Cracked my S4-Active and decided to just upgrade it instead of fix it. Figured that sharing my thoughts on this phone might help some people out who are phone shopping sometime soon. I didn't find too much analysis online before I shopped so thought I'd share my findings here.
I looked at the S6, S6-Active, S6 Edge, and LG G4 when shopping.
Look/feel
This phone looks awesome, very slick. Clearly well-made with good materials. The rolled-edge screen is very attractive looking. I liked the looks of this phone better than the others I looked at. This phone has a generous 5.1" screen but the unit is not too big - unlike the LG G4, which boasts 5.5" but approaches phablet-like size and was too much for me.
I had it narrowed down pretty quickly to the Edge or the S6-Active. One of the reasons I picked the Edge over the Active is it just looks and feels nicer, and is a tad smaller/thinner/lighter.
Interface
Samsung really did some cool stuff with themes in this version of Touchwiz (their Android UI). There is a theme store where you can choose from several free custom themes and apply them to your device. Overall things feel way cleaner than they did with the S4. I think Samsung's UI looks AND functions better than LG's does with the Lollipop version of Android, which both of those phones run. Touchwiz also allows you do some app split-screening, which I haven't found too much of a practical use for yet but it seems cool in theory. There are also some cool new interface functions within ActiveSync email, if you have your device synced to a company email like I do.
Screen
Definite win for the S6 family here. Colors are better, screen is brighter. The G4's screen is bigger and looks just fine, but there is a noticeable difference in maximum brightness.
Processor Speed
I'm not a hardware guy, so I'm not going to get into the jargon here. But this phone is blazing fast, as was the LG G4. If you're thinking about upgrading from a previous version of Galaxy you will notice an immense speed difference.Camera
The G4 wins here, their new camera is basically unparalleled. I am not really an artsy type though and the whole family of S6's have a very respectable camera. No complaints there.
Battery
The S6-Active has a much bigger/better battery than the Edge, which made this a pretty difficult decision between those 2. However I have been pleasantly surprised at the battery life on the Edge. I haven't charged it since last night, and I have been listening to music, playing words with friends, texting, on the phone, etc all day, and I'm still at 30%.
One thing the Edge has that the Active doesn't is built-in wireless charging technology. So mine came with a charge pad, which is a pretty cool feature.
All of the S6's have power-saving mode and a new ultra power-saving mode, which is a cool feature. It turns your phone to gray-scale and kills all background apps. All you have is phone, internet, and messages. But if I slip into UPS mode right now I will go up to like 24 hours of standby time left from here. The S6's also come with fast-charging mode, which I haven't tried out yet but supposedly gets you to 50% in under 30 minutes without having to go into airplane mode.
"Edge" Functionality
Most of us have seen these commercials and know basically what it does. You can set up 5 contacts as your Edge contacts. When you receive/miss a call or get a text from them, it lights the edge of the phone up with the color code you assign to that contact. This is one of those features that sounds neat but isn't really all that useful. I mean, how often is your phone face down when you get a call, and how often do you need to know who that person is without flipping the phone right-side up? It looks pretty cool though.
One cool thing you can also do is tap the heart rate monitor on the back of the phone if one of your edge contacts is calling, and it sends a pre-set message. This is actually a pretty useful feature.
You can also set up tickers to run on the edge screen (stocks, sports scores, news, etc). When your screen is off you can swipe your finger on the edge screen and it runs the ticker for a pre-selected number of minutes with no activity.
One other thing I've noticed that is nice about the Edge screen is that vertically scrolling on websites without accidentally touching the text is a little easier.
There is a downside to the Edge screen though, words kind of "fall off" the edge when reading articles. It's so minor it's not a big deal, but will take a little getting used to.
Durability
I would be remiss not to mention the second main advantage of the Active (besides the battery life). It is a far more rugged-looking phone. It's water-resistant and the Edge is not. So if you are between these 2 phones and you are tough on your device, the Active might be the logical choice.
Overall
All these phones are superb. To me, Samsung is doing better things with Lollipop right now, and their phones look and feel better, so that rules out the LG G4. I might pick the G4 though if I was some kind of photography buff.
Within the Samsung S6 family, the advantages of the Active are battery life and durability. The Edge looks nicer and has the Edge functionality. Your call, I don't think you can wrong either way. Really no point in just getting the original version of the S6, unless the rolled-edge screen bothers you but you don't like the bulkier look of the Active.
Hope this all helped at least someone. Let me know if you have any questions.
