First look at the new Samsung S6 and S6 Edge (video)

3 Mar 2015

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona John Kennedy got a chance to examine the new Samsung S6 and S6 Edge smartphone devices.

Samsung doesn’t like being perceived as being on the backfoot against Apple and others and last night at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the Korean technology giant came out all guns-a-blazing.

CEO JK Shin said that the new S6 and its S6 Edge sister which features a glass panel that curves to either side of the front were re-imagined and built from the ground-up.

They are the first Samsung smartphones to feature a built-in battery and can charge 40pc in just 10 minutes and be fully charged in half the time it takes to charge an iPhone 6.

Samsung has worked on making the user experience tidier and neater, describing the UX as “fast and intuitive.”

 Samsung has managed to squeeze its new real-time HDR feature into the 5MP front-facing camera, a world first for smartphones. The same real-time HDR technology features on the 16MP rear-facing camera too, which Samsung claims provides better lighting and clarity than on the competing iPhone 6.

The devices will come in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB configurations.

They are powered by an octa-core processor that is built at 14nm and enables 64-bit processing.

The 5.1-inch screens deliver a screen resolution of 577 pixels per inch.

The new S6 and S6 Edge will be available in the market from 10 April in 16 countries.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com