HandsOn:Samsung Galaxy S6 Camera,battery and verdict Review

Samsung Galaxy S6 Camera ,Battery and Verdict Review

The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S6 is a 16MP affair with f1.9 aperture, up 34% in terms of low light ability from the S5.


It's still got all the tricks of the Samsung Galaxy S5, including Auto HDR mode and optical image stabilisation, as well as an automatic tracking mode which can follow faces, pets and other moving objects without needing to refocus.

The front sensor is also improved, up to 5MP with the same impressive low-light performance and faster shutter speed. It also packs the same automatic HDR mode, which will show you just how much the high dynamic range will improve your pictures.

Of course, if you're taking selfies, then this is going to be the sort of thing you worry about... or you could just, you know, not.

And in another moment of 'isn't that what another brand is doing?' Samsung has chucked on fast and slow motion to the video app, so you can do cool timelapse shots or slow things down to 240fps to get a really smooth slo-mo movie.

The extra trick is here is the ability of the Galaxy S6 to choose the speed with which the slowdown happens, meaning you can go really, really slow if you want to properly show your mate getting hit in the nuts with a hamburger in minute detail.

Battery

OK, this is the big one, the sticking point that could prevent Samsung from making an industry-leading phone. But let's get the positives on the table first.

The Galaxy S6 has a custom processor, which means it'll be more efficient at processing and won't need to do a lot of pointless work to complete whatever you're asking the phone to do. That same chipset is also smaller, which adds to the efficiency.

Samsung's being very upfront on how much battery life is left too, with an app letting you know how long you could get if you enable power saving or ultra power saving modes, so you'll at least be in control of what's there.

However, let's get down to it. The battery in the Galaxy S6 is 2550mAh, which is less than the 2800mAh option on last year's phone. That's also smaller than the one found on HTC's One M9 this year, which is something of a worry.

HTC has always, historically, had the worst battery life of the top smartphone vendors, so if it can combine good efficiency from the Snapdragon 810 chipset with a lower-res screen, it could well leapfrog Samsung this year.

Also there's that QHD screen to think about – all those pixels in such a tight space is going to take its toll on the battery life, and the packaging of the phone overall is such that it's going to get pretty toasty in there.

Samsung thinks it's got the problem covered, with better battery life than ever – plus it's stuck double wireless charging in there too. The Galaxy S6 will be able to wirelessly grab power from either of the standards (Qi or PMA) without having to mess around with an accessory if you've wandered into a coffee house with the 'wrong' technology built in.

Verdict

This is the best phone Samsung as ever made, which isn't a very difficult thing to say given the efforts in the last two years. But it's managed to make a huge leap forward, offering something that's the equal of the best in the market and set a very high bar to reach.

It's still got a couple of niggles: I'd have loved to see a completely redefined TouchWiz, and I'm not convinced the battery life is going to be stellar.

But this phone is simplicity redefined for the South Korean brand. No betting on stupid hand waving gimmicks, no skimping on design to just make it waterproof… this is a premium phone as it should be. Samsung is back.