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
Final Words
The Galaxy S 5 is a healthy update to the series. With the Galaxy Note 3's release last year we saw a device that ultimately became the new flagship from Samsung. The GS5 takes the crown back for those users who want a more reasonably sized device.
The GS5 sees upgrades across the board compared to its predecessor. The underlying silicon is both faster and more power efficient. The battery is larger, and battery life has improved dramatically thanks to silicon and display upgrades. Much like the gains we saw with HTC's M7 to M8 transition, anyone who is on a Snapdragon 600 based device today is going to be incredibly happy upgrading to a Snapdragon 801 platform like the GS5.
Connectivity sees a boost with the addition of Qualcomm's envelope tracker and support for carrier aggregation on LTE. The inclusion of 2x2 MIMO 802.11ac brings WiFi performance to a new level with the GS5.
The move to Samsung's own 16MP rear facing camera sensor brings about an increase in spatial resolution, and some improvements in low light performance compared to the Galaxy S 4. I'm not totally sold on the GS5's image processing but the overall camera experience is pretty solid. I would still like to see Samsung move to a slightly lower resolution sensor with larger pixels to provide a more balanced solution. As of now the GS5 is a solid shooter outdoors and with decent light, but indoors and in low light solutions it struggles.
NAND performance is about the only downside to the GS5's hardware upgrade, mainly in that it seems to ignore random read/write performance in favor of sequential gains. Anyone who has followed our SSD coverage at AnandTech should know the issues with this approach.
Display is also dramatically improved from the Galaxy S4. Samsung's AMOLED panels have finally caught up with LCD in most of the key metrics while retaining the key advantages of AMOLED such as infinite contrast and higher power efficiency at lower average picture level.
It's not all hardware upgrades that makes the GS5 what it is. Samsung did an excellent job of cleaning up its UI from the crowded mess that we saw in GS4 to something much more polished. It's not perfect, but a huge step in the right direction. While the GS4 felt more like feature creep for use in marketing materials, the GS5's software is far better executed.
There are even some nifty additions that can come in handy. Ultra low power saving mode is one in particular that seems to have a measurable impact on battery life if you're willing to give up some performance.
Overall the Galaxy S 5 is a solid replacement to the GS4 (and definitely to any previous Samsung device). I find that pretty much all the flagships offer some set of tradeoffs that prevent any one from being the perfect device (iPhone's screen size, GS5's materials, M8's camera). It's unfortunate because I'd really like to crown a single device the king of them all, but instead we're faced with a handful of differing optimization points. Samsung got it almost perfect with the GS5. With a metal body, a rear facing camera with larger pixels (perhaps with some tweaks to camera output processing), a better NAND controller, and stereo front facing speakers, the GS5 would probably be perfect.
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Human Bass - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Lol, quite easy to have large pixels when going with a ridiculous 4mp. It is like bragging about doing a hundred push-ups on your knees instead of legs extended.TheSailorMan - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Never trust tech reviewer who speaks about "premium aluminum"NEVER.
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Why? People prefer it visually.TheSailorMan - Monday, April 14, 2014 - link
Which people??? iBoys?Which people? How many?
If people prefer ALUMINUM visually then HTC One would sell. Right???
And don't give me the iphone argument, because there are other things
TheSailorMan - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"Although Samsung was the first major OEM to be caught cheating in Android benchmarks,"Wow.
What a hypocrisy!!!!!
May I ask you WHY Samsung was the first major OEM to be caught "cheating"??? When all the OEM did it? And WHO found it? And when found it????
Yes, it was Anand who found that Samsung is "cheating". And it was just when Note 3 come. What a coincidence?? LOL!!! Not before that, not after that . Just to bash Samsung. And later to wash his hands he wrote- "But all of them are cheating". Then again- "But why Samsung was "cheating" when anyhow Note 3 beat all of them?"
Well he may thing that his hand are clear now. But he hope that still some smell could stay around Samsung. Happy?
Now again in this "review" very active with hidden bashing Samsung and promoting the mediocre HTC M8 and covering the HTC flop, with misty sentences.
So: Is it Display Mate lying about the greatest Display Ever Yet on S5?
Is it the battery life of S5 better than M8 or not?
Is it the S5 camera better than M8 and iPhone5s , or not?
Is it the FingerPrintScaner , worse than iPhone5 , or not?
Is it TW lagging or not?
and so on.
Is it S5 the best device yet? Or it's HTC M8? Or iphone-Apple?(your mentors and sponsors may be?)
Please give clear answers.
TheSailorMan - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Is it S5 version of S801 better than the M8 version?Brian Z - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I cant believe I am even responding to this but this stupid uninformed samsung fanboy crap cant go undressed.The Note 3 was not the first device caught. The gs4 international version was. It was kind of a big deal since it was the only device every caught to actually overclocking the gpu for the apps in the white list.
And the rest of your post is just useless fanboy nonsense. The data is there, but of course you wouldnt care to look at it. Objectively doesnt matter when you got a love affair with a brand .
TheSailorMan - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I cant believe I am even responding to this but - WHY SHOULD ONLY SAMSUNG take the negatives of this iAnand campaign ?? Because this campaign WAS INVENTED FOR THAT REASON.Even now in this review Anand mention it to slyly bash Samsung again?
When I read this review , I'm not sure if this is S5 review or HTC M8 ad. LOL
HTC was doing it before, and M8 did it too now. Where is Anand's article about it???
P.S.
When some "tech guru" start to speak about "premium aluminum" smartphone(like Anand did it here)- how could we trust him??? How?
Brian Z - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Yeah because in ever single review after the gs4 they have included a chart with all the oems are cheating and in which test. And of course it wasn't mentioned at all in reviews of said devices either! And of course there wasn't long talks about it on the podcastYou're a delusional fanboy that thinks everything revolves around bashing Samsung. Simple because you have a man crush on them.
TheSailorMan - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I'm not a fanboy to any brand.And you are desperate liar if you say that Samsung was not the only one, that was bashed because of Anand and Co . Besides it's still not clear if this was "cheating", and even HTC lately explained that. But Anand didn't complain. LOL He thinks that ALUMINUM is so great material(lol), and that's why HTC are free to go. And even advertise M8 in S5 article, making fool of himself.
If Samsung didn't do it, Anand would NEVER "discover" this "cheating". Period.
Tell me about the "Regional Lock" organized attack against Samsung?
Tell me about "View Cover" attack:)
What about those organized "rumors" about "premium S5" , just before S5 to come on the market?(insinuating that S5 "is not premium").LOL:)
So? Who is pathetic here?