Samsung’s Galaxy S6 is thin and powerful — it needs to be to beat the iPhone

Samsung’s much anticipated rival to the iPhone 6 has state-of-the-art capabilities — at a price.

FILE- This Feb. 23, 2015, file photo shows Samsung' Galaxy S6 Edge at a special media preview in New York. Orders for Samsung’s Galaxy S 6 phones start Saturday, March 28, 2015, with delivery around April 10. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

Samsung’s ly anticipated Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge premium smartphones will go on sale locally from April 10, but you’ll basically pay four-figure amounts to own one unless you buy from a parallel importer.

Samsung today released pricing and availability for the two models. You’ll officially pay $999, $1149 and $1299 outright for the S6 with 32, 64 and 128 gigabytes of internal storage. The Galaxy S6 Edge, with curved glass on the left and right-hand sides, will cost $1149, $1299 and $1499 for the same three storage configurations.

Samsung has ditched plastic casing for its premium handsets in favour of glass surfaces back and front, and strips of aluminium alloy on the sides. The new phones are incredibly thin. But this has led to features present on premium handsets being dropped.

You can no longer extend storage with a microSD card; there’s no slot for it. So the only way to augment internal storage is through the cloud. Unlike the previous S5, the S6 and S6 Edge don’t offer any waterproofing.

You also cannot swap the battery as before — it’s fixed. Samsung’s compensation is to offer fast charging with a claim of around four hours of usage from 10 minutes of charging, using the especially provided plug. Wireless charging also is available.

The radical change, in part, may have been spurred on by a resurgence in popularity for the iPhone, now with a larger screen size. Apple sold 74.8 million units in the December quarter, its best quarter ever. It is the world’s biggest seller of smartphones, according to research firm Gartner.

Samsung is also up against the newly minted HTC One M9, which went on sale in Australia last week for $1099, along with a spate of cheap Chinese brands that offer premium features at cheaper prices. LG and Sony are yet to refresh their premium models here with 2015 handsets.

Australians generally are paying more for premium phone models due to the decline in the dollar.

Australian telcos too will sell the phone on contract and outright.

Optus said customers who pre-ordered the 32GB Samsung Galaxy S6 on an $80 My Plan Plus or the 32GB Galaxy S6 Edge on the same plan with $5 monthly handset repayments would get 6GB of data each month for use within Australia.

Virgin Mobile said the Galaxy S6 would be available from $59 per month and Galaxy S6 Edge from $64 per month on data rollover plans.

Telstra said the S6 with 32GB would cost $95 per month on a $95 Mobile Accelerate Plan which included 6GB of data. The 32GB Edge would cost $99 on the same plan with a $4 per month handset payment. Offers included a 6-month free Foxtel Presto subscription.

Parallel importers have been quick to post cheaper prices. Yatango — previously Mobicity — is offering the S6 for $849.95, $949.95 and $1199.95 and the S6 Edge for $999.95, $1099.95 and $1199.95 for 32, 64 and 128GB of storage. Kogan is selling 32GB models of the S6 and S6 Edge for $869 and $999.

Samsung Australia says that while parallel imported handsets are still good products, they haven’t been optimised for use in Australia. A spokesman said the company here had worked closely with local telcos to optimise connectivity and data transfer speeds.

Both the S6 and S6 Edge feature an 8-core processor with 4 cores operating at 2.1 Gigahertz and the other four at a more energy saving 1.5GHz. The new processor brings 64-bit computing to the S6 and both models have 3GB of internal memory.

The piece de resistance is a 5.1-inch quad HD screen with 577 pixels per inch resolution. Other manufacturers have avoided power thirsty high resolution Quad HD screens because they can reduce battery life. Rivals such as HTC and Sony have instead opted for 1080p HD displays. Samsung however is undeterred and says its new processor is highly energy efficient.

The S6 and S6 Edge also feature 16-megapixel and 5-megapixel back and front-facing cameras, automatic HDR settings on both the front and back camera, optical image stabilisation, a Pro mode that tweaks individual camera settings and selective focus for emphasising an object in the foreground by blurring what’s behind it.

The back-facing camera also shoots 4K video.

There’s fingerprint recognition, a heart-rate monitor sensor on the rear that you activate with your finger, an IR blaster for using the phone as a remote control, provisioning for Samsung payments as well as Google payments, and Samsung’s new Milk music streaming service.