MWC 2015: Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge hands-on

Samsung Galaxy S6 & Galaxy S6 benchmarks

The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge are the first two smartphones with a 14nm chipset, Samsung's Exynos 7420. Both are running a Samsung-customized version of Android 5.0 Lollipop.

The rest of the phones we've picked for this comparison were running Lollipop too (some modified, some not), except for the Apple iPhone 6 Plus, which was on iOS 8, of course.

On the CPU side, Samsung put four Cortex-A57 cores at 2.1GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores at 1.5GHz. That's almost the same setup as the Snapdragon 810 found in the LG G Flex2 and HTC One M9 (except the A57 cores are clocked at 2GHz), but Samsung's manufacturing advantage (14nm vs. 20nm) should produce less heat and thus less throttling.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 edge open with massive wins in Geekbench (a CPU benchmark) and AnTuTu (an overall performance bench).

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  4916
• HTC One M9
  3873
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  3394
• Motorola Nexus 6
  3285
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  3214
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3120
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  2970
• LG G3
  2370

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  68896
• HTC One M9
  57422
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  51905
• Motorola Nexus 6
  49803
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  49273
• LG G Flex2
  47680
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  45660
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  45348
• LG G3
  42038

Basemark OS II, another full system test, is not nearly as impressed with the new chipset and places the LG G Flex2 and its Snapdragon 810, while the Exynos 7420 and Galaxy S6 drop towards the middle.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better

• LG G Flex2
  1601
• Motorola Nexus 6
  1509
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  1332
• LG G3
  1327
• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  1269
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  1173
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  1147
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  915

Kraken 1.1, a JavaScript benchmark, breaks the tie with the Samsung Galaxy S6 barely edging out the HTC One M9 and the LG G Flex2.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  4323
• HTC One M9
  4578
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  4911
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  5181
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  5968
• Motorola Nexus 6
  6088
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  6260
• LG G3
  7632

We move to GPU testing. Exynos once again calls on ARM for the hardware, while Snapdragon 810 uses Qualcomm's own Adreno 430 chips. The iPhone 6 GPU comes from PowerVR, GX6450 to be precise.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  22752
• Motorola Nexus 6
  20901
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  20043
• HTC One M9
  19836
• LG G Flex2
  19360
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  12190
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  11798
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  11065
• LG G3
  10580

The Galaxy S6 pair also uses a QHD screen – 1,440 x 2,560px – while most of the rest are at 1080p (except the Nexus 6 and LG G3). 1080p is close to half the number of pixels compared to QHD, so look at off-screen benchmarks to compare raw power and on-screen scores to compare gaming performance.

Mali-T760 seems evenly matched with the Adreno 430 and is enough to offer a playable framerate for games with GFX 2.7 level graphics.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  49
• LG G Flex2
  49
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  40
• Motorola Nexus 6
  38.9
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  31.3
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  27
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  27
• LG G3
  26

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  23
• HTC One M9
  23
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Motorola Nexus 6
  18.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  18
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  13.4
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  12
• LG G3
  11

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  48.4
• LG G Flex2
  48
• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  35
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  29
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  28
• Motorola Nexus 6
  27.4
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  26
• LG G3
  20

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  25.3
• HTC One M9
  24
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Galaxy S6/S6 edge
  16
• Motorola Moto X (2014)
  13
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  12
• Motorola Nexus 6
  11.9
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  11
• LG G3
  7.7

The Samsung Galaxy S6 duo will launch on April 10 so the time for tuning the software is running short. The overall difference isn’t that huge, but we still see why Samsung was keen to go with its in-house chip. Given the right workload the Exynos can come ahead of Qualcomm's top dog. It's also well-suited for modern games even with the screen's resolution jump.