Samsung ditches plastic to answer iPhone with new Galaxy S6

SAMSUNG has unveiled a new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, with its own mobile payment service and a variant with a curved screen.

SAMSUNG has ditched the signature plastic body that defined the first five models of its highly successful Galaxy range in favour of a glass and metal smartphone.

At a packed media event at Barcelona’s International Convention Centre, Samsung announced its 6th generation Galaxy smartphone, S6, and a variant with a curved screen along its edges — Galaxy S6 Edge.

It also announced a new Gear VR virtual reality viewer compatible with the S6 and S6 Edge.

A widely predicted new Samsung smart watch did not eventuate.

The S6 is a big departure from previous models with a glass and metal construct not unlike Apple’s iPhone 6.

That, in turn, has seen other changes. The new phones are no longer waterproof or dust resistant, the battery is fixed and not removable, and there is no slot for a microSD card.

Addressing the Galaxy Unpacked 2015 event, Samsung CEO and president JK Shin said the S6 had the best design, processor, cameras and security of any smartphone on the market.

Samsung also announced it would roll out its new Samsung payments wallet in the US and South Korea. There was no indication of an Australian release date. Visa and MasterCard were aboard and banks were joining Samsung payments too.

“I am very proud of this company and the team behind it. I believe Samsung has an important role to play in advancing technology in our daily lives,” Mr Shin said.

Samsung chief JK Shin presents the new Samsung Galaxy S6 in Barcelona.

The S6 and S6 Edge have an 8-core processor and a Quad HD display with Gorilla Glass 4 for extra strength. Both have 5.2-inch Quad HD super AMOLED with 576 pixels per inch resolution.

The screen of the S6 Edge now wraps around both sides of the display.

Samsung said it had undertaken a major software revamp that offered a more logical structure of system menus. The depth of system menus had been reduced and lag and stuttering reported in earlier versions of Samsung’s Touchwiz was gone.

Menus also were colour-coded: green for phone calls, purple for video and orange for contacts. Contacts too could be colour-coded — the chosen colour glows whenever that contact calls. Users can touch a fingerprint sensor on the back to issue a predefined reply.

The S6 and S6 Edge is based on 64-bit architecture with 14 nanometre chips. It was 20 per cent faster and 25 per cent more efficient than the chip set in the Galaxy S4, Samsung said.

New universal flash technology combined solid state drive and eMMC memory to create a single storage unit.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, left, and Samsung Galaxy S6.

Samsung also announced a new Gear VR virtual reality viewer that is compatible with both new phones. The pixel density had been increased by 11 per cent on a new Gear VR headset.

Samsung said the S6 battery was the fastest-charging device on the market, with 10 minutes needed to charge the phone for 4 hours’ use. Charging from zero to 100 per cent took about half the time of the iPhone 6, Samsung said.

The device’s wireless charging was compatible with the two major wireless charging standard, WPC and PMA.

A new front-facing 5 megapixel camera includes a low-shot feature that combines multiple photos to create a brighter image. Samsung said it had increased the pixel size by 43 per cent to improve lowlight photography.

The rear-facing 16 megapixel camera featured optical image stabilisation. Samsung displayed examples of how it says the S6 camera outperforms the iPhone 6 Plus back-facing camera.

The S6 camera can launch in less than a second and can be activated by double clicking the home button. The camera also is capable of following a subject while keeping it in focus in a new object tracking/object focus feature.

Samsung said universal acceptance was critical for its payments system. Near Field Communication (NFC) wasn’t an option as it could only be used at 10 per cent of retailers. Samsung’s payments technology was capable of using even old payments technology such as magnetic strip readers.

In the enterprise market, Samsung would continue to offer Samsung Knox. It now integrated with leading mobile device management (MDM) systems including AirWatch, Blackberry MaS360 and Mobile Iron, Samsung said.

Both phones will go on sale in April 10 in 20 countries. Users can choose handsets with 32, 64 and 128 GB of internal memory.

* Chris Griffith travelled to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona courtesy of HTC.