Galaxy S6 Active - A phone that truly does it all?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,961 words · ~9 min read
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Samsung has really gotten my attention with their S6 lineup first with the edge
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whose Stellar looks unique curved screen and phenomenal camera would have
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captured me as a user if it wasn't for its average at best battery life and now
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with the S6 active it looks like they've addressed my one complaint but is it
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enough for me to switch from the Droid Turbo drop a like on this video by the
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way if you're stoked to see the results from our GPU Boost 2.0 investigation
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with six GTX Titan X graphics cards and
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seeing how they perform against each other under identical
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conditions Intel brings ddr4 to the mainstream with their allnew core i7
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6700k and core i5 6600k processors check
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out the link in the video description to learn more the Galaxy S6 active features
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an 8 core x07 420 processor with a Mali
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t760 GPU 3 gigs of RAM and 32 GB of
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onboard unfortunately non-expandable storage the screen is a beautiful 5.1 in
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Super AMOLED Corning Gorilla Glass 4 covered Affair that boasts a resolution
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of 2560 x440 and infinite contrast since
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the black pixels are actually turned off outright and man I love the screens on
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S6 phones that I've used and above that you'll find a 5 megapixel selfie camera
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to go along with the 16 megap main camera that also records in Ultra hd4
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video sounds pretty familiar right well it should because under the hood the
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Galaxy S6 active is really not very
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different from its siblings a really nice change from previous active SKS
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which toned down the flagship specs of the regular ones in exchange for its
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additional ruggedness which isn't to say it's identical there are some small
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differences like the fact that it's available in only one capacity instead
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of having 64 or 128 gig options and
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cannot be bought pre-equipped with wireless charging and there are some
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major differences like the fact that the active does not feature a fingerprint
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sensor and that it comes equipped with a massive 3500 milliamp battery that's
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enough for even me to get through the day love it once you go big battery
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there's just no going back I mean these days I laugh at people who have Slims
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Sleek phones and big stupid battery banks in their pockets that they have to
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keep them plugged into which I guess leads us into the physical tour doesn't
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it this is a love it or hate it design
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my friends while I personally love the looks I've actually never seen it in
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person without the sexy dbrand skin that those guys put on before they sent it
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over so that weird arctic Camo thing
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never had a chance to bug me and life isn't just about looks anyway what use
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is like a lady who looks looks great but like falls out of your arms every time
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you try to give her a hug and that unfortunately was my experience with the
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S6 active while I never actually did
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drop it The awkwardly positioned multitask button way over here and the
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boxy design not to mention the higher than usual weight made it more difficult
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to manage for my small hands than even phones that are slightly bigger and
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thicker like my daily driver droid turbo
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the good thing is that this particular lady is super duper ruggedly built at
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the back is an ever so slightly raised border around the camera bump with the
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Flash and regrettably rearm mounted speaker being the only other features on
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the back I mean the the speaker's not that bad it's just rearm mounted so
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basically the worst possible position at the front are the hardware home back and
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multitasking buttons that are a huge turnoff for many users but that I
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actually found more convenient than capacitive buttons in this position
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since they're stiff enough to require a fairly
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decisive click so I never accidentally
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pressed them while holding the phone in landscape orientation to watch a movie
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and not much else on the front either around the edges are a micro USB port on
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the bottom supporting quick charge a headphone jack on the top in my
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preferred position a horrible lock
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button on the right that sticks out about 4 miles from the chassis and this
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thing is super easy to press by accident it's a real pain in the butt and until
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you manually disable this function in software it actually hangs up the phone
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if you bump it during a call and then there's also a poorly positioned volume
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rocker seriously it's nearly impossible to hit one without the other with a cool
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multi-function button right above that which acts as a shutter when you're in
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the camera app click and can be
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programmed to perform a variety of other functions with a single press or a hold
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from within the settings menu Neat now what some of you might have noticed is
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that in spite of the S6 active's ip68 dust and water resistance rating of 1
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and2 M for 30 minutes to go along with its salt solar radiation thermal shock
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and vibration resistance I mean hey you might need vibration resistance I'm not
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I'm not judging it has no lame you know
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rubber flaps or anything like that all buttons microphones speakers Jacks and
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even the toolless SIM tray are always
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sealed an implementation that just feels much more trustworthy to me so let's
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talk then about General usage experience well it's a Galaxy S6 with stormtrooper
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armor essentially so generally speaking performance was great the camera is
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magnificent with both the rear and selfie cameras just delivering some
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truly stunning results I mean look at this shot of me sitting in a darkened
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room writing this review on my laptop versus the Droid Turbo another decent
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phone and Touchwiz has improved so much
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that I don't feel like it's a knock against a device anymore so kudos for
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that Samsung but there were a few things that bugged me this time around anyway
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first the S6 active has got an unbelievable amount of bloatware on it
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disable all that stuff before you even set up the phone I mean seriously wild
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tangent games milk video AT&T Navigator
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what is this crap and and and don't tell me in the comments what it is I don't
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care I don't want it on the phone it shouldn't be there another weird thing
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and maybe it's just mine so guys let me know this one in the comments if if your
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experience is different is that double Taps only register like 70 to 80% of the
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time for me when I go really fast which cost a lot of typos in Words with double
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letters for me and then finally we've got a couple of Touchwiz annoyances
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number One never tell me what I can and
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cannot do with the battery life left on my phone Samsung disables the camera
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under 5% causing me to miss a great
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picture opportunity with my baby girl not cool and
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please fix the trusted devices unlock
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like if you have a wearable or something like that you need to press to wake then
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there's no way to disable the stupid swipe to unlock I never noticed on the
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edge because I was always just using the fingerprint reader anyway but this was
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kind of annoying on this phone I have a trusted device so I don't have to have a
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screen unlock which doesn't mean that I don't like the phone the S6 active lives
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up to its name it's a phone for people who use their phone rather than just
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admiring it and while I don't plan to
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switch because I prefer the extra 10%
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greater battery capacity and the gestures of the droid turbo like
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flicking for the flashlight and wiggling for the camera I wouldn't criticize
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anyone for picking up an S6 active instead of a regular S6 as long as they
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know what they're getting themselves into because that is both the appeal of
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Android and it's Achilles heel the S6
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active is just different enough from other Android devices to make it a
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contender for me it's and it's great to have that choice but because it's a
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weird carrier exclusive model and therefore a relatively low volume one it
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is already lagging behind other s6s when
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it comes to software support a problem that's often difficult to properly
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overcome since the more obscure your devices the lower the chance that anyone
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manufacturer or Indie developer will be working on new Android updates for it so
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that makes the answer to should you get one fairly straightforward if you like
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it exactly the way it is then I give it a massive thumbs up in fact I'm
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switching my wife over to it because her 1 m8's battery life and Camera are
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driving her up the wall and for baby owners man this phone is perfect thanks
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to its Stellar camera and durability but if you're expecting it to continue to
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evolve over time then I might not take the plunge speaking of taking the plunge
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head over to dbrand.com Linus active if
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you guys want to learn more about dbrand and the awesome skins that they offer
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for phones game consoles controllers
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laptops all kinds of cool stuff their vinyl skins serve a couple of purposes
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number one is they look great you don't have to get white you can get all kinds
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of different finishes and different colors definitely check out the variety
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uh actually our LG G4 video has a great
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Showcase of all the different finishes on the same phone backing so that's
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pretty cool and the other purpose they serve is additional durability so if
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you're worried about you know uh an incidental drop scratching your phone or
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something like that a vinyl skin only costs a few bucks so if you scratch it
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rip it off replace it it leaves no residue and you can put them on quite
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quickly the last thing that's great about dbrand skins is the fit and finish
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of their vinyl skins they spend a lot of time on the fit and finish and they go
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on absolutely flawlessly so check it out
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that's dbrand.com Linus active it's linked in the video description and uh
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give it a try see if you want to you know personalize one of your your things
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that needs a vinyl WAP cuz that's what they do thanks for watching guys if this
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