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
WiFi, Cellular & Download Booster
At MWC this year Broadcom announced its BCM4354 802.11ac 2x2 MIMO WiFi combo chip for smartphones/tablets, which found its way into the GS5. The result is a smartphone capable of negotiating with an 802.11ac AP at 867Mbps, and transferring data at up to 436Mbps.
Although peak performance is nice, there are also power benefits to being able to transfer data quickly over WiFi (race to sleep applies to network interfaces as well).
The Snapdragon 801 features Qualcomm's integrated category 4 LTE 9x25 modem core. As I mentioned in our power analysis, Samsung also chose to include Qualcomm's QFE1100 envelope tracker (just like in the Galaxy Note 3). The GS5 is also the first flagship Samsung device to include support for 2 carrier aggregation on supported LTE networks. Samsung doesn't appear to be using Qualcomm's antenna tuner or any other RF360 components in the Galaxy S 5.
Seamless transition between network interfaces is one component of Qualcomm's vision of the future of connected devices. The problem is presently more of a software one than a hardware challenge. Samsung is beginning to explore software abstraction of underlying network interfaces with the GS5's software stack. There's now an option to prevent transitioning to WiFi networks that don't offer an improved network experience compared to your broadband connection. I haven't had a ton of time to test this feature out yet but it's something I plan on messing with more over the coming weeks.
The other big feature is what Samsung is calling Download booster. If enabled and under the right conditions, download booster allows you to combine WiFi and cellular network interfaces to accelerate large file downloads. All you have to do is enable download booster and you'll get a notification if it's active and working:
Download booster uses HTTP range requests to divide up files between the two network links. The feature can migrate data sessions from one link to another (WiFi to LTE, LTE to WiFi). Supported apps include the Play Store, YouTube, Facebook photo/video downloads, Samsung apps and standard HTTP web browsing (both Samsung's own browser and third party browsers). FTP and UDP aren't supported, nor is HTTPS.
There are other limitations as well. File downloads smaller than 30MB won't trigger download booster. Similarly, if one of the interfaces is substantially faster than the other download booster won't activate either. My home internet connection can regularly pull files down at 50 - 60Mbps, compared to < 10Mbps for T-Mobile LTE. When I was getting ~7Mbps over LTE and 50Mbps over WiFi, download booster automatically turned itself off. If I throttled my home network to 22Mbps however, download booster did its thing and gave me a healthy combined download speed of 30Mbps.
Download booster is a neat feature, although of limited use for those of us without truly unlimited high speed data plans. That being said, if you need to speed up a download in a pinch it's a great way to do that. I'm often at a press event wanting to download a benchmark onto a device as quickly as possible, usually without great WiFi or cellular reception - I can see download booster being very useful there at least.
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hlovatt - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Plastic body, pentile, not the brightest display, not the best build quality, not the best feel in the hand, not the best camera, not the best processor, could be the last of the 32 bit top end phones, not the best finger scanner, not the best styling, hard to use one handed - but a high price - seems ho hum to me. (But it does have the most advertising, so maybe they are spending their money wisely :).Ev1lAsh - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I know its not as important with the quicker shutter speed, but personally I was hoping for OIS (in h/w), as I seem to have very shaky hands judging by some of the videos I've shot over the years..theuglyman0war - Friday, April 25, 2014 - link
2nd this...image stabilization race competition would be nice for the market in general
jabber - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Actually I'm pleased that we are now at the stage of purely refinement rather than revolutionary features. At least from here on in we should get products that actually work and work well rather than half baked features that are strangely absent from the next version.BoneAT - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
DiplayMate calls S5 screen best mobile display ever, it has awesome battery stats, has great grip, survives huge drops (S5 vs. Tesla Model Sm youtube) some of the best battery stats, IP68 level protection (1h in pool, youtube), excellent photo and incredible 4k video recording quality, fast fluid performance (pity Anand didn't use stock browser which is new SunSpider champ) & the the usual suspects: multi-window, rich camera interface, airview, now battery saver, fingerprint payment & super-charging.Individually you could say it's not the 2nd coming, but all things combined, build, grip, camera, battery, screen, performance, features, it's a bigger leap forward than any Android device since the Note 2.
grayson_carr - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Based on the data shown here, Display Mate probably received a nice fat check from Samsung. It's a good display, no doubt, but it's far from what DisplayMate portrayed it to be.ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
DisplayMate's pre-release unit may have been cherry-picked by Samsung so their results may be accurate for the device given, but may not be representative of every unit.comomolo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Or Display Mate might have the better equipment and expertise in -errr...- display calibration technology, which they have been doing for some million years or so and beg to differ with Anand's conclusions?comomolo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
That's a trully deep argument there... (facepalm). I guess people at Display Mate should now believe Apple is paying Anand, right?grayson_carr - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Well then. I didn't know that my comments needed to be backed by deep arguments. For one, the reason I'm here is because I've been reading Anandtech for nearly 15 years and know that I can trust them to be competent and objective. I'm admittedly not as familiar with DisplayMate's reviews (though I've known the name for a long time), so I don't know how trustworthy they usually are, but based on my own experience with the Galaxy S5, I do find it a bit surprising that they think it has the best mobile display ever. When compared to my Nexus 5 and my wife's iPhone 5, whites on the GS5 had a green tint, there was banding in some gradients, and there was noticeable smearing when scrolling quickly. So, you're telling me the best mobile display can't even display white properly? My rudimentary findings line up more with Anandtech's findings, and plus I already trusted Anandtech, so yeah, I'm calling BS on DisplayMate's claim. The GS5 has a good display for sure, but after hearing what DisplayMate thought, I was expecting more. I think ltcommanderdata could be on to something. DisplayMate might have received a "special" cherry picked GS5 with a custom calibration or something. I would like them to review a random production unit they buy themselves.