This year’s MWC gave us both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and its more exotic sibling, the Galaxy S6 Edge, but beyond ‘looking cool’ Samsung claims the new flagship’s curved screen was born out of a desire to curb social faux pas.
It’s an interesting, albeit strange, approach to addressing a matter that is becoming more prevalent day by day. With so many small-screened devices demanding a slice of our time, knowing where and when we should and shouldn’t be checking them is proving increasingly difficult to ascertain.
We’ve already spent some serious time with the Galaxy S6 Edge and given it our full review treatment. The dual edge 5.1-inch QHD AMOLED screen is easily its best feature, but whilst the initial ‘wow’ factor is hard to miss, Samsung might have a harder time convincing consumers that those curves serve any real benefit over conventional flat-screened phones. That might in fact be why it’s pushing out research statistics highlighting the benefits of the phone’s ‘people edge’ feature.
According a study conducted by Samsung’s own productive innovation teams across the US, UK, Germany, France and South Korea and average 76 per cent of smartphone users consider it rude to check their phones during a face-to-face conversation, but at the same time people want to be contacted by select contacts in emergency situations.
In case you missed it, people edge uses the curved part of the phone’s screen to shine a coloured light, assigned to one of five contacts in your address book when the phone is face down. You can even tap the heart rate sensor on the phone’s back to send a prewritten message to whomever is contacting you should you be unable to take their call there and then.
It seems like a smart feature, but it’s still only one relatively small justification for making a phone with a curved screen, especially when such fresh technology will undoubtedly push the price tag of the S6 Edge far above the equivalent vanilla S6.
At the phone’s launch Samsung’s representative’s simply marked the release of to variations on a theme as the company’s ongoing effort to give consumers greater choice, but we’re still not sure if there’s enough of a reason to buy a curved smartphone. The LG G Flex and G Flex 2 as well as the Galaxy Note Edge, and now S6 Edge are all interesting handsets to pick up and play, but it would appear there’s still more that can be done with the technology the manufacturers aren’t yet leveraging.
What would you like to see a curved smartphone do? Let us know in the comments below and check out our full Galaxy S6 Edge review.
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