There's a weird no man's land in the middle of the smart phone market.
People who are really into the latest tech seem to be more than happy to shell out a thousand bucks or more for the next generation of high end handsets. Either that, or if you're on a really big plan, your telco might upgrade you automatically.
At the other end of the price range, there are phones posing as smart phones, but they're not really smart at all, usually under powered, running on outdated software with terrible battery life and virtually no storage.
My mum has one of these. She thinks it's a rocket ship. But then, her last phone was a tin can and a piece of string.
The good news is, you can find a middle ground, if you're prepared to make a few compromises...
The first thing I noticed when I picked up the Huawei P8 Lite was how easy it is to pick up. While the spec sheet would suggest it's actually only a few grams lighter than its high-end cousin, the P8, I swear the difference is totally noticeable. This may also be due to the plastic back cover as opposed to the metal one on the P8. Yes, the P8 feels more solid, but the P8 Lite is... well... light. Initially, that was one of the few differences I could detect.
When I reviewed the P8 a few weeks back, I was impressed enough to suggest it was a serious contender to the likes of the top-end Samsung, Apple and LG phones. Likewise, the P8 Lite has many things to commend it to buyers in the sub $400 category.
Firstly, it's a really sharp looking phone. In fact, it's almost identical to the P8 with the same minimalist design; very slim with the same rear-facing camera situated flush in one corner.
That 13MP rear camera is an excellent camera for a phone in this price bracket, although the forward-facing camera is a significant step down. Not a problem for me as I have said before, the lower resolution my selfies are, the better. For everyone.
Another important bonus the P8 Lite features is storage space. Unlike the paltry 8gb of on-board storage you get with some other handsets in this price range, the P8 Lite boasts a healthy 16gb, with a slot for microSD expansion. That's good news with the latest Lollipop OS taking up a fair chunk of space all on its own, before you even start adding apps, music and videos.
Speaking of video, the display is only HD, not Full HD, but given the screen is a little smaller than what I'm used to, you really only notice the difference in a side-by-side comparison. However, that screen is indeed only 5 inches and given many phones start at 5.2 these days, I felt a little squeezed. Widgets I normally use to control music and podcasts become quite fiddly to access on a screen that size. Funny how quickly we get used to new tech; it's not so long ago a 5 inch screen was considered massive and a bit show-offy.
Given the step down in processing power, I was worried about the P8 Lite's ability to stream video and audio. Would it maintain a steady bluetooth connection? Was Chromecasting content to other devices still an option? I was pleasantly surprised to discover the connectivity in all these situations was very stable, although video files from other sources did take a while to get going sometimes.
There's no NFC function on the P8 Lite for file-sharing between devices, but I almost never use this feature anyway. I'm beginning to wonder if it's one of those things engineers thought would be a good idea at the time but never really caught on.
By now I know what you're all dying to find out; how did the P8 Lite perform playing Minion Rush? To be honest, not the best. The lower-spec screen just didn't feel as responsive to my lightning fast reflexes. The handset wasn't very sensitive to tilting controls and worst of all, the game actually glitched on the odd occasion, usually resulting in dire consequences for my minion. Either that, or I've finally reached a level of the game that's simply too difficult for me. Either way, if you've come to love playing HD games on your phone, you'll probably need to choose something with a bit more grunt.
That's really the biggest criticism I have of the P8 Lite; its basic lack of power. If you're only planning on doing one thing at a time, it's more than up to the task - multi-tasking though? Not so much.
I also stumbled across a wee issue with the P8 Lite's attention span. For some reason it was happy to run my fitness app for an hour when I was wearing it in an armband on my run, but if I left it in my bag at the gym it would give up recording my Body Attack class about 15 minutes in. No idea why. I mean, I can relate to wanting to give up and go home 15 minutes into a workout... but I usually don't.
Battery life is not really an issue, either negatively or positively. The Lite has a smaller battery than the P8, but it's not driving as much display or processing so a charge lasts about as long, generally long enough for a day's use which is pretty standard. I felt like it was slow to charge, but maybe that was just my frustration at being forced to deal with yet another handset without the option to charge wirelessly. I thought we were supposed to be living in the future!
My pet power peeve aside, the P8 Lite is an elegant-looking phone with plenty of functionality for the money. It's an option well worth considering if you can't justify the spend on the latest high-end features you might never use.
Click here for more information on the Huawei P8 Lite
PART II OF A 2 PART STORY...
We all knew his little brother of course, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. Made quite a splash when he arrived on the scene earlier in the year.
No-one had ever met a phone quite like him; all smooth lines and curved edges. Some said he was the best looking phone they'd ever seen. The others, well they were thinking it.
This was something new though. Something exciting. Something... dangerous.
Who could have guessed his brother would be bigger?
Now they're lining up to take on the Galaxy S6 Edge+ from Samsung.
Edge+ was everything his little brother was and so much more. Slim like the S6 Edge, but taller, broader. So much more screen (5.7 inches in fact) but all perfectly in proportion and wrapped sensuously around the sides the way only the Samsung family knows how to.
And he wasn't just a pretty face. Sure, he had his brother's looks but he certainly had his sister's functionality to boot. I told you about her amazing host of talents last week. Well short of making an S Pen appear from nowhere, the Edge+ could do pretty much everything the Note 5 could do, just looking so damn hot the whole time he's doing it.
It wasn't long before all the other phones were feeling pretty jealous, if not positively flat. Literally flat. Their screens were all flat while his was curvy. Curvy is always more sexy than flat. Curvy doesn't just look sexy. Curvy feels sexy.
Just like the Note 5, the camera on the Edge+ is Samsung's best yet, so easy to use, starting instantly with a double tap of the home key. The HDR setting produced some of the best low-light photography I'd ever seen from a phone.
After a few hours, the other handsets began to wonder if there was anything wrong with the Edge+ at all. Surely all that processing power and the massive screen would suck up the battery. It must only be a matter of minutes before he'd run out of steam.
But no. The Edge+ had stamina. He had no problem lasting the day and into the night, no matter how many levels of Minion Rush I subjected him to.
What's more, he was the fastest charging phone anyone had ever seen and like all those Samsung guys these days, he could charge wirelessly and still top up his battery super quick.
Suddenly I was struck by a terrible realisation... this phone was too good for me. I wasn't stylish enough to hang around with the Edge+! What's more, my fat, clumsy fingers were starting to cause trouble.
The first problems surfaced when I was watching video. Nothing wrong with the quality of the play-back or the streaming capabilities, that was all outstanding. However, because the display reached all the way to the very edge of the handset and beyond, I kept pushing the on-screen progress bar instead of the play/pause button, accidentally fast-forwarding or rewinding my video by minutes at a time.
Meanwhile the Edge+ humoured me by letting me play out my Minion Rush obsessions repeatedly, but there were many times I lost lives simply because my clumsy club-hands couldn't quite grasp the phone without oozing onto the screen, causing my minion to run in the wrong direction.
That's the problem when you have a handset that's basically all screen, you simply can't keep your hands off it. Oh, I wanted the Edge+ to be my best bud, but I had to face facts; I was holding him back.
The Edge+ deserved someone better than me. Someone worthy of a 5 megapixel selfie. Nobody wants to see an ugly mug like mine in that high a definition.
So I let him go. I gave him his freedom. He was born to run with the cool crowd. A high performance sports car of a phone like that was never meant to live in a hatch-back, Corolla world like mine.
The other phones were glad to see him go. He made them feel second best, obsolete. To be honest, the Edge+ made me feel a little obsolete myself.
If only you could upgrade humans the way you can with technology. I could trade up to some 2015 hands with more nimble fingers and a gentler touch.
Then I'd be worthy of a phone as classy as the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+.
Silly name of course. Far too long.
Click here for more information on the Samsung GS6 Edge+
PART I OF A 2 PART STORY...
I thought we were happy, the 3 of us. Me, my trust Galaxy S5 and my Gear 2 Neo smart watch. Together we were connected, you know? In sync.
We all just had so much in common; the same fitness regime, moved in the same social media circles. Played the same music. We even kept to the same schedule.
We were good together. Really good.
Then the new girl came to town and everything changed.
Now I wish I'd never met the Galaxy Note 5 from Samsung.
Oh, we all wanted to connect with her at first, she was irresistible. So slim and yet plenty of size in all the right places, if you know what I mean. (Before you really get the wrong idea, I'm talking about a massive 5.7 inch display that just won't quit... well, not before it gets to the very edge of the handset, anyway)
And the things the she could do! The hidden S Pen in the same beautiful gold finish as the phone, making handwritten notes so easy. I was saving notes as appointments, converting them into text, making lists. I didn't even need to turn her on to use the S Pen - the Note 5 was good to go the moment you popped the pen out. (That's not a euphemism. You literally pop the S Pen out)
It wasn't just notes I was taking with that S Pen either - like the Note 4 I could use the pen to highlight both text and pictures, or parts of pictures. Only now, thanks to the Note 5, I could even scroll through multiple pages from websites and paste them into my own documents and emails.
The Note 5 did everything I wanted. Clear photos in low light? Not a problem. Live broadcast video to Youtube? A cinch.
Perhaps the most alluring thing about the Note 5 was her ability to last all day long... on one charge. I'd never encountered battery life like it. In spite of her large screen and powerful processing speed, she was slow to drain yet quick to charge.
"At long last!" I thought, "Finally a phone who really understands me. Real, quick, dependable wireless charging. It's a miracle." While everybody else glazes over whenever I bring up my favourite subject, the Note 5 just said, "Sure. I'll do wireless charging. And I'll do it faster than ever before."
Just like that, I was lost. This was the phone I'd been waiting for. Oh, sure she was a bit longer than my S5, but not much wider. Besides, who wants to hide something so beautiful away in their pocket? I wanted everyone to see me with the Note 5. I wanted to show her off.
Ah, the times we had. The levels of Minion Rush we completed together. But nothing this good can last forever and sadly, all review periods must come to an end.
Like a refugee camped outside a Budapest railway station, I had to send her back where she came from. Parting wasn't sweet and there was a fair amount of sorrow.
So I returned to my S5 with my tail between my legs and everything seemed fine... at first. It wasn't until I tried to pair my Gear 2 Neo smart watch back with the S5 I realised everything had changed. Initially I thought I was imagining it - bluetooth devices don't always get along straight away; sometimes you have to switch off a few times before you can really get their attention.
No, it wasn't till I went running I realised how much my watch really wanted the Note 5 back. It simply refused to talk to my fitness app and that was that.
I have to admit, I know how it feels. Sure the Note 5 had her faults, but not many. For example, I couldn't touch her without smearing her surface with greasy fingerprints, but that might have been more my problem than hers. Yet again, Samsung had released a phone without landscape functionality on its home screen but now I'm just searching for small little niggles to ease my pain.
I miss her. I miss her real bad. Maybe with time I'll get over her. But I'll never forget those few glorious days with the Galaxy Note 5.
And neither will my watch.
Click here for more information on the Samsung Galaxy Note 5
For years now the battle has been raging. Android versus iOS. Apple versus Samsung. Galaxy versus iPhone.
At the top end of the smartphone market , there's really only been two heavyweights and they've been going at it hammer and tong for a pretty long time, virtually uncontested.
In cyber land, a long time is measured in months, not years, but Samsung and Apple really have been the double act at the head of the market for nearly a decade.
Recently LG and Sony have come close, technically speaking, but only two brands consistently have customers queuing for each new generation of their flagship handsets.
Huawei may be about to change all that...
The P8 is a very, very good phone.
I'll start with what's wrong with it, because there isn't much.
First, no wireless charging. I know I keep bleating on about this but seriously, now Samsung has proclaimed wireless charging to be the way of the future and has started building it into its phones, any competitor who opts out is kidding themselves. Hell, Nokia/Windows phones have been charging wirelessly for years.
My other pet peeve any regular readers are probably bored silly by is no landscape mode for the default home screen. I think any display over 5 inches is easier to use sideways and and when almost all the apps auto rotate, being bound to a portrait profiled home screen just seems so... iPhoney. In fact, a quick glance at Huawei's EMUI home screen and you'd be forgiven for confusing it with iOS's now very dated grid of uniform tiles.
Of course, thankfully Android offers many alternatives and even Huawei asks you if you'd prefer to use Google Launcher right from your first use.
(I use Nova Launcher by the way, no problems getting that to auto-rotate)
Another feature which various manufacturers seem to move towards and then mysteriously away from is dust and water resistance. Sadly, there's no indication the P8 would survive much of a dunking, although it is sealed up pretty tight. Unlike some handsets, there's no removable back to acess the battery, although there are slots for both sim and microSD cards on the side, meaning there's not much incentive to splash out on the 32gb model when you can expand the 16gb version with a microSD up to 128gb.
One more little niggle, then I'll get onto the good stuff. The P8's navigation buttons are on screen, like an LG, not physically on the phone like a Samsung. This isn't too annoying, as they disappear when you're watching video (a swipe will bring them back) but I'd like them to disappear when using other apps as well, or at least have that option. On the plus side, you can change the order they appear in.
Now... Let me tell you how good this phone really is.
Let's start by talking battery life. I've read other reviews suggesting the P8 only demonstrated mediocre charge life but I've found the opposite to be true. This could be due in part to the built-in battery saver function which prompts you to turn off apps that are running in the background, consuming power. I know you can download similar apps to perform the same function, but the P8's stock app seems to do a pretty effective job.
This handset looks and feels amazing, by the way. The lines are minimalist and smooth, it's very slim and the display stretches almost to the very edge of the phone. Unlike almost every other device, the camera lens and flash are completely flush with the back, tucked subtly in the top left corner.
The camera performs well - in fact, critics have accused it of performing TOO well, bizarrely claiming some photos look too colourful! As for nighttime shooting, initially I did struggle to capture a pic that wasn't overexposed, but then I simply turned off the flash and clicked on the little light bulb symbol instead. This lit up my subjects the whole time I took the photo and provided a much better image, a really effective function I've never come across before.
As for performance, apparently there's all sorts of twin octa-core processing going on I can't begin to understand, but the upshot is, everything worked extremely smoothly, just as you'd expect from a modern, high-end phone. My browsing experience was effortless and the stock email and messaging apps did the job without any fuss.
One feature that really excited me was the default Huawei Swype keyboard. Usually I find the limited functionality of most stock keyboards so frustrating, it's not long before I resort back to my preferred option, SwiftKey. The P8's Huawei Swype keyboard has me hooked though, apart from the tiny space bar it's almost perfect, especially the long list of suggested words at the top instead of just the 3 options I get with SwiftKey.
The P8's connectivity also impressed me, once again prompting me with the battery saving option to turn off the WiFi when out of range of a known network. Again, while I can download an app to do this, with the P8, it's built in.
All in all, I found the P8 to be a great phone, matching top-of-the-range handsets from other manufacturers in most areas and even outperforming them in some.
It looks sexy and best of all, it's at least $200 cheaper than its big-name rivals.
Click here for more details on the Huawei P8
Okay, I know I'm supposed to be faffing with phones, not printers, but I've stumbled across something pretty significant when it comes to the home printing market.
The ink situation with home printers is out of control. Anyone who has ever thought it was a good idea to produce their own Christmas cards will be familiar with the panic I have experienced when you get halfway through printing them out, only to have to replace a cartridge because you're out of cyan. Whatever that is.
Of course, you don't have a replacement cartridge because you only changed it last week when you were trying to run off that personalised calendar featuring photos of your holiday. In fact, for some reason that used up TWO cartridges... and it was only 12 pages long.
These stupid things aren't cheap either. In fact, due to loss-leading specials and other cash-back offers, in many cases it's actually become cheaper to replace the whole printer than one of the cartridges.
Not only does that seem to defy the laws of economics, but throwing out an entire printer once a month can't be great for the environment - or the capacity of your wheelie bin for that matter.
There has to be another way, and it turns out Epson is leading it...
As satisfying as it may be to hurl your existing printer out of a 2nd storey window next time a cartridge runs out mid-calendar, if what Epson claims it's latest range of EcoTank printers can do is true, your empty cartridge outrage may be at an end.
As the name implies, the key to the EcoTank is the little compartment you can see to the right of the L565 pictured above. It contains 4 separate tanks which feed the print head directly. Basically, that means you can bung a lot more ink in your printer.
In fact, Epson says you get 2 years worth straight out of the box. Yes, you read that right; not 2 weeks or 2 months, but 2 YEARS.
I decided to put this outrageous suggestion to the ultimate test; the dreaded SCHOOL SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT - but we'll come to that shortly.
First, there IS a little bit of setting up to do with these printers, but it's not as scary as you might think.
I won't go into the usual driver installation and Wi-Fi connection because that was all fairly straight-forward and went pretty much according to plan. It's probably worth noting though, all 3 of Epson's EcoTank printers, the L365, the L455 and the L565 are Wi-Fi capable and I had no problem connecting to a variety of devices, including iPads, Android phones and Windows PCs.
At first glance, having to fill the 4 tanks manually does seem a little daunting - like superglue, printer ink has always had an unnerving ability to find its way into places and onto surfaces you never expected or wanted it to go.
Epson has certainly done its best to make the process as foolproof as possible. The bottles containing the ink have nozzles specifically designed to rest at the top of their tanks so you can fill to the brim without accidentally dipping into anything you shouldn't. Then everything's sealed up with rubber stoppers and safely tucked away. For 2 years.
Make no mistake; You WILL end up with ink on your fingers. I consider myself reasonably tech savvy. I'm not afraid of opening things up, taking them apart and putting them back together again. But no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn't empty the contents of the supplied ink bottles into their respective reservoirs without spilling some on my digits.
Oh, I got better at it as I went along and like most operations of this nature, it's a confidence thing. I started with the black ink and because I was a bit nervous about squirting indelible darkness all over myself and the printer, that's almost exactly what happened. My advice to anyone else carrying out this procedure is to have a tissue/cloth handy, to tip the bottle up and into the tank quickly and even more importantly, remove it and set it right-side-up just as quickly. Any hesitation, and you'll end up with black, yellow, red and blue fingertips like I did. Surgical gloves may be the answer... or maybe you just need to be slightly less of a klutz than me.
The printer then runs an automated priming process which mysteriously takes up to 20 minutes. For me it was less and apparently that's only when you first take the printer out of the box. There's no priming involved next time you fill up.
The good news though; in theory, that should be it for the next 2 years. What's more, when a colour DOES run out, you only have to replace that one, not all 3 colours as you do with most colour cartridges. At just $20 a bottle, this is starting to make a lot of economic sense.
But can it really go the distance? Remember that science fair project I mentioned? I let my 11 year-old have her way with the L565, and it just kept going. There were photos, there were title boards, there were pages of (somewhat questionable)results. The trusty Epson just kept printing, When she accidentally cut the top off one page and she was about to try and glue it back together, I simply said, "Don't be silly. Just print another one."
Pretty crazy, right?
Given the project was due in the next day and we were still working on it at 9:20pm, I'm sure glad the L565 lived up to its reputation. No breakdowns. No empty ink tanks. No stress. It just kept going.
Since then I've been printing with gay abandon. The 14 year-old needs her piano music photocopied for her competition? Not a problem. Even when Dad is too useless to line up the pages properly, thereby missing off all the key signatures, no biggie - we'll just copy them again.
Obviously we won't really know if it'll go the full 24 months until this time in 2017, but by then I'LL probably be obsolete, let alone the printer.
One thing's for certain. A little plastic bottle takes up a lot less space in my bin (and ultimately our landfills) than an entire inkjet printer and that's got to be a good thing.
How often do you hear people say, "I don't need all those bells and whistles. I just want a phone that does the basics?"
That probably means they want a cheap phone and they're prepared to put up with the limitations.
Now Vodafone is offering a genuine smart phone for under $200, and there aren't as many limitations as you might think...
Meet the Vodafone Smart Prime 6, perhaps the first telco-branded phone in history actually worth switching on.
When I DID switch it on, there WAS a bit of a wait while it booted, but once I was up and running, I found navigating around the phone simple, clear and pretty smooth going.
The Smart Prime 6 runs the latest Android OS, Lollipop, and it runs it pretty well. At first glance I couldn't really tell much difference between this phone and the LG G3 I reviewed back in February. In fact, just like the G3, Vodafone's phone gives you the option of a double tap on the screen to wake it up, instead of fumbling for the power switch.
Although this phone fits into the budget price range, there really are some higher-end features included, like a genuine quad-core processor which means actions like streaming video, even via Chromecast can be carried out pretty smoothly. In saying that, too many apps doing too many things at once did cause some lagging.
Storage space is the big issue here, but it's an issue you can manage. The latest Samsung Galaxy S6's come with 32gb as standard - that's certainly more than I've ever used on a phone, even WITH an extra SD card.
Make no mistake, the Vodafone Smart Prime 6 is no Galaxy, and a big part of the difference between the two is storage space. The Smart Prime 6 comes with a paltry 8gb, not very useful, given the Lollipop operating system takes up almost 4gb by itself. This means you'll definitely need an SD card if you want to take any photos or store any music at all.
You'll need to install any new apps onto that SD card as well, or your storage will be eaten up in no time. At least you have that option; iPhones and Samsung's GS6's don't even have SD slots so you're stuck with the storage they come with.
What you need to remember when loading or moving apps onto an SD card, is any widgets associated with those apps will disappear and/or stop working, which took me a little while to figure out. In saying that, it turns out you can move apps between the internal storage and the SD card relatively easily using the Apps manager under the Settings menu.
If that last paragraph has your head spinning, then this may not be the phone for you, which is a shame, because in most other respects it's a very straight-forward handset to use.
An SD slot isn't the only feature you get on the Smart Prime 6 you won't find on the latest Samsungs or Apples; you still get an FM radio, something I think is a big draw card for data-conscious users who aren't into paying to stream their favourite station when they can just tune in for free.
What the Smart Prime 6 lacks in on-board storage, it more than makes up for in battery life. Once I got past my constant frustration of YET ANOTHER phone that doesn't do wireless charging, I was very impressed with how long a single charge lasted. I've read other reviews criticising the screen definition and brightness, but I had no problem with this at all, and if that's what helps make the battery last so long, I'm more than happy with the compromise.
That display is a full 5 inches by the way, which I believe to be about optimum for a smart phone these days. Any bigger and the thing just starts getting too damn long to put in your pocket. While it isn't quite as super-slim as some of it's big-name, high-end rivals, the Smart Prime 6 is slim enough. It has a stylishly curved edge, an attractive chrome bezel around the screen and an equally good-looking, metallic-feel back cover. It certainly wouldn't appear cheap or out of place in the middle of the table at the cafe next to phones other people may have paid a thousand dollars more for.
And that's what brings everything back into perspective, the price. This phone is only $149 (plus whatever you need to shell out for the essential SDmicro card - approximately $20 for 16gb) The functionality you get for that little money is the best I've seen by a long way. End of story.
We all know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but how about a phone?
With the Galaxy 6 and Galaxy 6 Edge, Samsung has taken a pretty giant leap towards making their flagship handsets... well... prettier.
Cosmetically, the Galaxy range of smart phones hasn't really varied dramatically for years. Obviously the handsets have had to grow in size to accommodate bigger screens, but then the screens moved closer to the edge of the phones and the last couple of generations haven't had to get too much bigger.
Now, the screen not only goes right to the edge, but bends all the way over it.
This means Samsung's latest Galaxy is actually slightly smaller than its predecessor, even though the screen is effectively the same size. Both S6 and the S6 Edge are definitely slimmer (ie: flatter) and lighter than the S5 and they both feature a metallic-feel back that sort of looks like some kind of brushed steel (it isn't, but it looks like it).
The Edge is of course what all the noise is about. If you haven't seen it, it's the one with the curvy screen. Don't be fooled though, it's not the whole screen that curves (like on Samsung's Gear Fit and Gear S smart watches). The screen simply spills over both sides - sorry; both EDGES.
In one fell swoop, this effect instantly makes the S6 Edge the coolest looking phone on the market. No contest. So if you want the coolest looking phone on the market, pay the premium and get yourself an Edge.
If, however, you just want a phone that works as well as the Edge, save yourself a couple of hundie and grab an S6 instead. Because other than the curvy screen, there's no difference. What's more, the curvy screen doesn't really DO anything. Oh, sure you can set it to light up different colours on the edge for when different contacts call or text, but that's kind of show-offy, isn't it?
If I'm to be completely honest, I felt nervous handling the Edge every time I picked it up. I'm not exactly Mr Coordinated and I felt like with all that screen everywhere, one slip and the phone would be in pieces.
Speaking of slipping, being so slim, both these devices slipped easily into my pocket, although they are still relatively long, so squatting with your phone in your jeans is still not particularly comfortable.
The other big shift in Samsung's Galaxy progression is the departure from a removable back cover. Like the A3 and A5 I focussed on in the last blog, Samsung have basically "iPhoned" these handsets, locking the battery away and moving to a nanoSim which fits in little drawer at the top. UNLIKE the A3 and A5, the S6 and S6 Edge have no SD slot, meaning, like the iPhone, you'll have to pay more for a 64GB handset than the entry-level 32GB one.
To be fair, 32GB is heaps of storage for a phone, but if you're a prodigious photographer or videographer, extra storage is no longer as simple as changing out a relatively inexpensive microSD.
So apart from their striking good looks, what really is the difference between the S6's and their S5 predecessor?
Not much. The S6's boast an "Octa Core" processor, but according to my (limited) research, it's really two different quad cores working together. Whatever the case, these phones can definitely multi-task with no problems at all. (HTC has a handset with a "true" octa core processor, but from what I've read, its battery life is terrible)
I can't say I detected the S6's working any faster than my S5, but they definitely seemed to transition between open/simultaneously running apps more smoothly.
The cameras, as usual, are another step up. Predictably, you get more megapixels and there were big improvements with things like contrast and performance in dark environments, which is something phone cameras usually struggle with. What I really liked about the S6 camera, is Samsung gives you the option of almost no options, for photographic numpties like me, or you can turn on all the advanced features if you're the kind of photo-geek who likes to tweak their own ISO or HDR. (Whatever they may be)
The really big plus for me, is at long, long, LONG last, Samsung have made these phones wirelessly chargeable. Why they didn't do this 3 generations ago, I have no idea. In fact, I was really impressed with the battery life and short charging times of the S6's generally - especially when you use the new 9-volt wall charger provided. Even if your battery does get low, this super-charger will have you up and running in next to no time.
The big negative? Unlike the S5, these handsets are not waterproof (IP67). The official line from Samsung is they would have had to compromise the sleek design to keep water and dust out. A suspicious person might suggest they're holding the IP67 rating back for the S7, but that would be mere speculation. This meant although the latest incarnation of the S-Health app is more comprehensive than ever and the S6's connected with my Gear 2 Neo smart watch effortlessly, I never felt comfortable exercising with them in my sweaty armband and I certainly wouldn't have risked running in the rain. (That's my excuse for not running that day, and I'm sticking to it)
Once again, we seem to arrived at a point in smart phone evolution where the innovation and improvements are pretty minor and it's hard to justify an upgrade from the S5, especially if you've come to rely on the durability and peace-of-mind offered by the S5's IP67 water/dust-proofing.
However, if sexy styling, better battery life and wireless charging really rock your boat, Samsung have definitely come up with the goods.
