2015 will see the release of the latest flagship Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:0059935) smartphone in the shape of the Samsung Galaxy S6. This will be an extremely important release for the Korean manufacturer, as its profits have taken a nosedive recently, and the company has openly admitted that its recent range has been a little lacking in innovation and unable to satisfactorily keep up with market trends.
This will be a hotly anticipated smartphone release, and consequently rumous regarding the Galaxy S6 are already circulating and multiplying.
Samsung Galaxy S6
Display
This is always a key aspect of Samsung smartphones, as the Korean company has particularly focused on providing some of the best quality displays in the industry. Thus, the Galaxy S6 is likely to improve on full HD resolution, and could instead offer a quad HD screen. Samsung will look to compete with the likes of the Nexus six and LG G3 by arming the Galaxy S6 with a 2,560 x 1,440 screen resolution. Its SuperAMOLED Technology has also been commended, and it is a certainty that Samsung will include this in its latest Galaxy S device.
Curved Screen
Samsung has already dipped its toes into the notion of a curved screen mobile with the Galaxy Note Edge, but some analysts are suggesting that the latest Samsung smartphone release will fully embrace a curved display, likely to be 5.5-inches in size. This would be a big gamble for the corporation given the potential manufacturing costs involved, but Samsung do need to make this device stand out from the crowd.
Release date
Samsung is not near to the point where it will release this information into the public domain, but given that we have heard no concrete information from the Korean manufacturer at the time of writing, a release date before the Mobile World Congress in March seems extremely unlikely. This Barcelona-based event was the setting for the unveiling of the Galaxy S5, and this looks set to be repeated in 2015.
Price
Samsung is not in a strong position to release a Galaxy S6 with an inflated price, so this should be a relatively affordable smartphone. One should expect it to retail at about the same rate as the Galaxy S5, which would mean a launch price in the United States of around $720.
Camera
The camera included in the Galaxy S6 will be an interesting element of the device, as Samsung has particularly talked this up in recent Galaxy releases. Most analysts at this point in time believe that the Galaxy S6 will be fitted with a 20-megapixel snapper, as opposed to the 16-megapixel variant found in the Galaxy S5.
Design
This is another critical component for Samsung to deal with, as the Korean manufacturer has to deal with a significant amount of criticism each year regarding the physical appearance of its devices. Nonetheless, recent iterations of the major Galaxy ranges have been more critically acclaimed in this department, and Samsung is likely to attempt to freshen up the design of the Galaxy S6 further still. Expect a more prominently metallic appearance compared to previous handsets.
Storage
It is not certain that Samsung will particularly upgrade the Galaxy S6 in this department. It is reasonable to assume that Samsung will make the Galaxy S6 available in 32, 64 and 128 gigabytes internal memory variants, ditching the 16GB model which was a part of the S5 portfolio. Analysts have also suggested that the Galaxy S6 will come fitted with 4 GB of internal memory as standard; this would point to a nifty processing power for the device when collaborating with the proposed chipset and processor.
Battery
Samsung has the lead over Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in this department, with most reviewers noting that the Galaxy S series is considerably more efficient with regard to battery usage than its Apple competitor. Although this is somewhat due to power saving technology included the Android operating system, a larger battery will also probably be part of makeup of the Galaxy S6. The Galaxy S5 featured a 2800mAh unit, so perhaps expect this to be beefed up by around 10 percent.
Processor
Given that the Galaxy S6 is expected to run the very latest version of Android, it would make sense for the smartphone to comprise a 64-bit processor. With this in mind, Samsung followers believe that the Galaxy S6 will contain either Samsung’s own Exynos 7420 or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810. This could be dependent on the particular geographical region that the device is purchased.
Operating System
Finally, although Samsung has reportedly been considering other options, it seems an absolute certainty that the Galaxy S6 will run the Android operating system. At the time of writing, this looks likely to be Lollipop, but updates from Google are not impossible between now and a likely March, 2015 release date, so Samsung would then have to decide whether to embrace the most recent version.
