Samsung has unveiled its latest flagship Galaxy smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge, at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, along with a virtual reality headset for the devices and an Apple Pay-like payment platform.
Much of the speculation about the new devices has proven true, including that Microsoft apps will come preinstalled on the devices, with Samsung even confirming it used the codename “Project Zero” for their development. The S6 has an ultra-thin bezel around the edge of the screen, while the S6 edge has its screen curve over the edge on both sides of the device.
The S6 and S6 edge move towards an iPhone-like metal and glass design that introduces wireless charging but foregoes having a removable battery. In an unusual twist, IKEA is set to produce furniture that includes embedded wireless chargers for the devices.
Both of the Android 5.0 Lollipop smartphones are powered by a 64-bit octacore (four 2.1 GHz and four 1.5 GHz cores) processor. They both feature 5.1-inch Super AMOLED displays with a resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels (577 ppi, compared to 326 ppi on the iPhone 6 and 401 ppi on the iPhone 6Plus), not including the dual curved edges on the S6 edge. Both also include a 16-megapixel main camera with optical image stabilisation and a 5-megapixel front camera. The Galaxy S6 features a 2550mAh battery while S6 edge’s is slightly larger at 2600mAh, with both significantly larger than the 1810mAh iPhone 6 battery.
Samsung is also releasing a virtual reality headset, known as the Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition, which will work with both models.
Alongside the new flagship smartphones, Samsung also unveiled its mobile payment platform, known as Samsung Pay, with American Express, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and U.S. Bank as initial partners.
The payments platform will work across both the MasterCard and Visa payment network, using Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), meaning retailers won’t need to upgrade point of sales terminals to use the system.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
