Samsung has announced a bigger version of its stunning Galaxy S6 edge smartphone during an event in London, where the successor to its Note 4 was also unveiled.

The Galaxy S6 edge Plus will take pride of place as the new flagship phablet for Samsung after it revealed that the Note 5 wouldn't be made available in the UK to begin with. It's 0.6-inches bigger than the S6 edge, but with the same design.

Does it offer enough to convert more people to the large smartphone camp with bigger and better specs? Or does the S6 edge hold its own to keep people in the normal size smartphone camp? We have crunched the numbers and compared the specs to see how the Galaxy S6 edge Plus and Galaxy S6 edge differ, apart from in their size.

The Galaxy S6 edge Plus is bigger and heavier but slimmer

The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge measures 142.1 x 70.1 x 7mm, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Plus measures 154.4 x 75.8 x 6.9mm. As you would expect, the Plus is larger, although it is slimmer, even if only by 0.01mm, which absolutely won't be noticeable.

The S6 edge weighs 132g in comparison to the S6 edge Plus that hits the scales at 153g, but this will come as no surprise to most and 153g is still pretty light in phablet territory.

In terms of design, the S6 edge Plus and the S6 edge are identical. They both feature all-metal builds, a dual-edge display and fingerprint sensor. The S6 edge Plus comes in white, black and gold, while the S6 edge is available in white, black, gold and green colour options.

The Galaxy S6 edge Plus has a bigger display, but the S6 edge is sharper

The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Plus has a 5.7-inch dual-edge Super AMOLED display, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge features a 5.1-inch dual-edge Super AMOLED display.

They also both opt for a QHD resolution, which means the S6 edge will offer sharper, crisper images thanks to the extra pixels packed in per inch. The S6 edge Plus has a pixel density of 515ppi while the S6 edge has a whopping 577ppi, which is one of the sharpest smartphone displays out there.

We thought the S6 edge display was highly detailed and looked fantastic for the most part when we reviewed it, ensuring ultra-crisp text and images. The colours were punchy and bright thanks to the AMOLED display and we'd expect a similar experience from the S6 edge Plus.

Same camera on board both the S6 edge Plus and the S6 edge

You can expect a very similar camera experience on the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge and the Samsung Galaxy edge Plus as both feature a 16-megapixel rear snapper and 5-megapixel front snapper.

Both also opt for an aperture of f/1.9 on the two cameras and there is HDR and OIS on board the two handsets. There is also voice control, GPS location tags, grid lines for rule-of-thirds composure assistance, and a bunch of filter effects which can be applied pre- or post-shooting.

We thought the S6 edge's camera did a good job overall, particularly in good light. The f/1.9 aperture lens was fast, letting in lots of light and the interface is quick and easy to use, with speedy autofocus and face-detection, so we'd expect similar if not better from the S6 edge Plus.

Galaxy S6 edge Plus has a bigger battery capacity and more RAM, but less storage

The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge and the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Plus both have a 64-bit octa-core Exynos chip under their hoods, made up of four 2.1GHz cores and four 1.5GHz cores. The S6 edge Plus is supported by 4GB of RAM however, while the S6 edge is supported by 3GB.

Neither offer microSD support for storage expansion, so the Galaxy S6 edge is the device that offers the biggest storage capacity. The S6 edge is available in 64GB and 128GB models while the S6 edge Plus comes in 32GB and 64GB.

The S6 edge Plus wins back the points when it comes to battery capacity though, with a 3000mAh battery compared to the S6 edge's 2600mAh. We weren't overly impressed with the battery life on the S6 edge when we reviewed it so hopefully the extra 400mAh will help, even if there is more screen to power.

Same software experience

Both the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge run on Android Lollipop with the Samsung TouchWiz interface on top.

With the edge devices, you get specific apps that take advantage of the curved display, coupled with the usual software experience from a normal Samsung device.

There won't be a great deal of difference between these two devices at all as they are both Samsung, and both edge, so it should be the same experience.

Conclusion

The Samsung Galaxy S6 edge Plus has a bigger display and a bigger but slimmer body, as well as a larger battery capacity and 1GB more RAM. Aside from that though, it's pretty much the same as the S6 edge, only its display isn't as crisp and the storage tops out at 64GB instead of 128GB.

The S6 edge holds its own, while the S6 edge Plus makes an already great device just a little bigger. The decision between these two doesn't come down to specs, design or software - it comes down to whether you want a smartphone or a phablet.

 

Related read: Samsung Galaxy S7 edge review: The new smartphone champion