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It’s that time of the year again; the technology behemoth Samsung has released a truly beautiful product – which seems strikingly similar to one from their former flagship range, albeit slightly larger – turning the world of gadget commentary into a shaken kaleidoscope awash with excitement.

Samsung have continued to produce smartphones of an extremely high calibre; the original S6 is close to taking the bragging rights from the iPhone 6 and the 6 plus as the world’s number 1 selling smartphone, and the S6 Edge is not far behind. The importance and influence of the brand cannot be overstated. Companies like HTC are producing great phones such as the extremely popular M8 and M9 devices, and although those who take the plunge and buy in on the Taiwanese tech will usually not regret it, the fact is, companies like Samsung and Apple have huge market monopolisation, and for good reason.

Samsung have contributed hugely to the advance we have seen in smartphone technology over the last few years, and their most recent products demonstrate just how far they have travelled since their early smartphone days.

But just how innovative is this new development?

Externally, very little seems to have changed; the metal and gorilla glass body is still the same (this isn’t particularly an issue, as it looks glorious), the buttons haven’t changed positions, and compared to the original S6, which has an internal memory capacity of up to 128gb, the new Edge Plus is limited to up to 64gb, still without the option of expandable memory. Is it really just an S6 that has been placed on a rack and stretched?

Absolutely not.

There are a number of brilliant new features with the phone that are unquestionably a large improvement on its predecessor, and really push Samsung ahead of the competition.

For starters, the new phone boasts 4GB of RAM compared to 3GB on the smaller phone, allowing for users to enjoy a more efficient and speedy phone (and lessening the need for users to filter through tonnes of advertised ‘task-killer’ apps). The new phone also has a larger battery than the original S6, though – similar to most flagship 2015 phones – it is non-removable, which is still a slight frustration.

On the topic of the battery, Samsung have been raving about the way in which its phone can be charged. The S6 Edge could be charged wirelessly, but now Samsung are flaunting the fact that the Edge Plus can take advantage of ‘fast-wireless’ charging. This may seem somewhat trivial, but if the claims that the wireless charging can bring the battery to 100 percent within two hours are found to be true, then this is quite a technological advancement; though how useful wireless charging actually is remains to be seen.
Samsung are also excited about the Plus’s new ‘People Edge’ and ‘Apps Edge’ features, which enable users to create a list of their favourite apps/contacts, which is accessible, even when the user is not on the home screen. This is a helpful development, however, multitasking has been around for a while, and though this new component may help the user save seconds when then have an urgent need to open Candy Crush, or call home, like other features on the phone, one cannot help but think that these things are included purely as a novel selling point to prevent the edge plus just being labelled as the larger brother of the original s6 edge.

One other feature Samsung has introduced that has pricked the ears of many tech-geeks (myself included), is the introduction of live broadcasting. Where some negative commentators may be sceptical of some of the new phone’s features, and comment that this broadcast feature draws many parallels to Twitter’s ‘Periscope’, I believe this really is a brilliant step. Samsung have struck a deal with online video streaming titan, YouTube. Unlike live video-streaming apps like Meerkat and Periscope, all that this new feature requires is that the user loads up the camera application, selects ‘live broadcast’, and sign into YouTube; there is no need to use a third party application. This feature opens up a host of opportunities. Vloggers, film-makers, comedians, the list goes on; the exciting and enticing YouTube world has been made more accessible, and those with half a cup of confidence, and a teaspoon of talent, can surely take advantage of this opportunity.

Though the list of new features on this new phone is not eye-watering, each one is a step forwards, which can only be a good thing, and it is this continuous strive to progress that keeps Samsung ahead of the curve.