What to Expect from the Samsung Galaxy S6

Although Samsung has been facing stiff competition from the numerous smartphones released this year, it still continues to lead race among the android devices. Samsung’s devices last year were criticized for being iterative and over-priced. Now Samsung seems to be working on the Galaxy S6, codenamed ‘Project Zero‘ signifying the development of the device from scratch — putting lots of thoughts into its design and materials.

Finally realising their mistakes, Samsung has been mending its ways with the launch of  Galaxy A3 and Galaxy A5 smartphones, which dropped the plastic body to include the premium metal frame. The company has long been criticized for using cheap plastic body on their devices and it is expected that Samsung will be bringing quite a drastic change in their devices’ design and materials.

Rumours surrounding the new Samsung flagship has been taking rounds of the internet for several months now. Although most rumours cannot be verified or validated, they give us some idea what we can expect from Samsung 2015 Galaxy S6 flagship.

Project Zero

Project Zero is, according to the rumors, Samsung’s top priority these days. More specifically, it is  a codename for the Galaxy S6, according to sources. Previous flagship phones have gone by the names such as Project J, Project H, Project K and Project T in the past few years. as mentioned above, Project zero signifies that the company’s plan to build this phone from the grassroot.

The failure of Galaxy S5 coupled with the bad sales figures and constant backlash from critics, Samsung recently replaced its mobile design leader Chang Dong-hoon with deputy Lee Min-hyouk. It is safe to say that Samsung indeed is aiming to redefine its brand image with this new flagship. However, whether it will be successful; only time will tell!

Design

Recent chatter in the rumour mill has hinted that the new Samsung flagship may come with a flexible display. At a recent event for Samsung investors, Lee-Chang Hoon, vice president of Samsung Display’s, said: “We plan to provide consumers with a product that has a flexible display by the end of the year.” Along with his, the Galaxy S6 is expected to sport a flexible OLED  that would allow the device to fold and bend. However, it’s also widely believed, especially since the all-metal Galaxy Alpha debuted, that the Galaxy S6 will feature a metal frame.

Display

Considering the trend over the last five generations, the screen size of Galaxy S handsets have grown from 4-inches to 5.1-inches. The Galaxy S6 is expected with a 5.2 or 5.3 inch display. Samsung has also previously said it will have 4K 3840 x 2160 displays on the market by 2015. It is therefore, possible that the Galaxy S6 will bypass 2K and feature a 4K screen. That said, South Korean news outlet Daum has predicted it’ll have a curved screen with a Quad HD resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. The screen has also purportedly leaked on an AnTuTu benchmark test with a 5.5-inch QHD display.

Camera

The camera has always been Samsung’s strong selling point. We expect the company to improve the present 16Mp snapper that comes with Galaxy S5. The AnTuTu leak has hinted  20-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel selfie snapper.

Processor

The new flagship is expected to come with a Snapdragon 810 or Exynos 7420 processor, with octa-core technology. Although internal storage is not expected to be increased beyond 128GB. That said, the AnTuTu leak shows the S6 with a 64-bit octa-core Exynos 7420 processor and ARM Mali T-760 GPU backed by 3GB of RAM. Samsung, however, has been raving about 4GB RAM developments so we’d expect them to appear in the S6. It also was shown with 32GB storage.

Price and Release date

According to a recent leak, the Samsung Galaxy S6 release date is slated for Q2 2015. As for when the phone will actually launch, the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 both launched in April 2013 and April 2014, respectively, so following this pattern, the Galaxy S6 should go on sale in April 2015. It will likely be priced similarly to the Galaxy S5.

The company has pledged that it will be bringing several changes to the future device to lure in more customers, after a huge setback during the Q3 earnings. Over the past years, the company has been criticised for the use of cheap plastic material in the high-end phones. With the new flagship on its way, the company is expected to make a lot of changes in design to compete in the market ruled by impressive devices like iPhone 6, HTC One and Sony Xperia Z series. This flagship may be a critical device to decide the fate of Samsung smartphones in this highly competitive market.