 Samsung has really gotten my attention with their S6 lineup. First with the Edge, whose stellar looks, unique curved screen, and phenomenal camera would have captured me as a user if it wasn't for its average at best battery life. And now, with the S6 active, it looks like they've addressed my one complaint. But is it enough for me to switch from the Droid Turbo? Drop a like on this video, by the way, if you're stoked to see the results from our GPU Boost 2.0 investigation with 6 GTX Titan X graphics cards and seeing how they perform against each other under identical conditions. INTEL INTRO Intel brings DDR4 to the mainstream with their all-new Core i7 6700K and Core i5 6600K processors. Check out the link in the video description to learn more. The Galaxy S6 Active features an 8-core Exynos 7420 processor with a Mali T760 GPU, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of onboard, unfortunately non-expandable, storage. The screen is a beautiful 5.1-inch Super AMOLED Corning Gorilla Glass 4 covered affair that boasts a resolution of 2560x1440 and infinite contrast, since the black pixels are actually turned off outright, and man, I love the screens on S6 phones that I've used. And above that, you'll find a 5-megapixel selfie camera to go along with the 16-megapixel main camera that also records in Ultra HD for video. Sounds pretty familiar, right? Well, it should, because under the hood, the Galaxy S6 Active is really not very different from its siblings. A really nice change from previous Active SKUs, which toned down the flagship specs, of the regular ones in exchange for its additional ruggedness. Which isn't to say it's identical. There are some small differences, like the fact that it's available in only one capacity instead of having 64 or 128GB options, and cannot be bought pre-equipped with wireless charging, and there are some major differences, like the fact that the Active does not feature a fingerprint sensor, and that it comes equipped with a massive 3500mAh battery that's enough for even me to get through the day. Love it. Once you go big battery, there's just no going back. I mean, these days, I laugh at people who have slim, sleek phones, and big, stupid battery banks in their pockets that they have to keep them plugged into. Which I guess leads us into the physical tour, doesn't it? This... is a love-it-or-hate-it design, my friends. While I personally love the looks, I've actually never seen it in person without the sexy D-brand skin that those guys put on before they sent it over, so that weird Arctic camo thing never had a chance to bug me. And life isn't just about looks anyway. What use is, like, a lady who looks great, but, like, falls out of your arms every time you try to give her a hug? And that, unfortunately, was my experience with the S6 Active. While I never actually did drop it, the awkwardly positioned multitask button way over here, and the boxy design, not to mention the higher-than-usual weight, made it more difficult to manage for my small hands than even phones that are slightly bigger and thicker, like my daily driver, Droid Turbo. The good thing is that this particular lady is super-duper ruggedly built. At the back is an ever-so-slightly-raised border around the camera bump with the flash, and regrettably rear-mounted speaker being the only other features on the back. I mean, the ca- the speaker's not that bad, it's just rear-mounted, so basically the worst possible position. At the front are the hardware, home, back, and multitasking buttons that are a huge turn-off for many users, but that, I actually found more convenient than capacitive buttons in this position, since they're stiff enough to require a fairly decisive click. So I never accidentally pressed them while holding the phone in landscape orientation to watch a movie. And not much else on the front, either. Around the edges are a micro-USB port on the bottom, supporting quick charge, a headphone jack on the top in my preferred position, a horrible lock button on the right that sticks out about four miles from the chassis, and this thing is super easy to press by accident. It's a real pain in the butt. And until you manually disable this function in software, it actually hangs up the phone if you bump it during a call. And then there's also a poorly positioned volume rocker, seriously, it's nearly impossible to hit one without the other, with a cool multi-function button right above that, which acts as a shutter when you're in the camera app. Click. And can be programmed to perform a variety of other functions with a single press or a hold from within the settings menu. Neat. Now what some of you might have noticed is that in spite of the S6 Active's IP68 dust and water resistance rating, of one and a half meters for 30 minutes to go along with its salt, solar radiation, thermal shock, and vibration resistance, I mean, hey, you might need vibration resistance, I'm not judging, it has no lame, you know, rubber flaps or anything like that. All buttons, microphones, speakers, jacks, and even the tool-less SIM tray are always sealed, an implementation that just feels much more trustworthy to me. So let's talk then about general usage experience. Well, it's a Galaxy S6 with stormtrooper armor, essentially. So, generally speaking, performance was great, the camera is magnificent, with both the rear and selfie cameras just delivering some truly stunning results. I mean, look at this shot of me sitting in a darkened room writing this review on my laptop versus the Droid Turbo, another decent phone. And TouchWiz has improved so much that I don't feel like it's a knock against a device anymore. So kudos for that, Samsung. But there were a few things that bugged me this time around anyway. First, the S6 Active has got an unbelievable amount of bloatware on it. Disable all that stuff before you even set up the phone. I mean, seriously, Wild Tangent Games? Milk Video? AT&T Navigator? What is this crap? And don't tell me in the comments what it is, I don't care. I don't want it on the phone, it shouldn't be there. Another weird thing, and maybe it's just mine, so guys, let me know this one in the comments, if your experience is different, is that double taps only register like 70 to 80% of the time for me when I go really fast, which caused a lot of typos in words with double letters for me. And then finally, we've got a couple of TouchWiz annoyances. Number one, never tell me what I can and cannot do with the battery life left on my phone. Samsung disables the camera under 5%, causing me to miss a great picture opportunity with my baby girl. Not cool. And two, please fix the trusted devices unlock, like if you have a wearable or something like that. You need to press to wake, then there's no way to disable the stupid swipe to unlock. I never noticed on the Edge because I was always just using the fingerprint reader anyway, but this was kind of annoying on this phone. I have a trusted device, so I don't have to have a screen unlock. Which doesn't mean that I don't like the phone. The S6 Active lives up to its name. It's a phone for people who use their phone rather than just admiring it. And while I don't plan to switch, because I prefer the extra 10% greater battery capacity and the gestures of the Droid Turbo, like flicking for the flashlight and wiggling for the camera, I wouldn't criticize anyone for picking up an S6 Active instead of a regular S6, as long as they know what they're getting themselves into. Because that is both the appeal of Android and its Achilles heel. The S6 Active is just different enough from other Android devices to make it a contender for me, and it's great to have that choice. But because it's a weird carrier exclusive model, and therefore a relatively low volume one, it is already lagging behind other S6s when it comes to software support. A problem that's often difficult to properly overcome, since the more obscure your devices, the lower the chance that anyone, manufacturer or indie developer, will be working on new Android updates for it. So that makes the answer to, should you get one, fairly straightforward. If you like it exactly the way it is, then I give it a massive thumbs up. In fact, I'm switching my wife over to it because her one M8's battery life and camera are driving her up the wall. And for baby owners, man, this phone is perfect thanks to its stellar camera and durability. But if you're expecting it to continue to evolve over time, then I might not take the plunge. Speaking of taking the plunge, head over to dbrand.com slash Linus Active. If you guys want to learn more about dbrand and the awesome skins that they offer for phones, game consoles, controllers, laptops, all kinds of cool stuff. Their vinyl skins serve a couple of purposes. Number one is they look great. You don't have to get white. You can get all kinds of different finishes and different colors. Definitely check out the variety. Actually, our LG G4 video has a great showcase of all the different finishes on the same phone backing. So that's pretty cool. And the other purpose they serve is additional durability. So if you're worried about, you know, an incidental drop scratching your phone or something like that, a vinyl skin only costs a few bucks. So if you scratch it, rip it off, replace it, it leaves no residue and you can put them on quite quickly. The last thing that's great about dbrand skins is the fit and finish of their vinyl skins. They spend a lot of time on the fit and finish and they go on absolutely flawlessly. So check it out. That's dbrand.com slash Linus Active. It's linked in the video description and give it a try. See if you want to, you know, personalize one of your things that needs a vinyl wrap because that's what they do. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, then you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed to our channel, hit that like button or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon. You can find the instructions for that up there by buying a cool t-shirt like this one or even with a direct monthly contribution through our community forum. Now that you're done doing all of that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So click that little button in the top right corner to check out our browser showdown video where we put Microsoft Edge up against Google Chrome and Firefox and Opera. Basically, it's a browser showdown. So yeah.