Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge Set for India Release on 10 April; 5 Must-Know Features [Video]

South Korean smartphone maker Samsung is all set to officially rollout the new Galaxy S6 series flagship handset in select global markets including India on 10 April.

One of Samsung's retail partner, Spice Hotspot started sending out invites (via SMS) for subscribers to pre-book the new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge today (9 April) and get them delivered at midnight at select shops across India.

In 2014, Samsung Galaxy S5 failed to lure fans or reviewers and it sure did reflect on the steep decline of profit margin last year. Samsung really needed to do something drastically to re-invigorate the fading Galaxy S series and it did deliver with élan by unveiling the feature-rich Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge last month, true premium smartphones to give a stiff challenge to arch-rival Apple iPhone 6 series.

Many tech pundits showered praises on the new Samsung smartphones' sleek metal-body, super-fast auto-focus of the camera and many other features.

To provide some perspective on the new Samsung devices, we have listed some of their key aspects based on which users can make an informed decision before buying Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge.

Five Salient Features of Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge:

Premium metal build:

Despite making top-of-the-line Galaxy S series smartphones, Samsung was always been panned by critics and fans for incorporating plastic cover, which made them look cheap. They were never in the league to match Apple and HTC (One M series) smartphones.

But this year, Samsung has finally delivered true premium phones. The new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge come with a fine blend of metal and glass with no sign of plastic. The devices' metallic shiny finish justifies the term 'premium'.

Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge come protected with superior aircraft grade metal (Aluminum) cover and Gorilla Glass 4 shield (both front & back). On the front, they flaunt 5.1-inch QHD (2560x1440p) display with pixel density of 577 ppi (pixels per inch).

Some critics had apprehensions over the use of glass as it might crack during accidental drop on hard floor leading to expensive screen-replacement, which left some sloppy hand owners be wary of this downside.

Later, some reports emerged that Samsung's Galaxy S6 was vulnerable to bending like Apple iPhone 6, when placed in the back pocket.

However, Samsung in its bid to reassure fans, released a couple pf videos detailing bend-test and drop-test.

Video-1 (3-point Bend Test):

Video-2 (Drop Test):

64-bit class Exynos 7 series SoC (System on Chip):

Weeks before the official launch of Galaxy S6 devices, rumours hit Internet that Samsung ditched Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 series Octa-core processor due to over-heating issues and instead used the company's in-house built 14-namometer class 64-bit Octa-core CPU (Quad 2.1GHz + Quad 1.5Ghz).

Moreover, Samsung's proprietary Exynos 7420 SoC (System on Chip) is said to be more superior to Snapdragon 810 as the former is currently the most-advanced 14nm FinFET class chipset, whereas the latter is 20nm class semi-conductor chip.

Samsung has successful incorporated the three-dimensional (3D) FinFET structure on transistors so that it enables read Galaxy S6 to achieve 20% faster speed, 35% less power consumption and 30% productivity gain over the 20nm chipset.

This move by Samsung to incorporate its own SoC in Galaxy S6 has paid rich dividends. Samsung Galaxy S6 scored massive 4,547 points in the 'Total Multi-core' test, almost double iPhone 6 Plus (with Apple A8 processor) as it could only reach 2,911, whereas the HTC One (M9) which houses the Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 810 Octa-core SoC (System on Chip) came distant second with 3,959 points.

[Read More: Samsung Galaxy S6 Benchmark Performance Results out; Galaxy S5 Successor Crushes Apple iPhone 6 and Other Rivals]

In other tests such as Floating Point Multi-core, Integer Multi-core, Floating Multi-core, GFXBench 3 1080p T-Rex Offscreen, and GFXBench 3 1080p Manhattan Offscreen, Samsung Galaxy S6's Exynos 7 has excelled over other top-end phones running on Snapdragon 810, 805, 801, 800 series CPU and also Apple iPhone 6 Plus.

New generation Storage disk and RAM:

The new Galaxy S6 series devices ship with advanced LPDDR4 series 3GB RAM and available in three storage models – 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.

What's interesting to know about the storage-disk in Galaxy S6 devices is that they boast of the new generation UFS v2.0 memory standard.

The new UFS 2.0 memory allows faster booting, faster data input/output response, three times faster file copy, and three times the multitasking capability.

In simple terms, Galaxy S6 users can watch high-quality videos, play high bandwidth games, while running multiple applications, and downloading or uploading files, all with very less (or no) lag in functionality.

Feature-rich Camera:

The 2014 model Galaxy S5 ships with a 16.0-megapixel comes with LED flash, and super-fast auto-focus feature with a speed of 0.3 second, besides the 4K video recording feature.

This year, Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge house the same 16.0-megapixel camera, but come with photography user-experience enhancing features such as Quick Launch (double press home button to activate Camera), Tracking AF, Auto Real-time HDR (Front & Rear), F1.9, Low Light Video(Front & Rear), High Clear Zoom, IR Detect White Balance, Virtual Shot, Slow Motion, Fast Motion, Pro Mode and Selective Focus.

Clean TouchWiz UI:

Besides low-quality plastic body, previous Galaxy S series devices were panned for housing too many apps, unnecessary bloat-wares cramping up all the memory of the phone.

This year, Samsung has addressed the issue by offering Galaxy S6 with a clutter-free TouchWiz UI and giving users an option to un-install almost all pre-loaded apps including Microsoft's Word, OneNote and OneDrive apps.

[Read more: Samsung Galaxy S6 vs. Galaxy S5: What's new in Next Generation Smartphone; Everything You need to Know]

Unique Display: 

Though Galaxy S6 Edge's dual-curved display is unique in the smartphone market, it does not truly serve any value-addition to phone since its usage is very limited to speed dialing five favourite contacts and multi-coloured notifications when the phone is put down on display. This makes Galaxy S6 Edge more of novelty (or collector edition), but we believe this edge is a sign of evolution of smartphones and we can expect Samsung to incorporate more features in future.

Here is the official Samsung video detailing the making of Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge:

Key specifications of Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge: