Samsung have been in a bit of a problematic state lately, as the company has been seeing their profits declining and the overall interest in their phones dying down. They used to be one of the most prominent players on the mobile market – and they still are, but that might soon change if they don’t reverse the negative trends in their operations right now.
The latest move by the company has been to announce the Galaxy S6 edge+ and the Galaxy Note5, a new pair of smartphones that seem to be aimed at stealing fans away from Apple, arguably the biggest competitor for Samsung right now. But after the somewhat mediocre response to the original Galaxy S6, is an “edge” version of the device going to save the company?
Some critics have actually been very positive towards the device, claiming that it has a lot of potential and could have some real merit on the market if Samsung do it right. They’re already taking in preorders for both phones, although availability is still some time away. The US will see both phones released on August 21, while the rest of the world will have to wait a little longer.
Beneath the shiny – and now edged – screen of the Galaxy S6 edge+, users are going to find an 8-core processor and 4 GB of RAM, making this a very impressive smartphone on the Android market. Few devices come close to these specifications right now, and users who want the ultimate multimedia experience should definitely give the new Galaxy a try once it’s out. The screen itself is 5.7 inches big and runs at a Quad HD resolution.
Besides this, the main new attraction in the S6 edge+ is the addition if the titular edge display, which allows users to have some of their most frequently used shortcuts available along the edge of the screen for quick access. This includes links to apps, contacts and various other content that the user accesses frequently.
However, some have noted that the edge design still doesn’t shine with anything particularly exciting. In the end, it’s just a new column for shortcuts and that’s about it. There is still no interesting content to place along the edge of the phone that would make this a true “killer feature”, and some critics have been downright disappointed by the fact that the new phone didn’t bring any improvements to the edge design, other than a minor one.
The improvement in question is the ability to use the edge on both sides of the screen, which should add a little extra comfort for users who prefer to hold their phone in a non-standard way, but it’s still just a gimmick more than anything else. The general opinion among critics is that the edge is certainly a nice feature, but nothing that would make it worth buying this phone specifically over any other model with similar specifications and app availability. Which, as we said above, isn’t actually a very large pool of choices, admittedly – but the point still stands.
On the back, there’s a 16-megapixel camera, and a 5-megapixel one on the front. This is the same configuration as in the Note5 and we expect the picture quality to be acceptable, much like in the previous phones by the company, but at the same time it probably won’t be anything spectacular either. It remains to be seen once the phone comes out, but cameras have never been a main selling feature for Samsung’s phones in general.