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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Blairh - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
* 30 grams less than the M8. Substantially shorter too.az06093 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Where's the video analysis?xmen77 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
S5 bestDisplay
S5 improved super amoled
z2 ips on the color RGB lighting with the addition of red and green phosphorus in diodes
All new one ips on the white backlight
M8 have the same quality as in the display М7
Cool backlight Z2, expanding the color gamut and "improves the shades",
actually distorts the color because all the images are designed for
standard sRGB and an extension will only be in the negative. Although
the display is still better than the HTC M8.
Amoled gradually improved and now he has lost almost all the shortcomings, there was only slight, noticeable only during the rapid motion of the screen (in front of screen) "modulation" at low brightness at maximum (it is comfortable in all conditions) this "modulation" No, I do not know why samsung does so in LG G Flex is no such (there is also amoled)
In OLED (Amoled) white whiter IPS, faster response in comparison to LCD
(hundreds of times better than LCD), contrast and black level is perfect
(hundreds of times better than LCD), colors
do not mix with each other,, ideal viewing angles.
Oversaturated color removed using a cinema mode
blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-details-new-galaxy-s5-display-panel/
phonearena.com/news/Samsung-details-its-new-Galaxy-S5-display-the-brightest-most-efficient-OLED-screen-to-date-can-hit-698-nits_id54767
phonearena.com/news/Display-Mate-Samsung-Galaxy-S5-has-the-best-performing-smartphone-display-that-we-have-ever-tested_id54583
i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/116013-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-HTC-One-M8-Sony-Xperia-Z2-LG-G-Pro-2-0122.jpg
i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/116012-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-HTC-One-M8-Sony-Xperia-Z2-LG-G-Pro-2-012.jpg
i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/116009-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-HTC-One-M8-Sony-Xperia-Z2-LG-G-Pro-2-009.jpg
ixbt.com/mobile/images/samsung-galaxy-s5/vs-pict-angle-l.jpg
ixbt.com/mobile/images/samsung-galaxy-s5/vs-white-angle-l.jpg
hi-tech.imgsmail.ru/hitech_img/source/cf/dc/746f7c86490ffdb8e93c035d5e62.jpg
Camera
S5 1/2.6 isocell phase autofocus 6 lenses
z2 1/2.3 bsi 5 lenses
one 1/3 bsi 4 lenses
At S5 even crude firmware (new sensor) better color, detail and less noise
The rest of at the final firmware is very bad, especially in HTC
eprice.com.tw/mobile/talk/124/4899661/1/rv/sony-xperia-z2-review/
eprice.com.tw/mobile/talk/124/4899662/1/rv/sony-xperia-z2-review/
4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=515584&view=findpost&p=30435226
Waterproof
S5 ip x6
Z2 ip x7
one ip x3
Bezels
S5 is more or less thin bezels
Z2 more or less thin bezels
one big bezels
Performance
S5 2048 MB RAM (Dual-channel) LPDDR3
Z2 3072 MB RAM (Dual-channel) LPDDR3
M8 2048 MB RAM DDR2
phonearena.com/news/HTC-admits-its-High-Performance-Mode-pumped-up-benchmark-scores-for-the-HTC-One-M8_id54509
Body
Metal is bad for the connection know about it all in the industry, aluminum is not a premium material, it is used for beer cans. At s5 soft touch texture like nexus7 instead of glossy plastic s4
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Troll post. You say plastic is used for beer cans - plastic is used for trash bags.Aluminium is preferred.
TheSailorMan - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
"Preferred" for what? For helmets?? For car bumpers??? .......Aluminum is is the WORST material for smartphones. In many ways.
And YES , same drink in plastic bottle cost more than , if it is in cans. Check it out.
Plastic is MORE expensive than ALUMINUM. Check out this , too
Streamlined - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
Samsung Fanboy alert. Metal is far superior to plastic for heat dissipation alone. Not to mention it's more durable. And on what world is plastic more expensive than Aluminum?doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
And the metal phones have no problem with connections, either.ESC2000 - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
You just keep telling yourself that. The iPhone has documented connectivity problems. See eghttp://m.digitaltrends.com/mobile/iphone-5-problem... That list further notes that the aluminum chassis is prone to scratches (an apple VP says it's normal and to be expected... Not on my $800 device... Figure out how to prevent it). That list also notes the extreme battery drain problem I experienced on my iPhone 5, which died overnight the first night I owned it (failing to wake me up in the process). Owning an iPhone was a very underwhelming experience for me. After six months I dumped it for a note 2 and then a nexus 5 and have been much more satisfied. And my phone doesn't look like it's been to war like, for example, my stepfather's which has many dents and scratches.
pandemonium - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
It seems silly to me that you don't have a Lumia 1020 and a DSLR in your photo bench marking.crbandiera - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Very solid r review. Thanks for the useful balanced review. The information and your style as writer is refreshing as I am often times caught forced to ignore reviews due there extreme bias. I feel better equipped to make a purchase and that my expectations of what ever device I choose will be more realistic. Thank you for doing your job well.