14 DAY TRIAL // With each Galaxy S smartphone that Samsung brings to the market every year, the series seems to get more redundant. It’s been a very long time since the South Korean company introduced a really revolutionary device and it will probably be like that for a few more years.
Samsung stopped being the company that innovated a long time ago. Instead, it now improves on current design and technology in order to maintain the hype around its products. Its devices are now called “evolutionary” at best, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
The Galaxy S5 is truly a worthy successor to last year’s Galaxy S4, but it doesn’t really bring any impressive changes. It’s not a game changer and the next Galaxy S smartphone most likely won’t be either.
Although Samsung Galaxy S5 is no exception to the company’s rule to bring evolutionary devices into the market, the handset is different from the Galaxy S III and S4 in the fact that upgrades are now touching all aspects of the flagship smartphone.
Starting from design, hardware and software, Samsung Galaxy S5 is better looking and more powerful than the predecessor, but does this justify upgrading from Galaxy S4 to the new one?
Given all the upgrades that Samsung Galaxy S5 brings over the Galaxy S4, we have decided that an upgrade is worth it for those who can afford it.
You won’t be disappointed by the new Galaxy S5 if you are looking for performance and ergonomics, but if you want to impress your friends with the design of your phone, you may want to check for other brands.
Samsung Galaxy S5 is now available for purchase in more than 150 countries and will reach even more by the end of the month. The smartphone can be purchased for around $650 (€470) in some of them, but the price varies greatly depending on country.
For the time being, the smartphone is available in black, white, blue and gold, but some carriers and/or retailers may have exclusivity over one or more of these variants.
DesignDesign is one of the aspects that Samsung is most hated for, especially due to the fact that even if it doesn’t come up with something really good looking, its products are selling very well.
Many of Samsung’s competitors refer to its flagship smartphone as a cheap piece of plastic, but it looks like sales of Galaxy S5 will be much higher than those of its predecessor.
While the Galaxy S5 is not among the most good-looking flagship smartphones available on the market, it still brings some improvements over the previous model.
Although Galaxy S5 should really compete with other flagship smartphones like HTC One (M8) or Sony Xperia Z2, most Samsung fans only compare it with the previous model.
Unfortunately, plastic is hardly a competition for aluminum, so an unbiased customer will always pick HTC’s handset over the Galaxy S5 if all that he/she treasures is good looks.
But let’s not go there and let’s see what improvements the Galaxy S5 has over the previous model in the series. First of all, Galaxy S5 is now IP67 certified, which means that it should be dust and water resistant.
We could not risk our test unit for an underwater test, but there are many published online which provide enough proofs that Samsung Galaxy S5 is really water resistant, so you can submerge it up to 1 meter for more or less than 30 minutes.In order to receive the IP67 certification, Samsung made some adjustments to the phone’s design. The battery cover has a small rubber band on the inside, which prevents water from getting onto the battery slot.
Moreover, the microUSB and TV out ports from the bottom of the smartphone have been covered with a plastic flap. Every time you disconnect the phone from your PC, the phone notifies you that you should put the plastic flap back to its place.
There is no dedicated camera key inside the Galaxy S5, possibly due to the needed changes for the IP67 certification. However, we do get the usual Home button at the base of the display and the power on/off key, which is placed on the right side of the handset.
And now, here is the first major improvement over the Galaxy S4. The Home button integrates a fingerprint sensor that can scan user’s fingerprint to improve the phone’s security or for quick online payments.
You will be able to use your finger to unlock the phone instead of the usual swipe on the screen or drawing the required pattern on the display.
Obviously, this is rather tedious if you use the phone often, but it definitely increases the security of your phone in the fact that it will not unlock unless the correct fingerprint is scanned. We’ve tested the fingerprint scanner and have found no flaws when it comes to correctly identifying fingerprints.
Furthermore, you can use the fingerprint scanner to authorize payments via PayPal application, but that is only available in some countries.The left side features the volume rocker, while on top, there’s a 3.5mm audio jack and the IR blaster. The audio jack doesn’t seem to be protected against water or dust at all.
The battery cover on the back is definitely another improvement over the Galaxy S4. Instead of the polished hyper glazed plastic that covers Galaxy S4’s battery, the new flagship smartphone comes with a perforated back cover that is made from special plastic that imitates rubber. This gives users a much better grip on the phone and makes it a tad more good looking.
The 16-megapixel main camera on the back features a small LED flash along with a new improvement that you won’t find inside Galaxy S4. A heart-rate monitor has been included to the right of the LED flash, which does exactly what it says, it monitors heartbeats.
Removing the back panel reveals the 2800 mAh battery, as well as the microSD and microSIM slots, which have been placed on top of each other.
Overall, the Galaxy S5 seems solid enough to withstand occasional drops even if it’s made of plastic, as the competition likes to pinpoint. Even though it’s not an impressive device design-wise, it surely isn’t ugly.
Samsung Galaxy S5 comes with a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display that supports full HD (1920 x 1080) pixels resolution that features around 432ppi (pixel density) and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 coating for extra protection.
The main difference between the Galaxy S4’s display and this one is the size and brightness. Samsung Galaxy S5’s display is 0.1-inch larger and slightly brighter, which should probably have some impact on the battery consumption.
From what we have seen, Samsung’s Galaxy S5 display may be one of the best on the market in terms of brightness, contrast and consumption. The display’s sunlight eligibility is also another aspect that has been improved in the Galaxy S5 over the previous model.
The 16-megapixel camera on the back packs an ISOCELL sensor that measures 1/2.6," making it slightly larger than Xperia Z2’s. The Galaxy S5’s camera can take pictures in 16:9 wide ratio using the maximum resolution.There’s no comparison between Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5’s cameras. The latter is definitely the better-featured and the 16-megapixel camera is another major improvement over the Galaxy S4, so camera-phone lovers will definitely be pleased with Galaxy S5’s imaging capabilities.
Thanks to the Phase Detection Auto Focus, users will be able to take pictures faster than ever. The speedy focus of the camera is one of the aspects that Samsung considers worthy of mentioning, while pitching its Galaxy S5’s to consumers.
The quick autofocus feature is the main subject for at least one of Samsung Galaxy S5’s adverts that have recently been airing in various countries. However, there’s one downside, as the camera does not feature optical image stabilization.
The camera UI has been simplified, though it may look overwhelming at first glance due to the fact that it covers almost the entire display. There are a bunch of new modes that one can use while taking pictures, such as Virtual tour shot and Selective focus. Even more can be downloaded for those who love to capture images with their phones.
The quality of the pictures taken in daylight is top-notch, but the Galaxy S5 fails when it comes to low-light shots. Although the ISOCELL sensor is meant to facilitate the capturing of photos in darker environments, Galaxy S5’s camera is no match for Nokia’s high-end smartphones for the moment.The video recording capabilities of the Galaxy S5 are top-notch as well. The smartphone’s camera can capture 4K videos (2160p@30fps) in MP4 format. Even with some of the features disabled in this mode, the level of detail is astonishing.
Menu and Software
The Galaxy S5 is powered by the latest version of Android, namely KitKat 4.4.2, and features TouchWiz UI (user interface) on top.
Samsung has added lots of extra new features and tweaks that differentiate it from other Galaxy smartphones. The smartphone now comes with My Magazine, which can be accessed by swiping from the left side of the Galaxy S5. My Magazine is powered by Flipboard and brings users the most important news in the categories they are interested in.
The design of the UI has been redone to make it look “flat.” The “flat” design seems to have been embraced by most handset manufacturers, as well as OS developers. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, a little bit of originality would go a long way.Most of Samsung applications in the menus now have rounded icons, including those that appear in the notification area that can be accessed by swiping down from the upper side of the smartphone.
Just like its predecessor, it comes with loads of so-called S applications, including S Health, S Planner and S Voice. However, most of these apps have been upgraded to pack new features and capabilities that are emphasized by the new hardware integrated into the phone (i.e.heart-rate monitor).The TouchWiz UI comes with a few modes, allowing for different uses of the Galaxy S5. For example, there’s a Car mode that makes use of the phone’s listening mode to offer users the possibility to take advantage of the phone’s capabilities while driving.
You can dial or send texts by simply talking to the phone, there’s no need to make use of the display with the Car mode enabled.Then, there’s a Kids mode, which puts the Galaxy S5 into a limited functionality state. As the name suggests, the mode will restrict access to most of the phone’s features and will only allow users to access several apps and services, such as media players for example.
The Private mode is meant for those users who lend their smartphones to their friends, but want to keep their stuff private. It secures the Gallery and any files and apps you want, and locks them under fingerprint identification.
With the Easy mode enabled, you won’t need any glasses as most of the icons on the screen are now bigger. The step counter is also on the homescreen, so the mode is obviously aimed to be used outdoors.Samsung has also included not one but two battery modes, which can be enabled when users feel that they won’t be able to recharge their phones for a longer than usual time.
The one that is not included in the Galaxy S4 is called Ultra power mode and makes the homescreen look black and white and only six icons will be displayed. Most of the advanced features and capabilities will not work while this mode is active.Communication
Samsung Galaxy S5 offers all the latest connectivity technologies available on the market and then some. It supports LTE Cat4 (150Mbps), as well as HSPA+ (42Mbps) and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac with 2.4GHz and 5GHz band compatibility.
In addition, the smartphone comes with Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA support, along with Bluetooth 4.0 with Low Energy, NFC (Near Field Communication) and IR.
There’s also a nifty feature called Download booster, which seems to have been disabled by some carriers. It allows Galaxy S5 users to download files larger than 30MB over LTE and Wi-Fi at the same time.It is also worth mentioning that the Galaxy S5 packs USB on-the-go, as well as support for microUSB 3.0 for faster file transfers. TV out is included as well, but the sales package does not contain an adapter.
In terms of software, the smartphone comes with two browsers, the usual stock Android browser and Chrome for Android. Some of the features included in the phone that are meant to work on browsers only work on one or the other, so keep that in mind before setting any as the default browser.Processor and Memory
It doesn’t come as a surprise that Samsung upgraded the hardware of its next Galaxy S flagship smartphone. Everyone does it, so the South Korean company chose to include a Qualcomm MSM8974AB Snapdragon 801 chip inside its smartphone.
The Snapdragon 801 chipset accommodates a 2.5GHz quad-core processor and an Adreno 330 graphics processing unit. Samsung did not think it would be wise to add more than 2GB of RAM inside the smartphone, so expect the phone to come with the same amount of RAM as Galaxy S4. I have owned a Samsung Galaxy S4 for almost a year, but the first time I handled the Galaxy S5, I noticed it was slightly faster when browsing the menus. The animations are much smoother and the overall performance has been improved considerably since the phone was gifted with such a powerful CPU.The synthetic benchmarks can’t tell you exactly how fast a smartphone can be, especially that handset makers have learned to overclock their CPUs when a benchmark app runs in the background.
But from what we can tell, the Galaxy S5 is certainly one of the most powerful smartphones available on the market, possibly on par with HTC One (M8).In the storage department, the Galaxy S5 offers either 16GB or 32GB of internal memory, but thanks to the embedded microSD card slot, you can expand storage up to no less than 128GB. The microSD card slot has been placed under the microSIM slot.
MultimediaThe smartphone comes with a new music player suitable for the new TouchWiz UI. It can play just about any music file format and can sort music by categories.
The Galaxy S5 comes with several music-related improvements, such as SoundLive equalizer, Smart volume or advanced equalizer.
As such, Samsung Galaxy S5 offers great music sound quality, on both headphones and loudspeaker, which makes it worthy of the flagship title.The bad news is that the video player included in the Galaxy S5 does not support too many codecs. While the phone does not support DivX and AAC codecs, it does ok with AVI and MKV. Subtitles support is included as well, both manually and automatically.
BatteryUnlike the Galaxy S4 that packs a 2600 mAh battery, Samsung’s latest flagship comes with a superior 2800 mAh battery. Even though the improvement on paper is not that high, in truth, the Galaxy S5 offers much more battery life than its predecessor.
We have used the smartphone for more than two days for Internet browsing (2 hours), voice calls (1 hour), listening to music (2 hours) and playing games (2 hours) and kept Wi-Fi connection enabled all the time.Samsung Galaxy S5 truly has a great battery life overall, which should be highlighted as a great achievement for the South Korean company.
Sales Package
Samsung Galaxy S5 handset Compact charger MicroUSB cable Stereo earphones Leaflets
