Gadgetory

what's up guys lon here from Android authority and the galaxy s6 was one of the most radical changes to the Galaxy S line for Samsung and with the galaxy s7 right around the corner we thought it'd be a good time to take a look back how has Samsung's flagship aged and what has changed since this released early last year let's find out with the Samsung Galaxy s6 now so the Galaxy s6 was a pretty big design shift for Samsung last year after many years of using plastic Samsung finally gave users what they wanted with a more premium feeling metal and glass build and unlike these plastic made Galaxy S is of yesteryears the design of the galaxy s6 actually holds up over time not only because it's made of glass and metal but despite the many competing flagships that came out through the remainder of the year the Galaxy s6 is still one of the best-looking phones on the market if you forked up the extra hundred dollars for the edge version which is personally the one I prefer you got a phone that was quite unique looking with the curved glass that spilled over on the sides yes a lot of people thought it looked a little iPhone II but you can't argue that this wasn't a better design phone compared to years past and even with the drastic changes it was still easily recognisable as the Samsung phone through and through this new design change did make a lot of people happy but like many other samsung devices it didn't come without its criticisms features that were essentially staple features to samsung phones like expandable storage and removal batteries weren't available in the galaxy s6 and this caused quite an uproar among users who took advantage of these features obviously to this day the story is pretty much the same and if you want the most amount of storage possible you'll have to opt for the 128 gigabyte version with the lack of a removable battery users had to resort to either fast charging or wireless charging which are both really awesome features but it's not so awesome when you have to do it multiple times a day battery life on the s6 wasn't that great when the phone was initially released and it still unfortunately isn't this could potentially improve when the marshmallow update arrives but currently if you want an s6 that has good battery life the active is your only choice if you're on AT&T that is speaking of updates the Galaxy s6 has received quite a few updates including an update to the latest version of lollipop there's no official marshmallow update in sight as a but with the beta version of marshmallow floating around out there hopefully we're going to be seeing the update much sooner rather than later but at this point it's looking pretty bleak on if we'll get it before the s7 launches the apps edge feature that was initially exclusive to the s6 edge+ made its way over to the regular s6 edge which out of all the edge features the apps edge is probably the most useful whereas the rest of the edge features are somewhat gimmicky or just cumbersome to use despite the improvements Samsung has made to TouchWiz it's still not my favorite in terms of aesthetics but the best part about TouchWiz now is the theme store and when you combine the material theme with a third-party launcher you can make it feel a lot more like stock Android which makes the whole experience feel a lot more bearable the display is just as gorgeous as it's ever been and it's another example of how well this phone has held up despite always being one of the earlier flagships in the year the 5.1 inch quad HD Super AMOLED panel is still one of the best smartphone displays on the market and everything from YouTube movies and games looks just as good as it did when the phone first came out as far as performance goes the Exynos 7420 is a beast of a processor and everything still feels really snappy and responsive in my experience apps and games load and run smoothly as they always have but the aggressive RAM management is still there which is unfortunate and the fingerprint scanner doesn't feel quite as fast as before it's a very accurate and reliable fingerprint scanner but compared to many other more recent smartphones on the market with a fingerprint scanner the Galaxy s6 is now feels a step behind one of the best features of the galaxy s6 is of course the camera the 16 megapixel camera takes amazing photos and it's easily one of the best smartphone cameras on the market and that says a lot about this camera considering 2015 was essentially a year where almost every manufacturer delivered a smartphone with a good camera it's a pleasure to use the software is clean and intuitive and Samsung makes it very convenient to get to it with the DoubleTap of the home button I forgot how useful this feature was until I started using the s6 again and it no Nexus phones have something very similar but more phones need to have a dedicated Hardware camera shortcut because it makes getting to the camera that much easier and faster over other alternatives like on-screen software shortcuts but that's going to wrap it up for this quick revisit of the samsung galaxy s6 if you're a current galaxy s6 owner let us know down in the comments below how well your s6 is treating you also if you're excited about the galaxy s7 let us know down below as well and keep it tuned here to Android authority because the s7 is right around the corner and we'll be bringing you a ton of coverage on Samsung's latest flagship so subscribe down below if you don't want to miss out on that and as always check the website as well for more in-depth coverage because we are your source for all things Android