What to expect from Samsung's next flagship phone

As the date of its official unveiling moves closer, a very clear picture is emerging of what Samsung's next premium handset, the Galaxy S6 is going to offer and the image that's coming together is of a phone that finally wraps cutting edge technology in premium materials

Design
Samsung has finally accepted that a smartphone cannot claim to be 'premium' if it uses plastics and faux leathers in its construction and so one of the biggest features of the new phone will be the use of quality metals and glass for a change.

Display
This is an area where Samsung has always been ahead of the curve and it intends to quite literally keep things that way. The new handset will have not one, but two curved edges, meaning that it will have an angled 'mini display' on either side of the main screen. And that screen will use the latest AMOLED technology (of which Samsung is a pioneer) and offer a resolution closer to UHD than to HD.

As for the curves, the idea is that these sub-screens can be used for showing things such as video or music playback controls or files, documents or apps that are also open and which can be toggled between. The first dedicated apps designed to exploit this feature may well be demoed at the event.

Imaging
Samsung has made no secret about the new phone's photography capabilities, promising that its cameras front and rear will raise the benchmark again. More importantly the new camera technology is to be simple and intuitive so that all the owner will have to do is point and shoot.

Features
There are whispers that most of the 'bloatware' will be missing from this particular handset and that it will have been replaced by a number of Microsoft apps, instead. Whether or not that is true, what is almost certain is that the handset will come with a digital wallet and wireless payments service that will attempt to do battle with Apple's ApplePay system.

Gimmicks
It's been dismissed as gimmicky until now, but the Galaxy S6 is expected to support wireless charging straight out of the box and work with different types of wireless chargers that until now have worked on different, incompatible technological standards.

The growing popularity of smartwatches is helping to pave the way for wider interest in wireless charging, but if Samsung gets behind the technology for a smartphone that is going to sell millions of units, there is a good chance that within the next 12 months, wireless charging will finally move into the consumer mainstream.