Many of us still have the events and devices of Mobile World Congress on the mind, and carriers in the United States are in that group too. What carriers bank and make bank on is the sale and branding of the hottest, newest devices. The devices in question today are Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge and HTC’s One M9. The big blue carrier, AT&T, is up to their usual antics with marketing, hoping you’ll invest in some AT&T-branded hardware. So, what’s in the videos?
There are a few videos in all, and they’ll be linked at the bottom if you want to watch them yourself, but we’ll sum them up. The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge feature Samsung’s most visually-stunning and different design language to date, as well as the top-end specifications we’d expect from a spring flagship from the South Korean giant. With the Exynos 7420 64-bit octa-core processor, Android 5.0 Lollipop, with a Samsung Touchwiz overlay, looks to add a bunch of features to battery management and the camera experience, with wireless charging, quick charging, and hardware-assisted OIS back-facing camera. The Galaxy S6 Edge, with its edge display, allow sleek features like edge-glow for call notifications, quick contact access for your five favorite or most frequently contacted people, and the ability to get various news and updates with a swipe across the edge display without the need to get into your phone.
The HTC One M9, on the other hand, is all about style and design, getting no mention of specifications except for the camera. The phone features the now-popular sleek metal design of the M8, rounded and smoothed even further. It’s got those class-trumping front-facing Boomsound speakers to get people that love not having to integrate headphones into the sound of what they’re doing. And, of course, it’s got the now-themeable HTC Sense 7 overlay on top of the unmentioned Android 5.0 Lollipop. The new themes feature is pretty spiffy, allowing for automatic wallpaper-based color detection to color and let you choose between various options of customization for your home screens and Blink Feed. HTC’s new Uh-Oh program is also discussed, offering a replacement within the first year of ownership, and a discount on your next One device if you don’t use it.
The prices, shockingly, aren’t mentioned, but they’re likely just about what you’d expect them to be on a carrier with subsidies involved. The Galaxy S6 and One M9 will likely set you back, with a contract (because contracts are all the rage right now, obviously) $200, while the Galaxy S6 Edge will cost an extra hundred on top of that, obviously with a contract as well. April 10 is the day that all this is supposed to be getting under way, so who’s looking forward to seeing the spring lot of flagships hit U.S. and global shores and shelves? Which flagship will you be picking up, or waiting for if it hasn’t ‘officially’ been released yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWEDJL9nQnQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZCjNJFrJZo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLX9lO5ICRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEtrBZFu3G0