The Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are not only Samsung's best ever phones, they are also the best Android phones on the market. And that's no small feat for Samsung when there are some amazing Android devices out there.
Buy either device and you'll be really happy. A lot of the decisions have to come down to money though, and the ultimate choice you're going to have is budget-dependent, and there's a huge number of deals and tariffs out there.
The S6 is cheaper
As a rule, unless you get some sort of amazing special offer, the S6 will be the cheaper phone to buy. The added cost of the curved edge on the S6 Edge means that it attracts a higher price before you've even thought about what sort of storage capacity you want.
And that's the crux of it really, because the extra cost of owning the Edge would probably be better spent on getting a higher-capacity S6. After all, there's no microSD card slot on the S6 and that means you need to get enough storage space for your needs over the next two years.
When you think about music and apps as well as photos and videos from the camera, you realise that there's potential to run out of space on the entry-level 32GB capacity - even though it's pretty generous.
There's also another reason to go cheaper - your phone tariff. After all, most people are paying for a certain number of calls, texts and - most crucially - data. Any smartphone user needs a good amount of data.
If you want to watch Netflix or YouTube videos, stream music and similar then you need to get more than 1GB of data per month, and that's going to cost you. It may be better to invest that money you saved getting the S6 instead of the Edge in more 4G.
The Edge is for design, with a couple of extra practical uses
As nice as the S6 Edge is from a design perspective, there are a couple of things it does from a more practical point of view.
Most of this extra functionality though comes from a fairly small group of features. The first is a small, and subtle tab that sits on the edge screen. Drag this in and you get a compact menu, into which you can store the contact details of your five favourite people. This is a good way of getting in touch, but bear in mind Samsung doesn't allow you to use this system to send, say, a WhatsApp message.
Another reason to assign these favourites is that when you put the phone face down on the table, if one of them calls, you will see a pulse of colour running down the edge of the screen. The idea here is that you can see who is calling without picking the phone up. If you don't want to answer, cover the heart rate sensor and the phone will switch the ringer off.
The final purpose of the edge screen is to offer status, time and weather updates. To get to this you have to give the edge a little wipe along its length. When you do this it will display the time, and let you see news headlines and any notifications. Although, again, this is all limited to Samsung services, which is a bit of a shame as an open API for it would be pretty cool.
Advice for either phone
Gold is an amazing colour on the S6 and Edge, but remember this - it is an utter fingerprint magnet. That's not to say you shouldn't get one, because they are lovely, but do prepare yourself for a lot of cleaning with a microfibre cloth. At the moment, the gold handset isn't widely available.
It's really, really, really cool that you can charge the S6 with a wireless charger out of the box. If you have some extra money, it's well worth getting the Samsung charger. Some shops were offering these free if you pre-order, and we'd bet money that you could talk your provider into including one as part of the deal.
You might also want to consider a case. Don't forget that for the first time, these two phones both feature glass on both the front and on the back. That spells doom if you drop it, no matter how tough the glass is, so you might also want to consider a case.
Despite the curved design of the Edge, there are still some decent case options. Samsung even makes one that's pretty good, although it does add bulk and yet more fingerprints.
Conclusion
So there you have it, either of these phones is a great choice. The Edge is the nicer looking phone, and by far the biggest leap in mobile design for a long time. But that said, the advantages of buying it over the S6 are small.
If you're not minted, our advice is to go for the S6 and spend the money you save on a bit more memory - 64GB ideally - and some extra data from your service provider. If you are minted, get the 128GB S6 Edge in platinum gold, because it's lush.
