By 
We know the Samsung Galaxy S6 is a fast phone. It damn well better be. Coming equipped with a new 14nm 64-bit Exynos 7 octa-core chipset and 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM — this phone should be screaming fast. That, and the fact that Samsung has trimmed much of the fat on TouchWiz, without a doubt it’s got to be quicker than the previous model, even if it has to push 34% more pixels than the Galaxy S5.
But how much faster is it? Well, that’s a little harder to quantify. But in an effort to better illustrate the speed we felt in our time with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, we decided to give you guys a quick demo showing off how quickly the Galaxy S6 opens apps when compared against its predecessor, the Galaxy S5.
While there are all sorts of variables, we tried to keep things as fair as possible. Here’s what we did before speed testing:
- Both devices running Android 5.0 Lollipop
- Both devices were freshly factory reset
- All background apps were closed
That being said, it’s still fun to experiment. One thing we wanted to point out was that, despite both devices were running Android 5.0 Lollipop, Samsung has 2 very different versions of TouchWiz: the S5 with the still laggy version (maybe even laggier due to Lollipop), and the S6 with the newly overhauled version. This is only a year after Samsung debuted a refreshed TouchWiz for the Galaxy S5, a version very different than its predecessors, (and many of Samsung’s older devices were never updated to). Talk about Android fragmentation.
Before we get too off topic, TouchWiz on the Samsung Galaxy S6 — with its much higher res assets and all new features — barely saw a 1GB jump in system memory (6.62GB) when compared against TouchWiz on the Galaxy S5 (5.46GB). Looks like Samsung really did trim some of the fat, or at least kept it from gaining too much weight. Well, before carriers like Verizon get their hands on this thing.
That being said, you guys convinced yet the Galaxy S6 is adequately faster than the Galaxy S5? As an owner of the S5 (and regretting life after the recently rolled out Lollipop update on Verizon), I can safely say the S6 Edge can’t get here fast enough.
Cool stuff. Of course this is cool for out of the box type of assessment. For the rest of us Android freaks who do all kinds of stuff once the wrapper comes off this test would be purely subjective.
I think it’s still relevant. If you’re painting on a canvas you’ll end up covering the entire canvas with paint, but that doesn’t mean the quality of the canvas itself is irrelevant.
Astute metaphor sir. You need a strong foundation to start work on right?
Not sure why anyone cares about milliseconds :)
There has been reports of suicide attempts because of milliseconds lol as humans we want faster. would rather watch Usain bolt run then watch oprah run. Im still going to keep my s5 for awhile. god damn milli’s
Yeah, the S6 is nice but I’m with you. Wait 6 months until the price drops or pick up a used one at half the price.
Milliseconds are the difference between interacting with the screen and interacting with the phone. If response is slower, you’re attention is on the input, if the response is fast, your attention is on what you’re doing.
Well worded.
But if the person is dominant right or left handed, that was not controlled for :)
This guy is way overly amused at the results… “oh ho ho oh my God”.
Pretty snappy! My S5 is now my work phone, and my Moto X Pure Edition is sooooo much faster :)
But I bet the S5 has much better battery life. Motox battery life is terrible.
It did at first, but even that with touchwiz bloat ware, it was down to 35% with normal usage when I went to bed. Good but not spectacular. My moto X is giving me about the same usage at this point, we’ll see 3 months from now.
…and Moto X camera is subpar.
I dunno. It’s faster but not hundreds of dollars faster. With the graphic goodies turned on that gap REALLY closes a bit. The question is: With the new resolution, can you HONESTLY see the difference? I’m guessing not! Imagine how fast that phone would have been at standard resolutions! I mean really, besides a tech spec, what’s the point of higher resolution on a 5″ screen that’s already HD? UHD isn’t even mainstream yet.
Yea the new resolution is pointless. Of course the OLED display is pentile so the sub-pixel density could use a bump, however no one is gonna see the difference between 1080p or 1440p on a 5.1″ display. It’s a waste of processing power and battery life for the most part.
Even the 5.7 inch QHD Amoled of the Note 4 uses up to 40% less power than most 5 inch 1080p LCDs. Even 10-20% less the 5.1 inch 1080p Amoled version of the S5.
This should have improved further. Especially being 5.1 inch vs 5.7.
But it’s there. Use the S6 for a while and then the S5 and you will know the difference. Plus there are other differences. Graphics is quite a b it ahead and power consumption should have decreased quite a bit.
And most people said the same thing about 1080p. Plus it’s also very useful for their Gear VR
Just app loading isn’t much of a test, the new 14nm SoC should be beast. I’d like to see a difference comparing downloading and opening large emails, loading large apps/games and loading websites.
Also just the overall responsiveness and speed of Touchwiz is atrocious, it would be nice to see a thorough test to see if that has improved.
I definitely agree with the loading webpages, that’s important!
Responsiveness and speed of Touchwis is far from atrocious. Others are just a little smoother by offering nothing to gain that tiny edge.
If you were right then isheep would be right when they say the same thing about Android or stock in general.
Just because they run a restricted app launcher and it can appear to be a little smoother Android is supposedly nothing but laggy.
And that’s not even a true painting of the whole picture.
Factory reset on the S5 worked wonders for me. I always do it with upgrade assistant on the pc. It seems to get better results.
This is one test for stock to stock, opening a few things but you root and rom the S5 and then test TouchWiz free and it’s MUCH faster. Now doing the same on the S6 will also improve it of course but the gap will be much closer as the hardware is comparable.
Anyone that claims the S5 is laggy is just a fool looking for attention
you haven’t used one without lollipop then. gotta agree with chris about it, thought don’t know about any extra hell verizon might if gave. While the software looks nice, performance is absolute hell, makes it seem like a phone with half it’s power
Not everyone with Lollipop has faced these issues. And Lollipop actually gave it better battery life too.
Plus as far as lollipop bugs go some people from numerous devices have faced issues.
And that’s not what’s being claimed. It’s the same old Touchwiz is worst laggiest thing to grace the Earth claims. If Touchwiz is that bad compared to stock Android then when Isheep say the same thing about stock Androic compared to ios it’s true.
I think it depends on what your definition of ‘lag’ is. Some people will fire up a resource-heavy web site, start scrolling by flicking their fingers up and down as fast as they can, and if there’s even a hint of stutter, they throw the phone down in disgust and call it a lagfest. (Yes, I’ve actually seen this happen first-hand.)
That would be the general case. All phones and Os’s have some form of lag, crash, hiccup. This is technology. This is reality.
Others like Sense are slightly smoother by being nothing. It’s no different then all the isheep saying that iOS is super silky why Android is laggy because iOS is a bare-bones glorified app launcher.