Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ vs iPhone 6 Plus

Big-screen phones are definitely something that people want, with the two heavyweight models this year the iPhone 6 Plus and the recently announced Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+. I’ve been lucky enough to go hands-on with the new Samsung phone, so I can bring you this specs comparison between the two handsets. Rest assured, once the review sample for the Edge+ is available this article will be updated with full benchmarks and true side-by-side comparisons. Before we start, both handsets are very large. If you’re looking for a smaller handset, our iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S6 article will be of more interest.

Design

Dimensions: Although the S6 Edge+ has a larger 5.7in screen than the 5.5in iPhone 6 Plus, it’s actually the smaller of the two devices. The S6 Edge+ measures 154x75x6.9mm and weighs 153g while the iPhone 6 Plus measures 158x78x7.1mm and weighs 132g. In actual use, both handsets are so close in size as to make no practical difference: if you get on with one, you’ll get on with the other.

Materials: Both phones are extremely well made, with Samsung upping its game this year and using premium materials. Apple uses aluminium for its rounded and curved iPhone 6 Plus, giving it a tough and well-made feel. Samsung has used a combination of metal and glass for its handset, which looks fantastic. Samsung is promising that this model is 1.7x stronger than the S6, too.

Conclusion: It’s incredibly hard to pick a winner out of these handsets, as they’re both extremely attractive, well made and desirable handsets. I have to say that the S6 Edge+ is the phone that stands out the most thanks to its curved-edge display, but there’s really very little to tell the two handsets apart.

Display

Screen size: Samsung has the larger screen in the S6 Edge+ with a 5.7in panel, while Apple has a 5.5in screen. You get slightly less physical space on Apple’s phone then, but there’s not as much in at as you may think. This is because the Edge+’s screen has two curved edges, so the central part of the display, which you look at the most, is very similar in size to Apple’s.

Resolution: The iPhone 6 Plus is Apple’s highest-resolution screen with 1,920x1,080 pixels, but this lags behind the Quad HD screen of the Galaxy S6 Edge+, which has a resolution of 2,560x1,440. While the iPhone 6 Plus has a sharp and clear screen, the S6 Edge+ is even sharper thanks to its higher pixel density of 518ppi, versus 401ppi on the iPhone.

Screen technology and quality: Apple uses an LED-backlit IPS LCD screen in its phone, which is one of the best that we’ve seen. When I tested it using our colour calibrator, the iPhone managed 90.5% of the sRGB colour gamut. I’ve not yet been able to test the Super AMOLED screen in the S6 Edge+, but given that the S6 can display 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, I’m expecting the same thing here.

Conclusion: There’s nothing wrong with the screen in the iPhone 6 Plus, but there’s not getting away from the fact that Samsung’s Super AMOLED displays are superior.

Performance

Processor and graphics: Samsung has manufactured its own CPU this year, with the S6 Edge+ using the same octa-core Exynos 7420 chips as the rest of the S6 line-up. This has one quad-core 2.1GHz CPU, which is there for when the phone needs full power, and a 1.5GHz quad-core CPU for low-power tasks, which helps save battery life. This phone has 4GB of RAM.

Apple has used it dual-core 1.4GHz A8 chip in the iPhone 6 Plus, and it has only 1GB of RAM. On paper, you’d have to say that Samsung is the winner, but the story is more complicated than that, as it’s efficiency not specs that really matter, as our benchmarks show.

Benchmarks: I haven’t been able to test the S6 Edge+, but given that it has the same chip as the Galaxy S6, it should have the same performance as that phone. That should mean that the S6 Edge+ and iPhone 6 Plus are very similar in performance.

When we ran the single-core Geekbench 3 benchmark on the S6 it scored 1,427, compared to the iPhone 6 Plus’ score of 1,625. Running the multi-core benchmark flipped things around, with the iPhone 6 Plus scoring 2,913, compared to the S6’s score of 4,501. If an app can truly use all of phone’s CPU cores the S6 Edge+ should be faster than the iPhone.

Graphics performance was very similar from both phones, with the iPhone 6 Plus managing 1,212 frames in the GFX Bench Manhattan offscreen test, compared to the Galaxy S6’s score of 1,429 frames. In practice, the iPhone 6 Plus is super-slick thanks to the great operating system and doesn’t struggle to run any application. Android on the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ is not quite as slick, although the phone can handle everything you throw at it.

Battery: This is one area that I can’t really guess at. While the iPhone 6 lasted 12h 58m in our video playback test, I haven’t been able to test the Galaxy S6 Edge+. I’m expecting the new phone to last at least as long as the S6 (13h 37m), but I can’t say anything for definite until I can properly test it.

Conclusion: This isn’t an easy one to score. Technically the S6 Edge+ is faster, but the slicker and better-optimised iOS operating system on the iPhone 6 Plus means that there’s little difference from a user’s point of view. Both handsets are extremely fast and will handle any app.

Storage

You can’t expand the storage of either handset, so you’re stuck with the amount you buy. For the iPhone 6 there’s a choice of 16GB, 64GB or 128GB, while the S6 Edge+ comes in 32GB and 64GB versions.

Conclusion: There’s nothing really to tell the phones apart here, although it’s a shame that there’s no 128GB option for Samsung. As it stands, for most people 64GB is probably about the right amount, while light users would be better with 32GB; the 16GB entry-level iPhone 6 Plus doesn’t really have enough storage.

Camera

The iPhone 6 Plus has an 8-megapixel sensor and takes some of the best shots we’ve seen, with photos well-exposed and refreshingly free of noise. I have not yet been able to take any sample shots with the S6 Edge+, but it has a new 16-megapixel sensor.

Conclusion: Experience says that its shots should have more detail, but exposure and noise should be similar for both.

Operating system

Apple ships the iPhone 6 Plus with iOS 8.4, which is its best OS yet. It’s incredibly slick, has loads of high-quality apps and it integrates brilliantly with your other Apple devices. Samsung has used Android 5.1 (Lollipop) for the S6 Edge+. It’s reduced the amount of clutter that it used to install, for a cleaner experience. Even so, Android isn’t quite as slick or as smooth as iOS and its app store doesn’t have quite the range of quality, although it’s a close-run thing.

Conclusion: Both operating systems are extremely mature and well-featured, and the choice is likely to come down to personal choice as much as anything.

Price

Samsung has not yet announced the price for its phone, so I can’t make any meaningful comparisons at the moment, safe to say that both handsets will likely cost a similar amount on contract.

Specs