Gadgetory

yesterday we unboxed the Galaxy s6 active and we've spent the last 24 hours with it in preparation for our full review and while our detailed impressions will have to wait for that review it didn't even take us a day to draw one important conclusion this might be the Samsung that finally gets active right i'm michael fisher with pocket now let's see why as we touched on yesterday this is the third time samsung's tried its hand at creating a so-called active variant of its halo galaxy s smartphone the first try in 2013 yielded the galaxy s4 active which made some sense at the time the standard s4 was made of soft glossy plastic that was prone to scratching and very vulnerable to drops so it made sense to offer a beefed-up version that brought rubber bumpers to the corners and a matte finish to the backside but while the S 4 active did include water resistance it didn't back that up with any milspec rugged ization for shock or impact attenuation and it featured a removable battery door with a now-infamous locking problem that resulted in a lot of phones getting waterlogged last year Samsung tried improving on the formula with the Galaxy s5 active a smart phone that wouldn't go on to win any awards for subtlety in its design now despite the hilarious paint job there were real improvements namely mil standard 810g rugged ization alongside the existing ingress protection but the s5 active seemed almost superfluous owing to the fact that the standard Galaxy s5 was water-resistant too and it featured a battery cover that while not pretty was also not glossy so it didn't show scratches as readily on top of that the s5 actives rugged ization turned out to be somewhat overstated both the SIM tray and the removable battery door were vulnerable to jarring loose on impacts with hard surfaces and we ruined a review device when it flooded with water after one such drop the Galaxy s6 active in our labs today features an embedded battery and a sealed back cover that's not removable at first this seemed like just as big a step backward as it initially did on the standard s6 but there are two important differences that make that not true first obviously is that this should fix the finicky gasket problem of previous active phones you think about it with no battery door to forget to lock or to jar loose on an impact there's less danger of water or dust intrusion and second the battery inside isn't the same mediocre 25 50 milliamp power pack of the standard s6 but a much larger 3500 milliamp hour battery that's already showing itself to be a better performer even at this early stage of our review process wireless charging has been brought over from the stock s6 as well and if you want a faster wired charge you don't have to deal with the flaps of yesteryear thanks to the new free flooding USB port which is probably to thank for the shift from an ip67 rating to ip68 fYI that's a minor bump to an already excellent water and dust resistance level and the dense rubberized plastic finish on the s6 active is a huge contrast to the slippery glass and metal of the non active version making it easier this year to decide which one is right for you based on lifestyle how well it holds up will depend on how much abuse you put it through and what color you get our gray model here is more black than anything else so repeated impacts with asphalt and concrete from distances of up to three feet left it with considerable scuffing don't expect this to retain any kind of beauty well what beauty it had if you're a real phone beater fortunately our drop testing thus far seems to suggest it'll keep working well even after a fall down some pretty tall stairs and washing it off afterwards is a cinch here's where I remind you though that these are by no means final conclusions because we've only had the phone for a day and in fact as this video goes to the server our SX active review unit seems to think it's on a dock even though we don't have a dock for it and don't know that one is available for it and we also don't know whether that's because of impact damage or water damage we're letting it dry out for a few hours and we'll report back on this in the full review finally there's a bit of software refinement that deserves a quick mention the dedicated active key made its debut last year but it wasn't capable of waking the phone from standby making it pretty useless for well what it was built for quick actions thankfully Samsung has done the key right this year now allowing you to jump right from a locked phone to the outdoorsman friendly activity zone or a custom app of your choosing if you long press it and there's no need to assign it to the camera as we did last year because the double click home shortcut is alive and well so what we've got so far is a ruggedized alternative to a very slippery and delicate smartphone but one which incorporates nearly all of the features of the latter and even improves on a few we'll know whether it's worth buying after devoting the time necessary for a full review but the Galaxy s6 active is already making more sense to me than any of Samsung's past active offerings keep letting us know what questions you want answered in that full review folks drop your comments below and on your way hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed this video till next time this is michael fisher with pocket down captain two phones on twitter it reminding you that unless your phone is at least as beefy as this one don't go trying those drop tests at home thanks for watching we'll see you next time you