Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Review

The Galaxy S6 Edge+ is an enlarged version of Samsung’s flagship S6 Edge smartphone and features a curved 5.7-inch display. It’s positioned to rival the iPhone 6S Plus, LG G4 and Sony Xperia Z5 Premium. Apart from its larger screen, there’s also a bigger 3000mAh battery, but otherwise the S6 Edge+ is essentially the same as a regular S6 Edge.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Features

The most notable feature of the S6 Edge+ is its 5.7-inch display, which is 0.6 inches larger than the screen on a standard S6 Edge. Resolution remains unchanged at 1440x2560 pixels and you get the same bevelled edges which extend partly over the left and right sides of the phone. Apart from the style benefit, these curves also host a few new features, like People Edge, which provides a quick-access list of favourite contacts that’s revealed by swiping the edge of the screen.

Internal hardware remains mostly unchanged from the S6 and S6 Edge as the Edge+ is powered by the same 8-core, 2.1GHz processor, though RAM has been increased from 3GB or 4GB. The Edge+ also receives a larger 3000mAh power pack, as the S6 Edge and standard Galaxy S6 use 2600mAh and 2550mAh batteries, respectively.

The camera in the Edge+ is also carried over from the standard Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, with a 16.0MP, 1/2.6-inch back-side illuminated CMOS chip paired with a 28mm-equivalent, f/1.9 lens that features optical image stabilisation. The camera can also record Ultra HD (3840x2160) videos, albeit only for 5-minute clips. Since the release of Android version 5.1.1, all Galaxy S6-series phones now have the ability to shoot DNG raw files.

In addition to raw image capture, the Edge+ camera can also shoot panoramas, burst sequences of up to 30 shots, slow and fast motion clips, and there’s a Virtual Shot mode, whereby you move the camera around an object and it takes consecutive photos to create a 3D wraparound interactive image.

Key Features

• 1/2.6” 16.0-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor
• Fixed 28mm-equivalent lens, f/1.9
• Optical image stabilisation
• 5.7-inch Super AMOLED touch-screen, 1440x2560, 515 ppi
• GPS / Wi-Fi / NFC
• Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) video recording
• HDR / panoramic shooting / 5MP front-facing camera
• Available in black, gold, silver, or white

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Handling

Like the regular Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, the Edge+ sports a unibody chassis with an aluminium bezel sandwiched between glass front and rear panels. The styling bears more than a passing resemblance to the iPhone 6S and is a distinct departure from the plastic construction of previous Galaxy S-series phones.

However, this new premium design does mean the battery is no longer user-accessible, and Samsung has copied another Apple trait and done away with a Micro SD slot, so you’re limited to the phone’s internal storage. The Edge+ is available in 32GB or 64GB capacities, but strangely there’s no 128GB model.

But while the storage capacity may be on the small side, the phone itself certainly isn’t. Where a standard 5.1-inch Galaxy S6 Edge measures 142.1 x 70.1 x 7mm, the 5.7-inch S6 Edge+ is notably larger at 154.4 x 75.8 x 6.9mm, but it manages to stay smaller than the iPhone 6S Plus, despite this having a smaller 5.5-inch display.

But don’t go thinking the Edge+ is a triumph of design packaging. The curved screen means the already wafer-thin 6.9mm thickness feels even thinner at the edges, making this one of the most uncomfortable and drop-prone phones on the market. What’s more, if you try to get a firmer grip, your palm and fingertips will partially cover the edges of screen. These also don’t display quite the same colour and contrast as the flat portion of the display.

Fortunately the screen’s eye-popping colour vibrancy and stunning 2560x1440 resolution and are extremely impressive. The latter is no higher than the normal S6 and S6 Edge, which means the Edge+ has a lower 515 ppi pixel density, though this is still incredibly high and around 30% crisper than an iPhone 6S Plus’ LCD panel.

Activating the Edge+ camera is as simple as double-pressing the home button or swiping the camera icon upward from the lock screen. The volume buttons can be customised to either function as a shutter release, video record button, or they’ll control digital zoom.

Samsung’s TouchWiz skin of the Android Lollipop operating system provides a very clear menu design that’s easy to read and navigate. The camera app follows the same theme, and by pressing an arrow in the top left of the screen you reveal options to control the flash, self-timer, HDR function and select effects filters. The remaining camera settings are also accessed from this menu bar, and include available video resolutions as well as the raw capture option.

By pressing the mode icon to in the lower left of the camera app screen, you can choose to switch from the default Auto mode to Pro mode, where you’re able to control exposure compensation, ISO sensitivity (up to ISO 800), white balance, focus distance and metering options.

Battery life - The 3000mAh battery in the Edge+ is rated for 15 hours video playback time; up from the 13-hour rating of the normal S6 Edge, while audio playback is also increased from 49 hours to 66. There’s no CIPA rating to measure how many photos the camera can capture per charge, but avoid power-hungry apps or extended periods of web surfing and the Edge+ should comfortably out-snap a conventional point-and-shoot.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Performance

The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.

Speed - We took a number of shots to test the camera's responsiveness, from switch on to first photo, shot to shot, focusing speed etc. We take a number of shots and then use the average to ensure accurate and consistent tests, making it easy to compare with other cameras.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Sample Photos

Sample Photos - The S6 Edge+ produces excellent image quality, despite its 1/2.6-inch sensor size being marginally smaller than the 1/2.3-inch sensors in typical compact cameras. Detail is well resolved in both close range subjects and distant landscapes, where many small sensor cameras are prone to smearing fine foliage detail. Colour reproduction and exposure metering are also first class and the camera produces beautifully vibrant and accurately exposed results.

We weren’t quite so impressed with the original Galaxy S6 camera’s low light performance, but the S6 Edge+ put in a slightly better performance, almost certainly due to software enhancements. Noise is now quite well controlled at the maximum ISO 800 sensor sensitivity and though smoothing is still apparent at ISO 400 and above, you’ll need to be scrutinising and 100% image size to notice. Fortunately, Auto mode rarely utilises higher sensitivities in low light thanks to the lens’ large maximum aperture and effective image stabilisation.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Lens test images

Lens Performance -  The fixed focal length, 28mm-equivalent lens produces distortion-free images, whilst corner sharpness only degrades slightly in the extreme corners of frame. Chromatic aberration is minimal and lens flare non-existent. The Edge+ will also focus as close as 5cm from your subject, which when combined with the large f/1.9 maximum aperture means you can achieve some attractive background bokeh blur.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ ISO test images

ISO Noise Performance - Both grain and colour speckling are well controlled at low sensitivity settings up to ISO400. However, there’s more noticeable grain at ISO800 and noise reduction processing smears some detail. But when viewing at 50% image size or smaller, these issues are hardly visible.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ White-balance test images

Balance Performance - Auto white balance does a good job of correcting both fluorescent and tungsten colour casts, but manually selecting the fluorescent white balance pre-set does produce an obvious magenta colour cast.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ Digital filters

Digital Filters - Eight filter effects are included with the Edge+ camera app. These are: Monogram, Delicious, Gold, Film, Vivid, Pastel, Retro, and Nostalgia.

Panorama mode - The panorama mode will let you pan left, right, up or down. Thanks to Samsung’s powerful processor, the Edge+ is capable of capturing very high-resolution panoramas of over 3000 vertical pixels when panning portrait orientation. The results are largely free of any stitching artefacts or ghosting.

Video - Whether in Full HD (1080p) or Ultra HD (2160p) resolution, video quality is excellent with high detail levels and good dynamic range. UHD Video clips are limited to five minutes to prevent overheating and control file sizes. This is important, as our 21-second Ultra HD sample consumed 123MB of storage space, making a five-minute video around 1.7GB.