This article first appeared on Vulcan Post Malaysia.
Launched earlier this year in Malaysia, can Samsung’s best-looking phone to date — the S6 — take on the S-pen toting Note 4?
Is newer better? Does size really matter? Who now holds the crown in Samsung’s ever growing kingdom? We attempt to answer all these questions, and more:
Design
Samsung, when it came to design, always trailed far, far behind in Apple’s wake. For all their devices’ bells and whistles, the fact that they came in these rickety, plastic chassis just made the phones feel cheap and frankly, not well made — despite the prices they command.
The S6 is where Samsung finally listened to what everyone had to say about the design, and came out with a metal unibody chassis with a Gorilla Glass back that feels secure and sturdy in your hand. It’s thinner, lighter, and if you’re considering the S6 Edge, it’s unique.
Image Credit: Phonearena
Now, the Note 4 is a massive gadget, and it packs in all the features and specs that have been known to get rave reviews. But it also takes up a lot of pocket space. It’s also still made with the old plastic unibody chassis, with a back made of leather that frankly fails to impress.
Needless to say that sleek wins versus clunky — so the S6 wins.
Features
Image Credit: androidcentral.com
Not to say that the S6 skimps on features, but the Note 4 — given its size — can definitely pack in a lot more. The screens for instance, both of which have QHD resolutions, just becomes more impressive when viewed on the Note 4’s bigger display.
The Note 4’s S Pen is a plus, as is its expandable memory, which the S6 doesn’t have. This makes the phablet a lot more versatile in terms of customisation.
The Note 4 takes this one.
Camera
On paper, both phones offer a 16 megapixel sensor, but all the camera’s features — image stabilisation, low-light imaging technology and wider lens aperture — became the S6’s trump cards. The S6’s ability to capture more light means, quite simply, that while the Note 4’s camera is already impressive, the S6 is still better.
Image Credit: Phonearena
The S6 wins.
Overall Performance
The Note 4 still uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon, while the S6 has the new Exynos CPU — it’s faster, less prone to overheating, and zips through all the multitasking duties that you deem to put it through.
In terms of battery life, you’d think that the bigger handset would last longer (the Note 4 gets about a full day on a full charge) — but with the new chipset, it also means that you can easily get a day and a half with the S6 on a full charge. When you do end up needing to charge, it comes equipped with fast charging, which brings your phones power up to 70% in just half an hour.
Again, the S6 takes it.
The winner?
The S6 is evidently a game changer for Samsung — upgrades where the brand needed to step up, improvements where it was needed the most. New look and new specs mean new fans to draw in. Sure there are some losses, but not enough to turn away the hordes of new Samsung converts.
