Samsung’s best yet have finally arrived. Photo: Samsung

Samsung’s love affair with cheap, tacky plastic is on hold for its stunning new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

Unveiled today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the new handsets pull out all the stops in an effort to reverse Samsung’s declining smartphone sales and mount a new challenge against Apple’s most popular iPhones to date.

They sport all-new designs made out of premium materials, and vastly improved software that promises a better user experience. But they aren’t without their own compromises.

Samsung’s EarPods (left) vs. Apple’s (right). Comparison: Killian Bell/Cult of Android

When Apple’s Greg Joswiak first introduced the EarPods on stage at the iPhone 5 event in 2012, he said they “look unlike any headphone you’ve ever seen before.” Samsung won’t be able to say the same for its new earphones, however, because they are essentially EarPods clones.

It has taken a lot longer than we anticipated, but the South Korean company has finally gotten around to launching an EarPods ripoff of its own, and it’s expected to come bundled with the upcoming Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge.

BlackBerry 10 wasn’t the savior BlackBerry hoped it would be. Photo: BlackBerry

BlackBerry’s smartphone business is imploding in a big way in the U.K., where the company is currently losing around 56,000 users every month to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, new research shows.

Just two years ago, the Canadian company had around 8 million non-business users in the U.K., but that figure is expected to fall below 1 million by the end of this year.

The Galaxy S6 Edge, teased by T-Mobile.

For the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung is ditching all of its tacky plastic in favor of an all-new design made entirely from premium materials — and already its efforts are paying off.

According to carrier partners that have been given a sneak peek at the next-generation devices ahead of their official debuts on March 1, the Galaxy S6 beats the iPhone 6 in terms of design.

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Tab S2 will measure just 5.4mm thick, trusted sources claim, making it 0.7mm thinner than Apple’s iPad Air 2. The device is also expected to come in 8- and 9.7-inch versions, and it will ship with Android 5.0.2 Lollipop right out of the box.