Samsung Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6?

I need... okay want a new overpriced smartphone. The S5 appears to be a lot better spec-wise but that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story(i.e imac, xbox 360, rocky balboa). What do you guys think?

I've had a better experience with iOS products so go with the iPhone 6. It's not smothered in bloatware, the apps actually work and don't crash like on Android, and the App Store > Google Play. Go with Android if you just care about customizing how every little icon looks.

Apple Music is also fantastic.

I've never had a problem with an apple product. You get the best selection of apps, a quality os, & great battery life.

The Galaxy S6's Exynos SoC is reasonably more powerful than Apple's A8. It also offers more future-proofing for gaming, the GPU inside can support OpenGL 4.x features such as tessellation and geometry shaders. Down the road it will support Khronos Group's Vulkan API (DX12 equivalent). Another highlight of the S6 is the AMOLED the display (best picture quality on any mobile device). Otherwise it has the usual high end features; touch fingerprint scanner, camera with optical image stabilization, and a metal/glass body.

What do you think this is? The days of Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich? Lollipop is very well refined, even with Samsung's TouchWiz (of course you can always use the Google Now launcher if you want a more "Nexus" feel to your device).

It also appears on Android, but its audio streaming quality is some of the worst compared to other music apps.

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@Legend002

The OnePlus 2 is about to be announced on July 27th and it will cost between $350-$450 USD unlocked/off contract. This device will save you money and still offer you high end performance and features.

Known specifications:

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 v2.1 (with 4G LTE)
• 4 GB LPDDR4 RAM
• 13 MP rear camera with dual LED flash
• Dual SIM support
• 3300 mAh battery
• USB Type-C
• Fingerprint scanner
• Metal body

The other alternative is to wait until Apple's iPhone 6S comes out sometime in September, or Google's 2015 Nexus phones in October.

Go with a Windows Phone, or wait for the new City Man/Talk Man Windows 10 Mobile phones

An x86 Windows/Intel phone in 2016 might be the only time someone should consider a Windows Phone flagship, especially when the ecosystem on ARM is quite poor compared to Android or iOS.

Touchwiz, the Android skin on the S6 is garbage. It's ugly, slow, and has terrible memory management problems. Some carriers (AT&T, Verizon) request that Samsung lock the bootloader, making it impossible to replace with something actually good like CyanogenMod. The iPhone 6 only has 1GB of RAM, which isn't enough. Safari tabs and apps will reload constantly. The 6S is likely to make the long overdue jump to 2GB, which Android phones have had since 2012. Also straight out of 2012 is the comically low resolution, barely above 720p screen. In my experience, iOS also has much more frequent app crashes than Android. I would wait a bit and see what the 6S, Nexus 5/6 (2015), and OnePlus Two are like.

Don't forget Windows 10 Mobile......

True, but so far I expect MS continue to support ARM until Broxton is ready

Apple music sucks the fat one.

Wait for the Windows 10 phones, if it doesn't justify purchasing one - then until that time iPhone 6S would be already out.
You can't really go wrong with an iPhone regardless of it being overpriced, you can always sell it easily later if it doesn't go well for you.

I personally wouldn't recommend Android, especially Samsung phones. They might be great for the first couple of months but will start lagging the more you use it with time for some odd reason but hey that's just my personal experience & the common feedback I hear from friends.

You are a very smart person :D

If your basic phone user get an iphone

If you want to customize and use your powerfull phone for other usefull things like xmbc on the go, emulators and torrents then android is the way to go.

I would avoid the s6 and go with a flagship android frpm another manufacturer that supports removable battery and external storage.

An iPhone is too expensive, if they want a basic phone and not care about apps or tied into an ecosystem, any phone works especially Windows Phone.

@FireEmblem_Man: Thank you Sir. :-)

@Legend002:

Could you elaborate more on what you want in a Smart Phone exactly?
What is your current smart phone?

I really don't think playing emulators is a great deal in a smart phone... I mean do you guys really hog in a controller to play your favorite retro-games on a 5" screen? I would dig that on a tablet, but not on a smart phone since battery life is a concern.

@FireEmblem_Man: thats true, i was teting to not sound so anti apple.

If you want features such as non-removable battery & external storage - you will be ending up with a mid-range phone these days. I can understand having a removable battery & SD card slot is a plus 'feature'. But do you really swap batteries often on a daily basis? There are solutions out there for such concerns, such as battery juice packs, and juice pack covers.

Also another + thing with an iPhone is the endless list of accessories that will support your phone. I'm still on my iPhone 5S, & I have a lot of options out there in the market when I want a nice accessory, from phone covers, to juice pack covers, camera support, & things that I don't really care much about really.

I have used various Android phones before switching to an iPhone, & of course there are things Androids does better, but I think an iPhone has the best basic things you'd want on a phone. From screen resolution to a great point & shoot camera.

@bravo632: the lg g3 is high end its removable battery and external storage supported.

I dont swap batteries, i buy one high quality third party battery.

I have a 7500 mah murgen battery im my g3, it lasts for over over 24 hours with some heavy useage.

@thehig1: Mugen batteries are great, no doubt about that.
How's the camera on LG G3 though? My friend's camera cracked easily, & it's always a pain to see the photos he shares with it. He's recently switched to Nexus 6 & is very happy.

I'm using the Mophie Air Juice Pack (100% Extra), which lasts for a full day without issues. Something I like about the iOS is that even with the default battery size (1450mAh?), it tends to not drain battery as quick as Android phones.

If I end up swtiching to an iPhone 6S, I'd most likely go for the 128GB (overkill, I know) but great for a bigger music library.

@Legend002: I would wait a few more months when the next line of phones release.

It's always safer to try out the iPhone first, if it doesn't sit well with you it's pretty convenient that iPhones have legendary value retention. I've managed to upgrade to new iterations for $70 at MOST just by selling the older version.

@bravo632: camera is ok, notnthe best on the market because its quite awkard to get it to focus.

Once it does focus correctly its picture quality is good.

My favourite thing about the g3 is the screen, the screen qaulity is amazing and that resolution.

As i work a lot of saturdays i like to keep up with live football, best way to do that is a portable xbmc device. The lg g3 ks perfect for that.

The S6 Edge I have, and thus including the S6, is the most beautiful combination of software and hardware I've seen yet. It has that beautiful glass sandwich look to it along with the most useful, speedy, and user friendly version of Android to date.

My Note 3's functionality advantages over iOS were tarnished by the slowdown that frequents Samsung phones and Android 4.0 was just ugly compared to iOS, so I seriously started looking to get the iPhone 6. I took the S6 Edge after positive reviews (got it day one) and it feels both light years ahead of the iPhone and Note 3. I still use iOS with my iPod touch and iPad, but there's an immediate jump in quality switching back to my S6 Edge. It's an astonishingly great phone, especially from a company that seemingly just dumped out the crap that was the S5.

Never listen to this guy, he's a full blown fanboy and gives no good advice at all

team samsung for me

I currently am using an Amazon Fire which blows.

@Legend002: ugh, why'd you buy that? That was a failure waiting to happen.

I have never tried Amazon Fire, what is so bad about it? It's not a phone that I'd find released where I live.

@bravo632:The support just isn't there being a fake android device. Not much else is wrong with it but the battery life, really.

Make sure you actually use the device before you buy, Samsung devices use AMOLED which is outstanding compared to anything else, currently. The colours are noticeably better and its easy on your eyes.

TouchWiz is crap, but just get the Google Launcher and its a hell of a lot better in everyway.

Samsung 6 with Nova Launcher. Best choice ever. Much better specs-wise than the iPhone 6 as well.

I used NOVA as my main on my Note 3, but now I use TouchWiz since it blends in beautifully with Android 5.1. Losing that default beautiful clock widget is an irrational defense of keeping it, but on the whole TouchWiz is so much better now.

OnePlus' event is at 10 PM ET tonight, but we've already had some major leaks:

@Legend002 The strength of Apple's ecosystem is hard to beat, so if you've already got Apple stuff, it's a waste to get a smartphone outside that ecosystem. It's worth noting also that Samsung is shedding customers at a rapid pace and failing to grab new ones at the speed of Apple. Something to consider when choosing your next option is that sort of aggregate review of the general Samsung experience.

I disagree, you can jump to any ecosystem you want as ong as you're not too attach to the apps

^ Agree.

Also the Moto X Style & Moto X Play were finally announced yesterday. You may want to have a look:
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Motorola-Moto-X-Style-Moto-X-Play-and-the-new-Moto-G-all-you-need-to-know_id72061

New Lumia Windows 10 phones might be announced in October too.

..that would be the ecosystem I was referring to--all the apps and how they work together. And don't forget to acknowledge Samsung's epic fall as of late. Folks just aren't going back for more Samsung.

Smart. :D

Specs don't tell the entire story. Five years of under specced iPhones outperforming everything else that had double the specs at the time

I've used both Android and iOS devices. There are pros and cons for each. However, I'd recommend iPhone due to stability in performance, better battery management, high quality iTunes apps.

The bolded is bullshit, the last sentence is just reaching for straws. It's pretty comfortable to have devices on both sides.

@Blabadon: Apple's ecosystem is superior. From a multi billion dollar third party industry supplying any kind of accessory or hardware add-on / interface, to more polished multi-platform apps with dev priority to iOS and hundreds of thousands of exclusives, right down to the fact that iOS devices are the only electronic devices that retain their value long after purchase., and even more so that the environment in iOS is secure and private to the point it really irritates the FBI and certain governing bodies and spooks the crap out of marketing firms and ad agencies. Yup, the ecosystem is superior in every way

Also if you have Apple products, it's still okay to go outside of the Apple ecosystem. Because ecosystem doesn't convince me when I'm looking at the sheer quality of my phone and its features, which is where I hate using iOS. As for the topic, I actually laid out why I liked the actual phone better, which is where you're conspicuously (not really) being a fanboy again.

PS

It's not bull, it's an idea that's fairly easy to support.

If you've got an iPhone and an iPad/iPod/Mac and you've purchased apps, music, movies, books, or any other media from Apple's ecosystem, you will enjoy a compatible app and media experience across all of your devices. That also includes handoff support. None of that compatibility is available if you have a Windows or android phone.

"Pretty comfortable" is subjective. Actual compatibility and usability is not.

Now that's a full blown lie! I have an Xbox One, Windows 10 PC, and a Window 10 Mobile Phone and I'm able to do all of that seemlessly!

I don't think you fully grasped what I was saying.

If you have an iPhone and have invested in Apple's ecosystem, those items you have purchased won't be directly compatible with a Windows or android phone.

Does that make sense?

I have an Xbox One, fully invested in a Windows Phone (Beta testing Windows 10 Mobile), and have fully invested in building a gaming PC (Which I'll be upgrading soon or build a new one). I have fully invested myself with MS ecosystem since the Xbox 360, since I made all my TV and Movie purchased with Xbox/Zune Video a while back. But I can always jump to Android or iOS whenever I feel like I need a new change in environment. This is why Walled Gardens suck.

I will say I got to try out a Lumia 1520 at best buy it is sick compared to the low end 640 everyone outside of verizon, spint and att has to settle for. Though I wonder I heard verizon phones are unlocked can anyone confirm.

Onto the topic at hand, I'd say go with IOS, expensive I know but it's secure and not splintered like android so you're guaranteed updates when they come out. And like anything else you can make use of third party apps if apple's first party offerings are not to your liking

I have Verizon, sadly they aren't. VZW is the worst when it comes to unlocked phones. I plan on switching to either AT&T or T-Mobile as I plan on getting the new Lumia or Surface Phone when available as VZW and MS don't see eye to eye.

@Blabadon: Controllers? Aaaand a competitive industry for camera interfaces, DJ interfaces, medical interfaces, night vision peripherals, heat vision peripherals, pretty much the only product lines that have over a hundred different case manufacturers, guitar rig extensions, videogame controllers, blood pressure monitors, glucose readers etc. Those are just peripherals and interfaces without getting into the dev priority they enjoy. How long did it take for Android to have the official facebook app after its release on iOS? Two years? How about instagram? A year? What about Vine? iOS devices hves hundreds of different companies competing with each other to build the best accessory, add-on, extension or peripheral. That's the independant multi-billion dollar industry of third party products that back up Apple that no other company enjoys. You can't argue with statistical facts.

iOS devices retain their aftermarket value longest than any electronic device. Google it to find statistics. Amazon's first hit for a 16 Gb iPhone 4S is $200. That's $200 for a nearly 4 year old iPhone. An iPhone 5S? $513. Can you imagine how much an iPhone 6 sells for on craigslist ebay or amazon? Compare to value degredation for older samsung sets. Now we're talking. Now we know who the real bullsh*tter here is.

In light of your beloved vulnerability to StageFright, it's no wonder why you shrug off yet even more statiscal fact as asinine. You have no rebuttal for truth, do you?

This was too easy.

I'm getting very lost with opinions here, are you guys buying phones to play games, run emulators on them?