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Samsung Finally Lands a KO

Products

Samsung Finally Lands a KO

Mobile World Congress – the biggest mobile phone event of the year – has just about come to an end once more. There were the usual upgrades and updates as to be expected, some showstoppers, and even some surprises. We’re delighted to say that Samsung is back in business.

HTC One M9

HTC unveiled its new phone the One M9 and while everything about it is great, it’s not much of an upgrade on the previous model the M8. It has a 5-inch screen, a Qualcomm snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB RAM to keep things snappy. There’s an impressive 20mp camera and the speakers are equipped with Dolby power. It’s clean, it’s fast, it’s an HTC . In recent years the company has a reputation for making solid, speedy phones that are (importantly) designed well. But HTC has not changed much with this device. It’s not innovative. It’s a nice upgrade but not worth it if you have an M8.

HTC hasn’t stopped there though. It also surprised us with the unveiling of its debut wearable – the Grip and its VR headset – the Vive. So while the company has not whipped out a gamechanger with the M9, it has taken action to keep up with the likes of Apple, Samsung, Sony and Microsoft in other areas. HTC isn’t going anywhere yet.

Samsung S6 & S6 Edge

Samsung has always been its own worst enemy. People have complained for years about the low quality design of its phones and finally the South Korean company has listened. Sort of. It’s releasing two phones – the S6 and S6 Edge (we’ll refer to both as S6 unless stated otherwise). The S6 is slim, made from metal and glass and looks great. The S6 Edge is just that – the screen goes right to the edge and down the sides which effectively makes it bezel-less. But the S6’s Gorilla Glass back is not removable, which might anger some customers. It means the battery can’t be changed. They’ve also done away with removable storage and waterproofing. Still, it’s a big improvement from previous models that tried and failed to convince us that plastic was the way forward.

The S6 models will come with 32GB, 64GB and 128GB storage which will be perfectly fine for most users as long as they’re willing to shell out for it. There’s no word on pricing yet but now that Samsung has a premium product, expect premium prices.

Samsung has pulled out the stops with this phone. The screen has a 5.1-inch display and super crisp QHD resolution (four times that of 720p HD, which is what the iPhone 6 has). It has 3GB RAM and a 64-bit octacore processor to really pack a punch. NFC and a fingerprint sensor are also present. The camera is greatly improved upon from the S5 with 16mp and much better low-light performance. Overall the Samsung Galaxy S6 is a huge improvement on the disappointing S5 and 2015 will surely be a competitive year now that Samsung is back in the game.

Of course this wasn’t it for MWC 2015. Check out Huawei’s beautiful smartwatch and its new phone the Y635.