Samsung Galaxy S6 vs iPhone 6 – which is best?

Storage 

Neither the Galaxy S6 or the iPhone 6 come with a microSD card slot, so there’s no way to expand the phone’s storage beyond what comes with it out of the box. Fortunately, both are available in a range of storage options. The iPhone 6 comes in 16GB, 64GB or 128GB models while the Galaxy S6 comes in either 32GB, 64GB or 128GB. 

Conclusion: Admittedly, we were disappointed when Apple dropped the option to have 32GB of storage, as this felt it should have been the entry-level model. While 16GB will be fine for most users, you do have to be a bit more economical with your music and video files. You can get round this by using streaming services rather than storing your files locally, but the 32GB Galaxy S6 does offer a lot more flexibility if you don’t want to pay extra to jump up to a 64GB iPhone. 

Camera

If Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ campaign has taught us anything, it’s that the iPhone 6’s 8-megapixel rear camera can take some pretty good photos. It may not have optical image stabilisation like the iPhone 6 Plus, but it does have an f/2.2 aperture lens, a large 1.3in sensor with 1.5µm pixels, and phase detect auto-focus. There are also time-lapse and 240fps slow-mo video modes. 

Can it match the 16-megapixel camera on the Galaxy S6, though? This does have optical image stabilisation as well as a brighter f/1.9 aperture lens, which Samsung says lets in 34% more light than the f/2.2 lens on the S5, and a new time-lapse setting to accompany the 240fps slow-mo video mode. Here’s how they fared in our head to head camera comparison. Click each picture to view it at its full resolution.

^ The iPhone 6 (above) obviously isn’t as detailed the Galaxy S6 (below), but colour accuracy is roughly identical and everything is very well exposed

^ Indoors, with our external lamp turned on, the iPhone 6 (above) produces a much lighter image than the Galaxy S6 (below), but zooming in at each photo’s native resolution and the iPhone is noticeably grainer. The Galaxy S6, on the other hand, has much softer edges, producing a more attractive picture overall – see below for a 1:1 comparison

^ As good as the iPhone 6 (right) looks in the big picture, the Galaxy S6 (left) stands up to scrutiny when viewed at its native resolution

^ The same can be said in lower lighting conditions as well. Here, our external lamp is switched off, and the iPhone 6 (right) has a lot more visible grain than the Galaxy S6 (left). However, it does have more accurate colours, as the background on the S6 is very warm and off-colour

^ The iPhone 6 (above) wins when it comes to using the flash, though, as its dual LEDs matches the colour temperature of the scene much more accurately than the S6 (below), which looks positively green and dingy by comparison

Conclusion: Both phones have very impressive rear sensors, but the level of detail on the iPhone 6 does leave a little to be desired compared to the Galaxy S6. However, despite the increase in noise and grain, we’d say the iPhone 6 is more versatile, particularly in lower lighting conditions, thanks to its more accurate flash.