Samsung announces slightly larger variant of the Galaxy S6 Edge, the Edge+, with 5.7" display
Samsung's new Galaxy S6 Edge+ is bigger and smarter — Samsung released two phones in March that featured some radical shifts in design philosophy: the Galaxy S6, and the Galaxy S6 Edge.
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung's spring reset — the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge redesign that dropped plastic for glass and metal — gets its second act today: at the August 13 Unpacked event teased two weeks ago, the company is stretching the Edge's curved display to 5.7 inches as the Edge+, announced alongside the Note5. The move matters because Samsung is now selling two phablets of essentially the same size, one flat with a stylus, one curved without.
First-order effects
- Buyers choosing a big Samsung flagship this fall face an internal split: Note5 versus Edge+ — same screen class, different design language — rather than one obvious phablet pick.
Second-order effects
- AnandTech's later verdict on the pair — the best Android phablets on the market with class-leading displays and a slimmed-down TouchWiz — puts pressure on rivals like LG and HTC to match both the hardware polish and the software cleanup in their own large flagships.
Third-order effects
- When Samsung follows up with the S7 and S7 Edge restoring SD card slots, waterproofing, and bigger batteries, it signals the lesson of this generation: radical industrial design alone doesn't hold the premium tier, and feature walk-backs become part of the annual cycle. The large 'plus' tier itself sticks around — Samsung is still shipping 6.6-6.7-inch Plus models at the $1,000 mark in the S23 and S24 era, making the Edge+'s size experiment the template for the permanent third rung on the flagship ladder.
The trend: Samsung is institutionalizing a multi-size flagship lineup — standard, curved, and oversized — that turns yearly launches into a portfolio strategy rather than a single hero phone.