Two new flagship Android phones, most likely the biggest sellers of the year, launched on the same day in Barcelona, it can only mean one thing – a versus article - Samsung Galaxy S6 or Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge versus HTC One (M9). Some will have already made up their mind which one they want, but if you're dithering or just want some ammunition for the 'which is best' argument, then look no further.
For the purposes of this article we'll be looking at both the exciting-looking S6 Edge with its fancy curved screen, and the regular S6 for those who don't want to pay the extra or who simply think that screen looks a little vulnerable to getting broken. The two phones are largely identical apart from the screen.
We've had our hands on both handsets at pre-MWC briefing, so we've got a good idea of what we like about both, and we'll break down all the specifications here too. However, we haven't yet had a chance to test the handsets in our labs, so our final verdict is still a few weeks off.
DESIGN, SIZE AND WEIGHT
Materials: Samsung has finally moved away from using plastic for its Galaxy handsets, for better and worse. On the plus side the Galaxy S6 is the best-looking, best-feeling S-series handset yet. The handset has a metal core, with a metal bezel, metal edges, and with the rear looking to have a glass or crystal layer fused onto the chassis below. This gives it a slightly translucent feel, almost a jewel-like effect. Samsung have been a little vague on how this is achieved, but it's certainly impressive in the flesh. It comes in four different colours, most of which have a metallic-tinge to match the silver edges.
The S6 Edge takes this one step further with its front panel curving gently away at the sides to meet the metal edges. Whatever you may think of the curved display's practical value, as a piece of engineering it's hugely impressive. It comes in a different range of four colours, with more grown-up, muted tones.
At first glance the HTC One M9 appears largely similar to its predecessor, the HTC One M8. However, that's no bad thing given it was the best-looking Android handset of last year by quite a large margin, with its full-body metal chassis. There have been some notable changes though, slightly more angular around the edges, with a distinct lip, makes the new handset much easier to keep hold of. HTC has gone with a two-tone colour scheme, with Grey, silver and gold in varying attractive combinations.
Coming down to the raw numbers the Galaxy S6 measures 143x71x6.8mm with the Edge being marginally smaller at 142x70x7mm, with weights of 138g and 132g respectively. The HTC one M9 is a little thicker than both at 145x70x9.6mm and weighing 157g.
In short Samsung has caught up with HTC in the design stakes and its really down to personal preference as to which handset you prefer. We're edging (excuse the pun) towards the Galaxy S6, though that may partly be due to the freshness of the design. The Edge version is certainly a looker, though some might consider it a case of form over function. The Galaxy models are slimmer and slightly lighter too, which reinforces our feelings.
SCREEN
Screen size: The HTC One M9 has a 5in display, while both of the Galaxy S6 models use 5.1in screens. It's hard to notice the tiniest fraction of an inch in use, though it's worth pointing out that the Edge variant is using part of its screen area for those curved sections. As these are usually used for additional widgets, rather than when web browsing or watching a film, the actual screen size is slightly reduced for some common activities.
Resolution: Both the Galaxy S6 models have huge 2,560x1,440 resolutions, which in theory (see below) equates to a pin-sharp 577 pixels per inch. The HTC One M9 has a lesser 1,920x1,080 resolution, which is a more than adequate 441 pixels per inch. We doubt you'll make out the pixels in either screen in practice
Screen technology: The reason those resolution figures don't tell the full story is that the S6 handsets and the M9 use very different screen technologies. Both S6 phones uses AMOLED displays, which have excellent contrast and really deep blacks, as each pixel illuminates individually rather than using a backlight. On the downside, Samsung doesn't end to use a full RGB (red-green-blue) pixel structure for every quoted pixel in the spec, instead using a more complex arrangement of coloured sub-pixels. This means that the display may not be as sharp as its resolution might suggest.
The HTC One M9 uses a more-typical LCD. Contrast isn't as good as with an AMOLED but they are generally brighter at the maximum setting and each pixel does have a full array of RGB subpixels.
In practice, an AMOLED with good colour balance, and the Samsung's looks to be spot on based on early opinions, will outperform an LCD screen. The additional resolution of the S6's display should help to compensate for the reduced number of subpixels, and so our early impression is that the S6 will come out on top here.
PERFORMANCE
Processor and Graphics: Unlike last year's Galaxy S5, this year we're getting the Samsung-powered Exynos version in the UK, rather than a Qualcomm SnapDragon-powered variant. HTC has stuck by Qualcomm however. Despite the apparent difference, the two chipsets are actually remarkably similar, with both chipsets using eight-core setups, with ARM big.LITTLE architectures based around four Cortex-A53 cores for power efficiency and four Cortex-A57 cores for the heavy lifting.
The Samsung Exynos 7420's cores run at 1.5GHz and 2.1GHz respectively, while the HTC One M9's Qualcomm SnapDragon 810 runs at 1.5GHz and 2.0GHz. The small clock speed difference aside, the real difference will probably lie in comparing the S6's Mali-T760 graphics with the HTC's Adreno 430. We've seen some early benchmark scores but we're not yet convinced anyone can call it either way.
Memory: Both handsets include a whopping 3GB of RAM, which should be plenty, Android has got more memory efficient if anything and with a rise from 2GB in last year's models we can't see any problems here.
Storage: A big switch here, for years the Galaxy phones had micro SD card slots, while HTC's largely didn't. Last year HTC introduced a card slot on the M8, while this year Samsung has gotten rid of its card slot on the S6. The result being that the HTC One M9 will be far more attractive to those who want a lot of storage, probably for music or video, while the S6 and S6 Edge will rely on expensive internal memory upgrades. The HTC One M9 comes with 32GB of storage, while the S6 models have 32, 64 and 128GB options.
Battery: We were surprised to discover that the S6 uses a smaller 2,600mAh battery, 200mAh less than last year's model. Furthermore it's not replaceable as before. On the upside though its chipset uses a 14nm process, that should make it more power efficient than before. Now most of a phone's power usage comes from it screen, but we still expect the S6 to last as long as the excellent S5 when we battery test it. Again it should benefit from its power efficient AMOLED display when it goes head-to-head with the M9.
Again we have a switch, with the HTC One M9 increasing its battery size up to 2,840mAh battery, a little bigger than last year's S5 battery. However its chipsets 20nm process and LCD screen should more than level the difference.
It's silly to call it before we've done our testing, but we think the S6 may just win out here, despite having a smaller battery on paper.
CAMERA
After last year's experiment with a 4-megapixel Ultrapixel camera, HTC has gone the other way for the M9. It's got a huge 20-megapixel resolution and a bright f/2.0 lens. The front camera uses that 4-megapixel Ultrapixel sensor, which should be ideal for video and selfies in challenging light conditions.
The Galaxy S6, in both its iterations, uses a 16-megapixel sensor, but has a slightly-brighter f/1.9 aperture lens. More importantly it also includes optical image stabilisation, which should help considerably in low light, by reducing camera shake at slow shutter speeds, though it's not much help with fast moving subjects.
SOFTWARE
Both the HTC One M9 and Galaxy S6 will ship with Android 5.0 Lollipop. Despite this, they will look, and in some cases work, radically differently thanks to the overhauls that the manufacturers make to Android. HTC will release Sense 7 on the HTC One M9, which includes greater customisation of appearance than ever before, with icons and colour schemes able to automatically adjust (if you want) to work with your chosen wallpaper. It will also include a system that automatically promotes app shortcuts to your main homescreen based on where you are and what apps you usually use there.
Samsung has a new version of its TouchWiz interface too. It claims to have reduced that amount of widget clutter and pre-installed apps by 40%, which is a relief as previous phones were stacked with stuff we never used. One thing that has been added are Microsoft apps, with Samsung having cut some kind of new deal with the company – maybe it doesn't like how beholden it's to Google for its OS. The Edge has some extra features of course, with information and contact shortcuts appearing in the curved sides of the screen.
PRICE and VERDICT
We don’t have official pricing yet, but we'd expect the M9 and S6 to cost roughly the same on contract when they're released, with the S6 Edge no doubt attracting a premium. We'd estimate £35 a month on a reasonable contract for either handset, with £40 a month for the S6 Edge, but it could be a little more. We doubt any price differences will be big enough to persuade you to buy one over the other if your heart is set.
Adding up everything we've gleaned so far, from the specifications and our own hands-on opinions, we think the Galaxy S6, or the S6 Edge if you prefer, has the advantage over the HTC One M9. It's a close thing and the HTC might pull back some ground in final testing but right now we're confident about which one we'd rather have in our pocket, and it's the Galaxy.