The high-res display puts a toll on graphics performance

Apr 1, 2015 14:06 GMT  ·  By

The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge are massive devices which Samsung has spent a lot of time perfecting. Following the Galaxy S5 failure, the Korean tech giant had to go back to the drawing board and completely re-think its next-gen model.

But while on paper the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge pack irresistible specs, they might not translate into equally amazing performances in real life.

The handsets pack a powerful octa-core Exynos 7420 processor on the inside (AnTuTu just said it was the most powerful mobile chip in Q1 2015) and an advanced 5.1-inch display with QHD resolution. But all these amazing features come at a great cost.

Companies like Hauwei have expressed concerns over QHD displays in the past saying they were utterly unnecessary. The company’s CEO claims at some point that 1080p screens are quite enough. On numerous occasions, it has been pointed out that the human eye finds it difficult to distinguish what comes over 300ppi.

So albeit sounding extremely good on paper, a QHD display might prove to be quite useless. More than that, it will end up putting unnecessary strain on the processor and battery inside.

Galaxy S6 gets crushed by the iPhone 6 in GPU tests

AppleInsider performed a bunch of tests on the Galaxy S6 and compared the results with those of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. It found that the Samsung flagship faltered in a major key aspect: GPU performance.

Apple’s latest phones run on a dual-core processor fitted with 1GB of RAM and have often been viewed as faltering in the wake of more “advanced” devices.

But as you can see by looking at the results we've attached below, specs on paper are just a small part of the whole story.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 arrives with an octa-core Exynos processor, 3GB of RAM and fast UFS 2.0 flash memory. But given that this configuration has to support a very demanding QHD display, graphics performance takes a big hit.

Even with 720p and 1080p displays, respectively, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus manage to outperform the new Samsung flagship in this department.

The conclusion of these tests is that the Galaxy S6 falls flat in running GPU intensive apps and games compared to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. This is not to say the Galaxy S6 experience isn't smooth, it’s just that navigating with an iPhone 6 seems to be better.