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

Samsung on Sunday (1 March) pulled the wraps-off the company's new flagship smartphone Galaxy S6 and limited edition S6 Edge.

Samsung's new sixth generation smartphone is a  major upgrade over its predecessor Galaxy S5 in terms of design language, use of metal in construction and other internal hardware.

To provide a clear perspective between the two Galaxy S siblings, we have done a quick specification rundown of Galaxy S6 ( & S6 Edge) and its predecessor, Galaxy S5.

Build quality:

In late 2013 and early 2014, Apple was under immense pressure from stock holders to come up with something new or else surrender to Samsung's dominance. The Cupertino company's co-founder Steve Jobs had once quipped that Samsung's Note series was too big and consumers would discard it. But his opinion held no appeal as global smartphone market embraced the new 'Phablet' series.

And finally last year, Apple under the new leadership of Tim Cook announced two big screen -- 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch -- iPhone 6 series handsets in to the market. It worked wonders for Apple as it brought record shattering $18 billion revenue in just three months in Q4, quarter ending in December 2014. It is the biggest revenue collection for any company in the corporate history of Wall Street.

Now, Samsung which has been panned by market analysts, critics and fans for launching plastic flagship phone, has launched a true premium phone Galaxy S6 with metal finish.

The new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are constructed with a blend of metal and glass with no sign of plastic; it is a sort of Samsung's coming of age moment. Both devices' metallic shiny finish truly embodies the term premium.

Display:

2014-model Galaxy S5 flaunts a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED based full HD screen with a pixel density of 440 ppi (pixels per inch).

Samsung has kept screen size to 5.1-inch, same as its predecessor, but has bumped up the resolution from full HD (1920x1080p) to QHD (aka 2K: 2560x1440p) display on Galaxy S6 with a pixel density of more than 577 pixels per inch on the screen.

S6 Edge too features same display resolution, only difference is that the screen stretches to both right and left side edges.

Processor, RAM and Storage:

Last year, Samsung's flagship phone Galaxy S5 was initially released with two chipset variants based on network availability in select regions.

Later in the second half of 2014, the company released LTE-A model in developed countries with faster network connectivity support.

To put things in perspective, Galaxy S5 LTE-A model housed 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 805, whereas the LTE model packed Snapdragon 801. On the other hand, 3G-variant featured Samsung's in-house built Exynos 5 Octa-core 5422 series chipset.

Now the sixth generation Galaxy S device comes with only one processor model. Samsung reportedly ditched Snapdragon 810 SoC (System on Chip), the one we see in rival HTC One M9, due to some over-heating issue.

Instead, Samsung has used its in-house built 64-bit class Exynos 7 Octa-core, which is said to be more superior to Snapdragon 810. The former is an advanced 14nm (nanometer) class chipset, whereas the latter is 20nm class chipset.

While Galaxy S5 housed 2GB RAM and came with 16GB and 32GB storage options, with additional scope for expansion, the new Galaxy S6 series devices ship with 3GB LPDDR4 RAM and are available in three storage models – 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.

What's interesting of storage-disk in Galaxy S6 devices is that it boasts of most advanced UFS 2.0 memory standard, which allows faster booting, faster data input/output response, three times faster file copy, and three times the multitasking capability.

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

Camera:

Galaxy S5 ships with a 16.0-megapixel comes with LED flash, and super-fast auto-focus feature with a speed of 0.3 seconds and other notable attribute is the 4K video recording feature.

On the other hand, Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge houses the same 16.0-megapixel camera, but comes 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.

Both Samsung Galaxy S6 and S5 have pretty decent front cameras with ability to record full HD videos.

Mobile Operating System:

Since Samsung has already released the new Android 5.0 Lollipop to 2014 model Galaxy S5, so there is very little advantage owning Galaxy S6.

What's interesting in Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is that its user-interface is said to be clutter-free and simple for normal day-to-day use.

[Read more: Samsung Launches Metal-clad Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge; Specifications, Availability Details]

Key specifications of Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and Galaxy S5: