Two phones, one mind

I only had about an hour to share with the GS6 twins, and trying to test for performance on not-quite-final hardware is pretty dicey to start with. That said, both devices ran terribly smoothly -- every one of my actions and every one of the phone's responses seemed fluid. Effortless, even.

Thumbing through webpages, jumping in and out of open apps with the manic frenzy of a rabid squirrel and generally just trying to be a jerk didn't phase the S6 or S6 edge in the slightest. In hand, both models felt just as snappy as HTC's One M9, though we'll have to wait for the benchmarks to help deliver the final verdict. Anyway, we've got a few things to thank for that snappy performance: Samsung says that Exynos octa-core chip running the show offers a 20 percent leap in performance while dramatically cutting down on power consumption, and Samsung's surprisingly light touch with TouchWiz this time around.

The TouchWiz of yore was an unsightly and ungainly mess, but with every generation Samsung has dialed down its intensity. This time, Samsung's UI is paired with Android 5.0 Lollipop, and while most of TouchWiz's features worked the same, they were redesigned with the lighter, cleaner Material Design aesthetic in mind.

Not every feature made the cut this time, either. Samsung's new outlook on life is totally cool with excising extraneous bits if it helps improve the overall experience. Again, it's way too early to pass judgment, but I'd say the strategy seems to be paying off. For the first time in my life, I'm actually sort of enjoying TouchWiz.

Samsung spent a year tinkering with camera modules, too, and the end result is the 16-megapixel rear shooter with optical image stabilization and an f/1.9 lens. My early results seemed promising, though, really, I was shooting in a tiny hotel room -- we'll see what the camera can really do once we get our review unit in. Still, thoughtful touches like double-tapping the home button to very quickly launch the camera and auto-tracking autofocus during video seem poised to help dramatically. Throw in support for both major wireless charging standards and magnetic wave payment technology that'll come to the market as Samsung Pay and you've got two devices that seem like the first substantive step forward this lumbering giant has taken in a long time. Is it a huge step? Maybe not, but it's movement in a positive direction.

In the end, the only real differences between the two are the inclinations of the screens they sport, the batteries lurking inside and their price tags. We don't know how much they'll cost, but the edge will carry a notable premium over its pedestrian cousin. And there are, as always, some caveats you need to know. You'll be able to choose from 32, 64 or 128GB variants, but choose carefully: There's no room for a microSD slot anywhere. You can't remove the battery (the one major downgrade from the GS5). You've got a whopping four colors to choose from. One looks hugely better than the other. Other than that, though, Samsung is sending one message loud and clear: "Don't count us out." Lesson learned.

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Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.