Galaxy S6 Edge

It looks great, is powerful, and has a good camera, but in some ways, the S6 Edge has gone backward.

BACKGROUND
With its glass and aluminum construction and curved-edge screen, Samsung looks to have leaped lightyears ahead with its newest fl agship smartphone, the Galaxy S6 Edge. But is it as future-proof as it is futuristic? Only a teardown will tell…

MAJOR TECH SPECS €
5.1-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen (1,440 x 2,560, 16 million colours) € Samsung Exynos 7 Octa 7420 processor, integrated ARM Mali-T760 GPU and 3GB memory € 16MP rear camera with HDR, LED fl ash, and 4K video recording € Built-in support for Qi and Powermat wireless charging € 32/64/128GB storage options, but no microSD slot

KEY FINDINGS €
The rear panel is glued on rock-solid. We had to break out a suction cup to slip in an opening pick. Defi nitely not fun. With the panel fi nally off, the adhesive peels off the glass nicely, but leaves a sticky residue on the metal midframe. € Using a screwdriver and plastic opening tool, the midframe comes off easily, revealing all the goodies. However, the battery is still held captive under the motherboard. We’d normally remove the microSD card now, but Samsung eliminated it. If you need extra storage, you’ll need to pay for it up-front. € We pluck out the main camera to get a better look at the hardware. The 16MP OIS rear-facing camera dwarfs the 5MP selfi e cam. On the front we fi nd: Samsung Exynos 7420 octa-core processor (64-bit), 2.1GHz Quad and 1.5GHz Quad, along with Samsung K3RG3G30MM-DGCH 3GB LPDDR4 RAM and Samsung KLUBG4G1BD 32GB NAND fl ash. € A glass back and a stubbornly glued battery? Samsung, have you been hanging out with Apple? Finally free, we get a better look at the 3.85V, 10.01Wh battery. It’s a 2,600mAh battery, like the S4. € In what seems another step backward, the S6 dumps the S5’s lightning-fast Micro-B USB 3.0 port for a microUSB (2.0) port. Apart from saving some space, we fail to see the point of this. € The Super AMOLED display is what allows for the smooth curves. Riding on the back of the display is the customary touchscreen controller, this time an STMicro FT6BH. € Repairability score: 3 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair). Many components are modular. In an improvement over the S5, you no longer have to remove the display to get into the phone and replace the motherboard. Front and back glass makes for double the crackability, and strong adhesive makes it hard to gain entry. The battery is very tightly adhered, and buried beneath the midframe and motherboard. Replacing the glass without destroying the display is going to be very diffi cult.