The Rumour Mill

Last week saw Samsung announce that they will be holding their Galaxy Unpacked 2015 event on the 1^st of March, just one day ahead of the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, from the 2^nd-5^th March.

Samsung’s press event will be focussed on their upcoming Galaxy S6, about which rumours have been rife for some time – particularly following the underwhelming sales of the Galaxy S5.

A bit of background

Historically, Apple and Samsung have been the Pepsi and Coca Cola of the smartphone world. Competitors, rivals, often litigants. You’re either an iPhone user or an Android fan. Windows is still fairly new to the party, and BlackBerry users are in a class of their own.

When it comes to comparing sales figures, it is important to remember that Apple only make the iPhone – there is more to Samsung than the Galaxy line. Nonetheless, when Samsung released the Galaxy S4 in 2013 it equalled the SIII in success – shipping 40million units in the six months following release. Apple have consistently outsold the Galaxy S-series during launch weeks, however, with Samsung releasing in April or May, and Apple in September.

The S5 sold 40% fewer units than the S4, whilst – thanks in part to Apple’s increase in screen size – the iPhone6 and 6Plus sold over three million units in the first three days of release (excluding pre-orders).

Given the disappointing sales of the S5, Samsung have reportedly gone back to the drawing board, giving the S6 a complete, ground-up redesign.

Features

We won’t know the full specs of the Galaxy S6 until March 1^st, nor the accompanying phablet release, the Galaxy S Edge. Nonetheless, hints, rumours, and trend-tracking by industry experts means that we can speculate quite well about potential features.

The Galaxy Note 4 had a screen resolution of 1440x2560 pixels, and whilst the S5 had a more modest resolution, it is very likely that the Edge will match or exceed the resolution of the Note 4. It is also likely that Samsung will up the resolution for the S6 – but at what cost to battery life remains to be seen.

Samsung are known for their consistently excellent cameras –the S5 housed a 13MP camera – but with improvements to Samsung’s own ISOCELL technology, we expect the S6 to include a 20MP camera.

In terms of power, leaked specs show that one of the new releases – probably the Edge – will be running Samsung’s own Exynos 7420 power chip, with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of ROM. If this is true, the newest Samsung will be one of the most powerful phones on the market, and their best chance yet of taking an even greater chunk of smartphone sales across the globe.

At Fivebars Mobile we love the iPhone, but we can’t wait to get our hands on the S6 and the Edge. If you are looking for the best mobile phone deal for your business, get in touch and ask about our free tariff review.