Samsung Galaxy S6 is a top-of-the line Android phone

Last year, when Samsung launched the Galaxy S5, the Korean smartphone giant had high hopes from the device. Unfortunately, the smartphone wasn't a huge success and its price witnessed a huge drop within a month of the launch.

Samsung seems to have learned from its mistake and worked on the Galaxy S6 from scratch.

The company has given the phone a new design, given up on the cheap-feeling plastic rear, enhanced the camera, and added a new processor. This flagship for Rs 49,999 manages to live up to my expectations.

Design: The Samsung Galaxy S6 has an all-new design. It doesn't conform to the old Galaxy design style anymore. In short, if I hide the 'Samsung' branding from the front and the rear, you will not be able to identify it as a Samsung smartphone. The biggest reason for the refreshing design is the rear - instead of plastic, the rear is now made of glass; and so is the front. And there's a metallic rim running around the sides.

Then, instead of flat edges, the phone has curved edges. There is a 5.1-inch super bright display (1440x2560 pixels) staring at you when you turn on the device. Everything is crisp and super bright on the phone. The camera module at the back is slightly raised. Overall, it feels premium to hold, albeit the only drawback is that the phone tends to slip from your hands.

Performance: Another good thing about the S6 is its performance. It is blazing fast, with no sign of slowdown or lag. Our review unit packed in a Samsung Exynos 64-bit Octa core (Quad-core 1.5Ghz + Quad-core 2.1GHz) processor and was paired with 3 GB of RAM. It runs on Android Lollipop operating system and has a custom UI, which has been enhanced. This fast new processor ensured that heavy graphic gaming was a delight. However, the device got warm when using heavy graphic apps for more than 20 minutes. It scored 53955 in the Antutu Benchmark test.

Storage: With the Galaxy S6, you will have to be content with the inbuilt storage only as it doesn't have an expandable memory card slot. However, the inbuilt storage is itself quite substantial. Our review unit had 32 GB internal storage of which around 25GB was user accessible. If you need more, there are two other variants - 64 GB and 128 GB - that you can consider buying by spending a bit more.

Camera: Imaging using the 16-MP camera sensor on the S6 is simply superb. It has an optical image stabiliser and a number of modes including slow motion, fast motion, panorama, selective focus, pro, etc. Pro is a slightly advanced mode where one can manually adjust settings such as metering, ISO, white balance, etc. The images captured during bright light were great. And this stands true for not only the rear camera but for the front facing selfie camera, too. You can use this smartphone for capturing some great full HD videos as well.

Battery: Samsung Galaxy S6 follows the unibody design language. The battery and the back cover are non-removable. The battery life of my review unit lasted well - the 2,550-mAh battery easily lasted a day with heavy use. The new concept of quick charging works well here - just plug the phone in for a few minutes and it garners enough charge to stay alive for the next couple of hours.

Bag it or Junk it: If you wish to own a top-of-the-line Android smartphone, the Galaxy S6 is definitely for you.

Price: Rs 49,900

Rating: 4.5/5