Samsung Galaxy S6 Active review

Is the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active better than the best phone in our top-ranked list? Yes and no, depending on who you are and how badly you treat your gadgets. It has a number of pros and cons to consider before taking the plunge on this waterproof phone.

We liked

This is the best water-resistant phone you can buy. It's dustproof and shockproof to top it off, perfect for sandy beaches and normally fatal three-foot pocket drops.

Almost everything from the S6 made it over, too: the crisp, 5.1-inch QHD display, top-of-the-line internal specs and one of the best cameras on a phone. A longer battery life actually makes this a superior pick for some people.

We disliked

That's not to say the S6 Active is better. In fact, one look at this thicker casing and it's fairly obvious that the camo pattern doesn't blend into real-world environments. Ironic.

The phone lacks the fingerprint sensor of the S6 and didn't bother to throw in a sorely missing microSD card slot in its place. Don't hold your breath for it to come to another network besides AT&T, or budge from its sole 32GB configuration either.

Final verdict

It seems like we waited forever for Samsung to ditch plastic in its flagship phones. When it finally did, we ended up with the delicate yet potent flower that is the Samsung Galaxy S6. Suddenly, the most popular Android phone was fragile, lacked expandable storage and switched to a soldered-in battery.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Active fixes one of those gripes: it throws "fragile" out the window. In fact, I tested this out by throwing the phone out of a second story window. Surprise! It survived the plummet to the grass below, though such extreme tests are not recommended. However, feel free to dunk this phone into the water, which gets plenty of shocked looks.

Underwater photos and video are fun, worry-free and look fantastic, because, after all it uses the stunning Galaxy S6 camera. The S6 Active is ready for your new adventures and kids who force parents to re-buy their out-of-warranty phones, so long as you're on AT&T – and don't mind the camo.