Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge User Thread

[bucdenny]

It's a shame people don't realize how little "bars" mean. In most cases, it's completely irreverent to the experience the user will receive.  Indoors at my work, I get 1 "bar" of LTE B41 and still get pings under 80ms and data speeds greater than 15mb.  

"Bars" are practically useless.   

 

The average user doesn't know.  We had many lines that were moved from T-Mobile on our business account, first thing I heard was "why do I always get 1 bar of service?"  They are used to seeing 4-5 bars on T-Mobile which we all know here on S4GRU is inflated. 

[lou99/maximus1987]

The average user doesn't know. We had many lines that were moved from T-Mobile on our business account, first thing I heard was "why do I always get 1 bar of service?" They are used to seeing 4-5 bars on T-Mobile which we all know here on S4GRU is inflated.

Is there a post that explains the bars issue?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ImmerStark]

Is there a post that explains the bars issue?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is a whole thread about it in the Samsung forum on here. Samsung phones seem to be the worst offenders with everything from -100dbm down being 1 bar. As far as we can tell all the Sprint branded phones are guilty of being very overly conservative.

[greenbastard]

Out of the box the device performs very well, better than any previous samsung device....as it should. Touchwiz is still annoying though and its not as fluid as sense.

Its the only thing I actually miss about HTC. Sense just worked very well. Touch Wiz does not.

 

If HTC ever gets their RF performance right, I will jump back in bed with them. Unfortunately I still suffer reception nightmares from my old Evo. Too traumatized to consider HTC in the near future.

[themuffinman]

Its the only thing I actually miss about HTC. Sense just worked very well. Touch Wiz does not.

If HTC ever gets their RF performance right, I will jump back in bed with them. Unfortunately I still suffer reception nightmares from my old Evo. Too traumatized to consider HTC in the near future.

The evo was a long time ago, htc has made some significant improvements since then. When it comes to RF the m8 and especially the m9 performs really well.

[ab30494]

I currently have an S5. And am wondering if it is worth it to upgrade to the s6.

 

I can live without the sd card and removable battery.

[Yuhfhrh]

You lose water resistance and reception. I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade, unless the improved snappiness or looks are important to you.

[greenbastard]

The evo was a long time ago, htc has made some significant improvements since then. When it comes to RF the m8 and especially the m9 performs really well.

I'm not sure if you have both phones, but between the M9 vs the S6...who wins the RF battle in your opinion?

[themuffinman]

I'm not sure if you have both phones, but between the M9 vs the S6...who wins the RF battle in your opinion?

Well each persons miles may very but for me, on band 25, both phones keep about the same signal strength but my s6 edge hold onto the signal longer as it gets weaker where as my m9 would switch to band 26 or even 41 first.  If I am in a band 25 market only then the m9 would drop to 3g before the s6(again in my experience thus far).  The m9 wins on both band 26 and band 41 in any scenario.  Regardless though, based on my use thus far, I don't have any reason to complain about either in every day use but in a market with band 25/26/41 available the m9 is definitely the better option as far as rf goes.

[mmark27]

I currently have an S5. And am wondering if it is worth it to upgrade to the s6.

 

I can live without the sd card and removable battery.

 

As a disclaimer, I haven't made the jump to the S6 and I'm still with my S5.  I have spent several hours with a S6 and a S6 edge, but clearly not what owners here experience.  

 

You see, when I read an article like this: http://www.sammobile.com/2015/05/18/one-month-later-the-samsung-galaxy-s6-edge-revisited/ sure there are things that sound great and sound like an improvement in the S6 over predecessors (ie, camera speed and quality).  However, there are some real red flags here that I take heed as they are things the S5 does and has been doing for ages, therefore, the S6 doesn't sound like the worthy upgrade above and beyond the obvious lack of SD, removable battery, waterproofing, construction.  My main sticking points for flagship behavior with so much processing power and RAM is

 

1) the "multitasking menu can still take a few seconds to open sometimes".  

2) "Multitasking is also an issue thanks to Samsung’s aggressive RAM management algorithm on the S6 and S6 edge. As has been widely discussed online recently, the phones are killing background apps too quickly for some reason, meaning you will see a lot of apps reload when you switch back to them. Browsing was especially an issue – Chrome simply refused to stay in memory after a while, and opening even one app and then switching back to Chrome would sometimes make the page reload. The latest software update has fixed this to some extent, but there’s still some problematic memory management going on in the background."

3) battery life if poor across the board in all reviews/users, especially without the removable battery.

 

Not covered in this article I linked, but discussed ad nauseum here, is 4) the reception losses compared to other phones and even the S5, which is bad in its own right. 

 

Some of these things can be repaired with software fixes, but that's what we said about the S5 and some of them never materialized.  Now the S5 and Note 4 are old news for Samsung as they're focusing on the S6.  I'm a little sour on Samsung lately, that's clear, I really think they've got too many devices, versions, carriers that they deal with.

[deonlove916]

I'm just wondering if anyone else experienced this. I had my gs6 for about a week and when I took a selfie in low light there were 2 bluish/purple dots. Its only in low light you can see them.

[Adam G]

About once a day the clock on my phone is about an hour ahead of the time it should be.  I reboot and it's back to the correct time.

 

I'd assume it was just something Android/Sprint based but it happens on my GF's N4 as well.  It didn't happen on my N6 or N5.

[Jeff68005]

My sister obtained a Samsung Galaxy S6 last week.  She indicates battery life in real world terms was very unsatisfactory.

[Cjerel313]

Had the S6 for about 2 weeks now and battery life for me has been great. Granted I always keep power saving mode on and use ultra power saving when at work when I need to call or text. Took off the charger at 5:30am and I'm at 12% now at 10:06

[Cjerel313]

[mmark27]

Had the S6 for about 2 weeks now and battery life for me has been great. Granted I always keep power saving mode on and use ultra power saving when at work when I need to call or text. Took off the charger at 5:30am and I'm at 12% now at 10:06

That's the opposite of great battery life. That's horrendous.

 

sent from an underwater dust storm from my Sprint S5

[derrph]

That's the opposite of great battery life. That's horrendous.

 

sent from an underwater dust storm from my Sprint S5

What is great battery life to you? To him that's great. Honestly battery life is subjective based on the individuals needs. For me, as long as my s6 lasts from the time I wake up until bedtime (which it does) I am satisfied.

[mmark27]

What is great battery life to you? To him that's great. Honestly battery life is subjective based on the individuals needs. For me, as long as my s6 lasts from the time I wake up until bedtime (which it does) I am satisfied.

 

yes, I know it's subjective, but to have to cripple your phone with ultra power saving modes for long stretches of the day as he did, just to make it to 10pm?  That's not "great" battery life.  If he's fine with that procedure, then more power to him, but I'm not sure anyone would consider that "great".  Great battery life would be to have the phone last that long in the day without using any battery saver tricks.  I would very impressed with that performance. 

[optimummind]

 

What's your SOT?

 

Sent from my SM-G925P using Tapatalk

[smorcy11]

Had the S6 for about 2 weeks now and battery life for me has been great. Granted I always keep power saving mode on and use ultra power saving when at work when I need to call or text. Took off the charger at 5:30am and I'm at 12% now at 10:06

That's all you got while in power saving mode all day?

[Cjerel313]

To eaches own I guess. In my opinion a phone with 8 cores and a quad hd screen thats pretty Damn good. But maybe that's just me. If I can go 12+ hours without charging thats great battery life. And this was a mix of power saving mode and ultra saving mode

[Cjerel313]

Just so every one knows it was from 530am to 10pm

[Cjerel313]

yes, I know it's subjective, but to have to cripple your phone with ultra power saving modes for long stretches of the day as he did, just to make it to 10pm? That's not "great" battery life. If he's fine with that procedure, then more power to him, but I'm not sure anyone would consider that "great". Great battery life would be to have the phone last that long in the day without using any battery saver tricks. I would very impressed with that performance.

It was regular power saving mode mostly. Only used ultra when at work. Even without it I can still get 8 to 10 hrs with light use

[chappo2000]

Is anyone else NOT able to download the new update for the Galaxy S6? I get an "unable to update due to a network or server error." This is true for wifi, Auto, LTE, and CDMA only.

 

My phone last checked for an upgrade 5/9/15. I have the dropped call issue when I'm driving bad.

 

I see others have the same issue but I'm unable to find a solution. At last resort, I'll have to go to the dreaded Sprint store, where factory resets are plentiful.

[TaiKing]

Is anyone else NOT able to download the new update for the Galaxy S6? I get an "unable to update due to a network or server error." This is true for wifi, Auto, LTE, and CDMA only.

 

My phone last checked for an upgrade 5/9/15. I have the dropped call issue when I'm driving bad.

 

I see others have the same issue but I'm unable to find a solution. At last resort, I'll have to go to the dreaded Sprint store, where factory resets are plentiful.

 

If you haven't done it and are able to you might try using Samsung's Smart Switch PC app that replaced Kies to see if it will let you update it through there.