Samsung Galaxy S 5 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Joshua Ho on April 8, 2014 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy S 5
Capture Latency
Along with its own rear facing camera sensor, the GS5 adapts a dual-mode autofocus system. Traditional AF designs in smartphones rely on testing contrast differences in order to determine when a point is in focus. With GS5, Samsung introduces a second mode: phase detection auto focus. Instead of relying (primarily) on contrast to determine focus, PDAF splits incoming light and compares intensity patterns to determine focus direction.
Low light scenes and scenes that can't generate appropriate phase info will default to contrast AF. PDAF appears to work across the camera's FOV although I did notice that the fastest AF times almost always happened in the center of the display.
Samsung claims a 300ms AF time thanks to its phase detection AF. In order to validate that claim I pointed a camera at a bunch of phones and measured AE/AF latency while preparing our ISO 12233 target shots from the previous page.
I measured from the moment I tapped the focus target to the time the image stopped moving (I didn't rely on the AF lock indicator as some devices report focus lock prematurely). There's a bit more variance than I'd normally like in these numbers due to the nature of the capture, although I'm working on getting a higher speed camera to smooth some of that out.
The GS5 definitely runs its AE/AF routine quickly, basically tying the M8 at the top of the charts here. The improvement over the GS4 is substantial, and there's even a big advantage over Apple's iPhone 5s. Note that if you move to lower light conditions you can see this number at least double, but that's something that impacts all of the devices here.
The Z1s is pretty frustrating because it has a great imaging system but an absolutely terrible camera UI. Focus speed is pretty bad compared to anything else here, basically on par with the iPhone 5/5c.
The shortest time to focus I was able to record on the GS5 was 450ms in a different test scene, compared to 516ms for the M8. The GS5 can definitely be a hair faster but I found the M8 to be comparable if not slightly quicker overall.
Focusing is just one piece of the puzzle, I also measured capture latency as well. Here I'm looking at the time between when I tapped the capture button on the screen and when the camera UI was ready to take another shot.
The GS5 remains solid, but here Apple actually pulls ahead. The 5c (and 5 by extension) are actually at the top of the charts here. Apple does some more work upon capture on the 5s, which is the only reason I can think of for the discrepancy here. Either that or the NAND on my 5s is in a dirtier state, impacting capture performance.
Either way there's a huge improvement in capture speed compared to the GS4. Capture latency is one area where the Nexus 5 is absolutely horrible in. The latest updates made AE/AF reasonably responsive, but the capture latency kills the experience on the N5.
This next chart combines the previous two values to give an overall picture of capture latency on these devices:
Samsung's PDAF and ISP companion seem to do their job well as the GS5 is substantially quicker than the GS4 at image capture. That being said, HTC's M8 is slightly faster by comparison.
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Saltank - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Not a single word about actually making phone calls? No call quality / HD Voice stuff? I was awestruck by how awesome my iPhone 5 handles regular non-HDVoice calls, and the GS3 was good, too, but my old HTC One was subpar.Also, how come camera comparisons don't take WP's in to account? No Lumia 1020/1520/930?
Lightstorm66 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I thought Anandt ech knew that the Samsung Browser is faster than chrome and achieves in the Galaxy S5 even better results than the iphone 5s in sunspider.Galaxy S5: 385,8 ms
iphone 5s: 414,7 ms
ryanmt - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
The LG G2 is the unsung camera hero here. It outperforms it all. Why are only the HTC M8 and 5S called out for their good low light performance when the G2 is actually (subjectively) better?echo9251 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
There should be more talk about the lack of a 64MB option. I have a 64MB HTC One (M7) and enjoy never having to worry about running out of storage for apps, etc. Losing half my storage is a big disincentive to "upgrading" to a new phone.Brian Z - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Well they did include a micro SD card that supports up to 128gb.I am not going to make the case that having more storage considering the outrageous prices of the these devices. But at a point it gets a ridiculous. People complain loud OMG no external storage. No buy. Then they make 32gb device with expandable storage. People still complain
Streamlined - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
Uh, because SD cards are dog slow compared to storage on the motherboard. SD CARDS SUCK and that is why HTC includes larger storage options. Just another reason the M8 is the best Android phone money can buy.Myrandex - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I'm disappointed no Nokia's showed up in the camera tests. I've love to see how this lined up with my Lumia 920, particularly in the low light tests. My wife's 1020 is a beast too.Souka - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Here's a another way to test durability and take apart a S5https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=newNF1UsOcw
dlang1234 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
What I'm most impressed by, is how well the LG G2 is performing at these benchmarks against much newer phones. I have had my G2 for a while now, and it is an awesome phone.. so much so that these phones look more like side grades than upgrades even though, I mean it was released September 12, 2013 and now almost 6 months later, the epic increases of speed in mobile seems to be subsiding some.chrcoluk - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
agreed.I own a S3 and a galaxy ace.
The galaxy ace has cyanogen mod 7.2 installed on it.
The S3 has touchwiz based on android 4.3
In terms of hardware spec the S3 is many multiples more powerful than the ace.
However many basic functions are much snappier on the ace, in particurly using it as a phone, bringing up the call log, scrolling the call log, making calls, answering calls, opening contacts, all these functions much faster on the ace. The ace also wakes up immediatly whilst the S3 has wake lag, the ace has much longer lasting battery even tho it has a weaker battery. However the ace does suck when it comes to using it for the internet/gaming most 3rd party apps as thats where its hw spec hits it, but its limitations are mostly down to its lack of ram. IT seems to always have more spare cpu cycles than the S£ as the S3 is bogged down by touchwiz.
So why havent I got the S3 on AOSP. google edition etc? the problem is the contacts/dialer app on AOSP sucks really bad, its aweful. Especially with the default white background. Samsung have at least maintained a half decent UI design in their dialer/contacts the problem is its mega laggy. But sadly UI design wins over performance. CM7.2 has the best ever dialer/contacts I have seen on a android phone but new phones cannot use CM7.2.
I have recently decided to start using the ace as my main phone (its easier to use out and about also due to its smaller size) and primarily use the S3 as a portable computing device. That way I can stick AOSP on the S3 and not worry about the crappy contacts app.
Do samsung deliberatly make their interface laggy? not sure, its certianly possible tho as they want to give a people a reason to upgrade to the next phone every year.
Also notice how every new software update increases the fotn size as well, to give people a reason to want the higher DPI. The relative font size looks equal on my ace vs the S3 even tho the S3 has a way higher resolution.