Android Circuit: Galaxy S6 On Sale March 22, Nexus vs. Note, S6 Edge Is Fastest Android Smartphone

Taking a look back at the week’s news across the Android world, this week’s Android Circuit highlights a number of stories including all of Samsung’s leaks around the Galaxy S6 and three-sided S6 Edge, the Sony Xperia Z4 leak, phablets fight it out, Android’s crash rate beating iOS, Microsoft and Samsung team up, who’s using Android Wear, the dates for I/O 2015, and OnePlus loves Tuesdays.
Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android over the last seven days (and you can read the weekly Apple news digest here).


A Leaky Samsung Reveals Almost Everything About The New Galaxy Handsets
While we all know the date of Samsung’s presentation at MWC, and the expected reveal of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, what’s not been talked about is the street date for the two handsets… Until now. A recent leaks from Samsung on ‘blackout’ dates for staff holidays suggest a two-stage release:

The dates in question are March 22-30th and April 19-27th. And this is where everything starts to fit nicely in place:
A March announcement for the phones followed by late March and late April vacation blackouts nicely tallies with the company’s release strategy last year with the Galaxy S5. Again announced at Mobile World Congress, then held in late February, the handset went on sale on 11 April. A gap of seven weeks. The gap between Mobile World Congress 2015 (March 2-5th) and Samsung’s two vacation blackout dates: three weeks and seven weeks. Pegging the phone launch for 19-27 April therefore makes sense.

The two dates could suggest a split release of the handsets (with the slightly easier to manufacture Galaxy S6 coming out first), or a geographical split, with Samsung releasing first of all in its home territory of South Korea, with the rest of the world to follow.
With the volume of leaks rising this week, it has been possible to build up an almost complete picture of the handsets. The names ‘Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge were confirmed via the support pages of Samsung’s own website and then backed up with trademark applications for the names; and imagery of the handsets show the new iPhone-esque look (albeit with a hideous camera).
Most importantly in my mind though are the AnTuTu benchmarking scores for the Samsung S6 Edge. The CPU and GPU combination in the handset with three edges to the screen give the S6 Edge the moniker of ‘the world’s fastest Android smartphone‘.

I’ll be interest to see if Samsung has any surprises left for us during the presentation in Barcelona. The UI of the handset might be one, with a reworked TouchWiz partnering with Android 5.0 Lollipop. I’ve taken a look at the options open to Samsung when I reviewed Android Lollipop on the Galaxy S5.
Sony’s Z4 Is Only A Small Step Forward, Whenever It Is Revealed
While the jury is out on Sony unveiling the presumptively titled Xperia Z4 smartphone at MWC, online benchmarking site Geekbench has spotted the Z4 model come through the site. The resulting benchmark shows a handset with remarkable similarity to the Xperia Z3 (reports Android Geeks).
It sidesteps the rush to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, instead staying with the 801 (presumably because of the same production issue plaguing other Android manufacturers), graphics come from an Adreno 430 GPU, and it’s all backed up with 3 GB of RAM.

In other words, not that much different from the Z3. It’s likely that the Z4 was part of the six-month production cycle that Sony started out with. The move to a 12-month cycle means dropping a handset somewhere down the line and this Z4 could easily be the casualty, as the depleted Sony smartphone team waits for the Snapdragon 810 and targets a September release.

Phablet On Phablet Action
If you discount the 5.5 inch screen on the iPhone 6 Plus, the phablet space is one that Android still performs incredibly well in, especially when you reach the six-inch screen size. Samsung’s Note 4 range has had the most success, but the launch of the Nexus 6 created a strong challenger to the throne.
Forbes’ Gordon Kelly puts both handsets into the comparison ring to see if there’s a clear winner in a fair phablet fight, starting with the screen:

That said, for me, the Note 4 edges it… A few years ago this would’ve been a ludicrous claim as Samsung screens were famed for oversaturated colours. But it has since done an about turn while Motorola is the one slightly over egging the pudding here. Of course this comes down to individual preference (some prefer exaggerated colours and Samsung settings allow users to revert to its more extreme colour palette), but for me it gives the Note 4 the win.
Despite this, the Nexus 6 screen remains a stunner and no owner will be disappointed, especially given its extra size. Then again I agree with DisplayMate: the Note 4 currently has the best smartphone display on the market, even beating out the LG G3 and iPhone 6 Plus.

You can read the full review here on Forbes.
Android Crash Rates Lower Than iOS
According to data gathered by the team behind performance management software Crittercism, Android Lollipop is one of the most stable mobile operating systems currently on the market (reports Android Authority). The crash rate is just 2.0%, nine percent lower than iOS’s current rate of 2.2%.
Of course smartphones can crash for various reasons, so the focus here should be less on the number, but more on the relationship and the relative performance of the various software platforms using the same methodology.
While Lollipop crash rate is an improvement over previous versions of Google’s mobile operating system (2.6%), the team also note that iOS has actually become less stable with the new release – iOS 7′s crash rate was just 1.9%.