Today was the start of this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain and Samsung made their big announcement about their new Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Samsung announced that both devices would be available in 20 countries on April 10 – the only real news now is when they will be available on your specific carrier. Some of the Canadian carriers have already made announcements – in fact from a Tweet today from WIND Mobile (see below), it looks like WIND Mobile customers will be able to get their device on April 10 and tomorrow we can expect to find out about pre-orders. As usual, no pricing or specifics were given, but we should find out more about Canadian pricing in the next two weeks. We do know that Samsung officials today said that the base 32GB Galaxy S6 will run €699 (US$780) and for the base 32GB Galaxy S6 Edge the cost will be €849 (US$950).
So far, this is the scoop on Canadian carriers: Bell – Pre-registration is now open. TELUS – Pre-orders start March 5th for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Rogers – Confirmed to release both the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. WIND Mobile – Confirmed release of both the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. SaskTel – Confirmed release of both the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Videotron – Pre-orders start March 2nd for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, offering free headphones. The new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge are completely reworked from the ground up – gone is the plastic and dimpled faux leather back and in it’s place is metal and glass. With all of the Galaxy S series changes, the new Galaxy S6 is unmistakably a Samsung. It is still the basic shape and look; it still has a home button – even larger than ever – and still has that beautiful Super AMOLED display.
The frame is completely metal and it has a sealed back made from Gorilla Glass 4 – no more removable battery and no more microSD card for memory expansion. There are now three models to choose from…32GB, 64GB or 128GB…for either the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge. On the front, they upped the display from FHD to QHD with a resolution of 2560 x 1440 with 557 pixels-per-inch (PPI). Inside, gone is the Qualcomm Snapdragon since Samsung decided to use their Exynos 64-bit Octa-Core processor with 3GB of RAM. Samsung made camera adjustments on both sides of the device – the main camera is now 16MP with autofocus, LED Flash and they finally added OIS. The front-facing camera (FFC) was increased to 5MP for excellent selfies and video chats. I mentioned that the home button was not only still there, but larger than ever. There is a reasonable explanation – Samsung removed the fingerprint scanner and inserted a fingerprint sensor in that button, so rather than swiping your finger over the home button, you simply place it on the button and it will read your fingerprint – all very ‘Applish.’ Please give us a holler on our Google+ Page and let us know what you think of the new Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge and if you will be picking one up on WIND Mobile…as always, we would love to hear from you.