After stepping off on the wrong foot and losing grip of the market last year, Samsung was obliged to come up with an enthralling flagship phone in 2015. The Samsung Galaxy S6 is already here and it has all the potential to help Samsung get back on track. You can't afford to disappoint when your leading position is endangered by numerous competitors.
One of these is Apple, which has gained quite the momentum with its most recent iPhone lot, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. With the former, Cupertino decided that it's high time it battled the competition in the segment that was almost entirely populated with Android phablets. How does the Galaxy S6 fare against the iPhone 6 Plus? That's what we're about to find out!
Design
In mid-2014, Samsung decided that it's high time it stepped up its design game and make use of higher-tier materials in its phones. The first device to employ such materials was the Galaxy Alpha, but the penultimate result of Samsung's design refreshment is definitely the Galaxy S6, a pretty stark departure from the plasticky roots of the Galaxy lineup, a polished and perfected vision of the company's design language.
The exterior of the Galaxy S6 boasts a metal frame with flattened side edges, complemented by a rear cover made of Gorilla Glass 4 that further adds to the premium status of the new Galaxy. This puts it in a similar league like that of the iPhone 6 Plus, a device that also boasts a hefty amount of premium in its build, though it relies more on aluminum than glass.
Both handset have pleasant in-hand feel, with no sharp edges to cause discomfort, though the sheer size of the iPhone 6 Plus makes it somewhat impractical, in comparison to the more compact Galaxy S6. The former also feels a bit slippery due to its aluminum back. In contrast, the glass rear cover of the S6 is less prone to sliding. Unfortunately, it's also way more susceptible to holding fingerprints and smudges than the iPhone 6 Plus.
Despite sharing a few common design aspects (the bottom-positioned speakers, the protruding cameras, and similar hardware button configurations), the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6 Plus stay true to their roots and are full-blown representatives of the design languages of their respective makers.
The regular Galaxy S6 flaunts a 5.1-inch, Quad HD Super AMOLED display, while its iPhone rival comes with a 5.5-inch, IPS LCD one that boasts a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels. The S6 edge exhibits an ultra-sharp pixel density of 577ppi, which makes it one of the sharpest ones around; the iPhone 6 Plus with its pixel density of 401ppi is quite pixel-dense as well.
In terms of their properties, neither will disappoint. Both are extremely accurate; yet the Galaxy S6 is more balanced when set to its Basic screen mode, as it has a better white-point color temperature (6550K) than the iPhone 6 Plus (7318K). The reference point is 6500K, which means that the display of the iPhone is slightly more blueish and colder than the one on the new Galaxy flagship.
In its Basic screen mode, the display of the Galaxy S6 is one of the more accurate, if not the most accurate ones we've seen. Our display measurements reveal that its various nuances and shades all match their desired sRGB targets closely.
The iPhone 6 Plus is trailing in this aspect: despite being pretty close to the reference points on the color chart as well, it does not represent all colors as precisely as the Super AMOLED display in the Galaxy S6, and has a slightly colder tone to it.
As far as brightness is concerned, you'd hardly have any issues with viewing them in bright daylight. The iPhone 6 Plus achieves a maximum brightness of 574 nits, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 exhibits a marginally-lower brightness output of 563 nits (in case its super-bright mode kicks in, which usually happens when the phone is directly facing the sun).
The numbers below represent the amount of deviation in the respective property, observed when a display is viewed from a 45-degree angle as opposed to direct viewing.
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x: CIE31' and 'y: CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.
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