. (LG also used the same SoC in its G Flex 2 phone earlier this year, and it had the same performance issues.)

If the G4 is going to compete, then it needs to have an SoC that is as powerful as the ones found in the S 6 and One M9. However, it seems that LG is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The G4 certainly won't come with a Samsung SoC, and the 810 has so far proven to be a poor choice.

For storage, the big question is whether the G4 will have a microSD slot. In 2014, all the flagships offered this feature, but for 2015 Samsung decided to drop expandable storage, instead offering the (expensive) choice to get an S 6 with up to 128 GB of storage. HTC wisely kept a microSD slot on the M9, and we hope LG does the same.

The last important internal specification that we are concerned with is the battery. First, we do hope that LG continues to offer a removable battery like it did on the G3. Its competitors this year have decided to seal up the backs of their phones. We feel this is the wrong direction to take, even if rapid charging tech means you can juice up a phone much faster than before.

Battery capacity is also important. Although the G3 did have the biggest battery of the 2014 flagships, it also had a power-hungry display that nullified the benefits of the bigger cell. This year Samsung dropped the capacity of the S 6 to 2,550 mAh, and HTC has upped the M9's cell from 2,800 to 2,840 mAh. With these changes and more demanding SoCs, both of these phones have worse battery life than their predecessors. As long as LG can give the G4 the same or better battery life than the G3, we'll be happy.

Although LG has been happy to tease information about the G4's design, screen and camera, it hasn't disclosed anything about its internal specs. The only hint was a GFXBench benchmark result that is said to be from the G4. This result recorded a device using Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 808 SoC.

At first glance, this seems like a wise choice. The 808 is a hexacore chip with 2 x Cortex-A57 and 4 x Cortex-A53 CPUs. We don't know the clock speed, but the 808's CPUs should be able to provide close to comparable performance to the 7420 and the 810 under all but the most demanding loads.

However, there are a couple of aspects of the 808 that will worry us if the G4 does indeed use this chip. First, it doesn't support DDR4 memory, just DDR3; and its GPU, the Adreno 418, is likely to be slower than both the Adreno 430 in the 810 and the 420 in last year's Snapdragon 805. Still, seeing as we've never had a chance to test the 808, this is all speculation.

On the battery side, a leaked picture clearly shows that underneath the G4's removable back lurks a removable battery, which is great news. The writing on it seems to indicate that it will also be 3,000 mAh, which with hopefully better overall power-efficiency of the components chosen should give the G4 better battery life than its competitors.

Will LG Meet our Expectations?

Although there has already been quite a lot of information released and leaked about the G4, at the end of the day, we can't be sure of anything until LG officially announces it. If LG is able to meet our expectations, it could very well have the winner of this year's Android flagship race.

Stay tuned to Tom's Hardware for more news about the LG G4 as the day progresses.

Follow Alex Davies @alexbdavies. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Samsung Galaxy S 6 and Galaxy S 6 edge owners waiting patiently for the Oculus-powered Gear VR Innovator Edition to arrive don't have much longer to wait, as Samsung is opening up pre-purchases on Friday, April 24 at BestBuy.com. The headset doesn't go retail until Friday, May 8, at both BestBuy.com and Samsung.com/GearVR websites, and on May 15 at select Best Buy retail stores. Additional Best Buy locations will provide demonstrations and hardware during the summer.

Samsung revealed on Thursday that the company has made some improvements to the Gear VR headset since the original version built for the Galaxy Note 4 was released. For instance, the device is now somewhat smaller, has better airflow, and sports a small built-in fan for better ventilation. The company also redesigned the straps for a more comfortable fit, and it claimed that the S 6 and S 6 edge's octacore 64-bit processor will improve the VR experience.

To date, only three Samsung phones have been compatible with any version of the Gear VR: the Galaxy Note 4, the Galaxy S 6 and the Galaxy S 6 edge.

Pricing for the device is unknown at press time, but the original Gear VR sold for around $200. Why so cheap? Because the device depends on a specific phone that is shoved in front of two curved lenses. To make the 3D illusion happen, the phone's screen divides into two sections that blend together when the wearer is looking through the lenses. In a way, it's somewhat like a modern day View-Master, but with moving images.

For the curious, here are the most recent specs for the Gear VR Innovator Edition:

In addition to providing a retail date for the VR specs, Samsung also announced that Milk VR is introducing a new series called "MY 360." This new series is produced by Matador and provides a behind-the-scenes look at the viewer's favorite celebrities, musicians and so on. Each episode lasts for a mere 8 to 10 minutes, with the first installment launching today and featuring Chris Bosh from the NBA's Miami Heat. Additional episodes will be announced soon.

Earlier this month, Oculus VR provided instructions on how to get the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 to be compatible with the old Gear VR Innovator Edition. Owners must download and install a required software update, which can be obtained if the phone has an active SIM card already installed.

If the automatic update cannot be obtained, Oculus VR provided a set of instructions to install the update manually. Simply go to "Apps," then "Settings" and then "About Device." From there, tap "Software updates," then "Check for updates." Finally, tap "OK."

If the automatic and manual update methods fail to produce any results, the company suggested that Galaxy Note 4 users contact their mobile service provider.

Update, 4/24/15, 12:15pm. We reached out to Samsung for comment and received confirmation that the new Gear VR Innovator Edition is designed specifically for the Galaxy S 6 and S 6 edge and is not backwards-compatible with the Note 4. We have updated the article text in light of the new information.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Cricket Wireless announced that it plans to offer the Samsung Galaxy S 6 smartphone later this month. Customers not wanting to pay the full $649.99 in one lump sum payment for the new phone can option to dish out an initial $19.99 down payment and pay a monthly fee. Customers can also make a $49.99 initial payment and make monthly payments without a credit check.

Originally launched on April 10, the Samsung Galaxy S 6 includes a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED screen with a 2560 x 1440 resolution. Backing this screen is Samsung's Exynos 7420 quad-core chip, 3 GB of RAM and a 2550 mAh battery. Sporting Google's Android 5.0 "Lollipop" platform, the device also features a 16MP camera on the back, a 5MP camera on the front and 32 to 128 GB of internal storage. Additional features include Corning's Gorilla Glass 4 to protect the screen and dual-band Wireless.

"Cricket's low monthly rate plans combined with our new Phone Payment Plans make the latest premium devices like the Samsung S 6 easier to get," said Andy Smoak, head of devices for Cricket Wireless.

This news follows Cricket Wireless' introduction of three new Phone Payment Plans earlier this month. The first plan allows customers to finance a smartphone for two years after a $19.99 deposit. The second plan requires a $19.99 initial payment and an 18-month obligation with a 29.99 percent APR and six-month deferred interest. The third plan is a rent-to-own option that requires customers to pay off the device within 90 days.

Cricket Wireless is also offering a special promotion for a limited time that allows customers switching over from T-Mobile, Sprint and other competing carriers to get one month of service for free if they sign up for a $50 (Smart) or $60 (Pro) prepaid plan. The "Smart" plan includes 5 GB of data per month, unlimited nationwide talk, unlimited nationwide and international messaging, and unlimited calls and messaging to Mexico. The "Pro" plan includes the same features but offers a heftier 10 GB of data.

Cricket Wireless customers wanting to get their hands on the Samsung Galaxy S 6 can get one beginning April 24. They can either head to cricketwireless.com to sign up, or simply walk into the nearest Cricket Wireless store.

Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge will launch April 10, but you can pre-order it today from carriers nationwide. Some carriers are offering special deals on the new phone, and we've aggregated and listed the options below for your convenience.

The Samsung S6 and S6 edge are available in three colors and three different storage configurations. Although the cost does not change depending on the color selected, the larger storage capacity options obviously have a higher price tag.

AT&T and U.S. Cellular have the typical two-year contract deals for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge that drop the price from the full retail amount down to the amount noted in the chart. (Existing customers should double-check their wireless plans to ensure there are no other fees, though. It's tricky out there in carrier plan land these days.) The Verizon Wireless deal is the same, but new subscribers customers can also get a $100 credit.

T-Mobile offers the most expensive deal for the new smartphone, but it's throwing in a year of Netflix service when you purchase a Galaxy S6 or S6 edge. Given that the most expensive Netflix service is $11.99, the maximum value of T-Mobile's offer is $143.88 for the year of service. As a result, offers from other companies are more attractive, as the money saved going with a plan from another company would allow you to buy Netflix service for a year and still have money left over. Users who don't currently have a T-Mobile SIM card will also need to purchase the SIM starter kit for an additional $15.

Sprint has the best offers, but you will need to purchase an Unlimited Plus phone plan to take advantage of it. Purchasing a 32 GB Samsung Galaxy S6 with this service plan will give a $20 monthly credit for two years, effectively making the phone "free."

The $20 credit from Sprint is available with any of the Samsung Galaxy S6 or S6 edge smartphones, and you can reduce the monthly payments down to only $5 or $10 depending on which model you choose.

We did not examine the cost of service in these offers, so to make sure you are getting the best deal, you should explore the various service plans available on your carrier. The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge will be available April 10.

Follow Michael Justin Allen Sexton @LordLao74. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.