Galaxy S6 Edge Vs. iPhone 6 Plus Review - Apple's Past Broken By Samsung's Futuristic Vision.

 Ewan Spence   Contributor

Apple iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (image: Ewan Spence)

Following on from my comparison review of the iPhone 6 and the BlackBerry Classic, it is time for another unequal comparison and review. While there is a lot of merit in a direct head-to-head of similar handsets (and I’ll refer you to Gordon Kelly’s Apple iPhone 6 vs Samsung’s Galaxy S6 piece) it’s the bullpen handsets that I want to look at today from Cupertino and Seoul – specifically the iPhone 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.
Both of these handsets are subservient to the main flagship, yet each in their own way illustrate the future for Apple and Samsung.
What are the plans going forwards, where is the design going, how competent are the companies in pushing a new vision to customers? And can these ideas that are outside of expectations challenge the consumers and the commentators to think a little differently about the parent companies?

Galaxy S6 vs iPhone 6

Galaxy S6 (left) versus iPhone 6 (right)

Photo: Gordon Kelly

Designing The Bullpen Smartphone
The Apple iPhone 6 Plus is the easier design to understand. Apple spent much of the years before the release of the iPhone 6 Plus sticking resolutely to a smaller physical screen on its smartphones, unlike other manufacturers. Whether this was by choice to have a notable separation between the largest iPhone and the smaller iPad Mini, or simply refusing to bow to the market forces showing a demand for phablets, the iPhone 6 Plus was seen as a late arrival in the smartphone world.
The reaction to the iPhone 6 Plus was strong. Even with the perceived issues around the bending chassis (an issue that the S6 Edge has also had to cope with), the public easily accepted the iPhone 6 Plus as a new device with many reviewers deciding to ditch the iPad Mini and travel with just the phablet.
With almost every other manufacturer already offering a phablet, the launch was a relatively easy one. The consumer education that Apple would normally have to go through in the marketing was not required here – everyone knew what a phablet was, everyone knew what they could do, and nobody worried if they needed one.
Dare I say it, but the iPhone 6 Plus was the minimum viable product to bring Apple into the phablet world. It was a gap in the line-up, so a quick application of a theoretical 120% scale on the design, and the handset arrived, was accepted, and started selling well.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (image: Ewan Spence)

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is actually an easier handset to pigeon-hole. This is the South Korean company showing that it has a vision, that it can generate new ideas, and that it can implement these on a large scale. Following on from the Galaxy Note Edge which was debuted at the IFA event in September 2015 and then given a limited release in South Korean and a handful of EU countries, the S6 Edge takes the same hardware as the vanilla Galaxy S6, and bends the two long edges of the screen down to the flat rear chassis.
It’s not a steep curve, and I’d argue that far from being an edge display it’s more of a subtle curve, but it’s clear that the marketing of the device has made at least one Samsung Galaxy handset into a desirable and fashionable handset. With the unit purportedly selling out across the world, the tricky nature of manufacturing the screen has limited supply – but when has scarcity and high demand ever been a bad thing for a well-managed PR team?
It also makes the S6 Edge stand out. While the iPhone 6 Plus is simply ‘a bigger iPhone’, the S6 Edge – while clearly a close relation of the flagship standard smartphone – is its own device with unique quirks and charms. Apple did the bare minimum to its hardware to reach for the phablet, while Samsung did something new and relatively unexplored.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (image: Ewan Spence)

forbes.