With the upcoming April release date quickly approaching for the Samsung Galaxy S6, we take a look at how Samsung's completely redesigned flagship handset stacks up to one of the biggest (literally) Android smartphones of 2014: the Motorola-built Google Nexus 6 phablet.

Samsung Galaxy S6 vs Google Nexus 6: Overview

Samsung's codename for the 2015 Galaxy S6 was purportedly "Project Zero," meaning the designers went back to the drawing board to reinvent the Galaxy S and reinvigorate Samsung's flagging flagship series.

Judging by the buzz, it worked. The Samsung Galaxy S6 was redesigned with all metal and glass construction -- making it look a lot more like a premium iPhone-type handset than Galaxy S's have ever before -- and even dumping Qualcomm from its manufacturer list to keep the new flagship at top performance.

But as we said in our hands on review, the Google Nexus 6 is no slouch in the power department, even though its design isn't the most breathtaking.

Galaxy S6 vs Nexus 6 in Specs:

Display

After 2014, the year when all smartphones seemed to get bigger, the 2015 Galaxy S6 may surprise, in that Samsung rolled back its 5.2-inch display to a more modest 5.1-inches. That display now packs a 2K HD resolution (1440 x 2560p), leading to a stunning 577 pixels per inch (ppi) on its Gorilla Glass 4-protected Super AMOLED screen.

The Nexus 6 is a big phone, with a 5.96-inch screen packing the same 2K resolution, leading to a still-brilliant 493 ppi on the Gorilla Glass 3 screen. Motorola was more conservative about its bezels, making the screen nearly 75 percent of the face of its handset, while the Galaxy S6's display-to-body ratio is closer to 70 percent.

Point: Samsung (If your looking for brilliance and pocket-ability)

Speed, Power, and Storage

As we mentioned, the Nexus 6 is quite powerful, employing a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 clocked at 2.7GHz and 3GB of RAM. No intensive video games will stutter this monster for the foreseeable future.

That said, the Samsung Galaxy S6 looks to out-perform most, if not all, 2014 handsets and even some 2015 rivals with its strictly-Samsung Exynos system on a chip (SoC) -- Samsung rejected Qualcomm's latest for the GS6 after it couldn't keep up to performance benchmarks in early testing. The handset's Exynos 7420 SoC  (with 3GB of RAM for good measure) is 64-bit future-forward, and early indications are that it absolutely blazes.

Meanwhile, Samsung is out-doing Motorola on internal storage as well. While long-time Galaxy S fans will be upset about dropping microSD support, a 128GB model of the Galaxy S6 will officially be available to media and app hogs, while the Nexus 6 tops out at 64GB (also no microSD support).

When it comes to the battery, at first blush, it's hard to see how Samsung can beat the Nexus 6's enormous 3220 mAh Li-Po pack due to the simple physics of the GS6's size, but a final verdict has to await testing in any case.

But in theory, the smaller screen size plus the Exynos 7420's early reputation for sipping power due to its 14nm chipset design might mean a new standard in battery life (even though the Galaxy S6 also dropped Samsung's long-running removable/replaceable battery standard as well).

Overall, Point: Samsung

Camera

Here, the newest handset from Samsung wins over the Nexus 6 as well. The Nexus 6 features a big improvement on camera specs for the Nexus line, but it's still just a 13-megapixel sensor, a sensor quality, which Samsung last used in the 2013 Galaxy S4.

While the Nexus 6 has decent features like autofocus and dual-tone flash, the Galaxy S6 features a 16-megapixel shooter with an f/1.9 aperture for better low-light pictures. Samsung's camera software hasn't always been the most straightforward and understandable, it's certainly capable of a lot more than the standard Google camera app.

Operating System, Software Ecosystem

Since both are Android handsets, the app ecosystem comparison is basically a draw here. However, the Galaxy S6 is the flagship launching Samsung's "Pay" NFC payment system, which looks to rival the same-named Apple offering.

Google isn't far behind with Android Pay, but of course you have the freedom to choose between Samsung or Android's systems if you have the GS6, which is not the case for the Nexus 6.

However, the biggest advantage of the Nexus 6 is that it's a Google handset, meaning it gets the privileged first spot in line for major Google OS updates, like Android Lollipop. Come November, if Google decides to launch another major Android update, the Nexus 6 will be updated far before Samsung updates its TouchWiz UI and rolls out the update.

But since Lollipop appears to be the biggest change for a while, and it comes pre-installed on the GS6, along with some great Microsoft apps, we'll have to give this one to Samsung by default.

Point: Samsung

Release Date, Availability, and Price

The Samsung Galaxy S6, along with its curved-screen cousin the Galaxy S6 Edge, is expected to be available with all major carriers come April 10. The Nexus 6, released late 2014, is already on the market.

The base price, unlocked, for a Galaxy S6 will be about $650 (translated from the official U.K. pricing of £599.99), which is not cheap. But on a two-year contract, expect the price to come down to about $200 with carriers, give or take, in the U.S. Prices for the 64GB and 128GB versions haven't been announced as of this writing.

Meanwhile, the Nexus 6 has gone down in price, with some deals we've seen making the hulking handset cost less than $100 on-contract, or as low as $500 unlocked and lightly used.

If you can stand lugging a big smartphone and want the cheaper option, by all means go for the Nexus 6, which is future-proof, versatile, and powerful enough for anyone. But if price isn't an object -- and you're confident enough that Google won't release another major OS update this fall -- the Samsung Galaxy S6 appears to be the premium smartphone to beat this year.