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
CPU Performance
The Galaxy S 5 marks the second Snapdragon 801 based device we've reviewed at AnandTech, the first being HTC's M8. I've gone through the Snapdragon 801 in depth already, but we're basically dealing with a reasonable upgrade to Snapdragon 800 on an improved 28nm HPm process. The bulk of the improvements impact GPU and ISP performance, but the SoC is just better overall. GS5 owners are lucky as all versions of the device that use Qualcomm silicon feature the MSM8974AC v3 SKU, which includes four 2.5GHz Krait 400 cores and a 578MHz Adreno 330 GPU.
| Snapdragon 800/801 Breakdown | ||||||||||
| SoC Version | Model | Max CPU Frequency | Max GPU Frequency | ISP | eMMC | DSDA | Memory IF | |||
| MSM8974VV | v2 | S800 | 2.2GHz | 450MHz | 320MHz | 4.5 | N | 800MHz | ||
| MSM8974AA | v2 | S800 | 2.3GHz | 450MHz | 320MHz | 4.5 | N | 800MHz | ||
| MSM8974AB | v2 | S800 | 2.3GHz | 550MHz | 320MHz | 4.5 | N | 933MHz | ||
| MSM8974AA | v3 | S801 | 2.3GHz | 450MHz | 320MHz | 5.0 | Y | 800MHz | ||
| MSM8974AB | v3 | S801 | 2.3GHz | 578MHz | 465MHz | 5.0 | Y | 933MHz | ||
| MSM8974AC | v3 | S801 | 2.5GHz | 578MHz | 465MHz | 5.0 | Y | 933MHz | ||
Although Samsung was the first major OEM to be caught cheating in Android benchmarks, it appears to have completely abandoned the practice with the Galaxy S 5's shipping software. Not only was I unable to find any evidence of the old cheats, I couldn't find any evidence of HTC's new subtle cheating either. The Galaxy S 5 appears to be clean as far as I can tell. Kudos to Samsung on doing the right thing, and I hope all other OEMs take this as a sign to stop the silliness.
For our performance tests I turned to our usual suite of browser and native applications. If there's one obvious takeaway from our CPU tests it's that despite having faster silicon than HTC's M8, the GS5 isn't always faster. I believe this has more to do with thermals than anything else. HTC's metal chassis is able to do a better job of dissipating heat than the GS5's plastic chassis. I don't believe there's a substantial impact on user experience, but it's interesting to note how choice in materials can have a performance impact like this.
GPU Performance
GPU performance remains where we see the biggest benefit from Snapdragon 801 vs. 800, and since the GPU gains are almost entirely due to frequency scaling it's not too surprising that the M8 pulls ahead of the GS5 here in most cases.
There aren't any surprises here. The Adreno 330 in the Galaxy S 5 is more than capable of driving the device's 1080p display both in current and near term future 3D games.
BaseMark X 1.1
GFXBench 3.0
NAND Performance
The GS5 ships with 16GB or 32GB of NAND internally on an integrated eMMC device. Expansion is supported through a microSD card slot behind the removable back cover. Although the Snapdragon 801 inside supports eMMC 5.0, that alone doesn't guarantee a substantial increase in NAND performance. Keep in mind that most OEMs find multiple sources for their internal eMMC/NAND solutions, so what I'm testing here may only be representative of a portion of all GS5 devices.
Samsung sampled a 16GB GS5 review device. I put it through our usual random/sequential IO tests on a 100MB span of LBAs.
Random read performance is disappointing, it falls behind all modern devices we've tested. Random write performance is middle-of-the-road at best. It's unclear to me if this is a cost optimization or a lack of concern for NAND performance, but either way I'd rather see these metrics improve rather than regress.
Sequential read/write performance both improve handsomely compared to the Galaxy S 4. I can see why Samsung would want to optimize for these two cases as they are quite common in regular usage, but random read/write performance can also significantly impact user experience.
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pppp6071 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
What r u talking about. I never faced any issues on My Nexus 5 regarding software or hardware. RGB is real pixel and not RG BG samsung cheap grossly over saturated colors. Nexus 5 is the best screen/ touch till date and yeah nexus 5 delivers better low light performance and with OIS better videos than Galaxy S4. And yes if being cheap is an draw back then yes Nexus 5 is Cheap. You better face reality.Serroots - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I'm sorry but I truly hate the N5 screen. I've got an S4 and friends have the N5. Every time I pick it up I immediately notice how washed out the colours look. It's a great phone don't get me wrong, but I hate the screen.twebber - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yeah I have like 74GB of storage space because of my micro sd card, lets seen your nexus do that.bleached - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I have about 150Gb of storage available on my Nexus 5 with 50Gb free.hero4hire - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Cloud storage? stop. I have 100 TB of storage on my iphone 3gs because it has a web browser too...Chaser - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Nexus 5 battery life is paltry compared to the S5. And that's far beyond "basically". So no we're not all lost sheep and you're the brilliant, informed consumer.jmunjr - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The Samsungs have user replaceable batteries and external SD card slots. Those features alone make their phones MUCH better, for me at least.Until a phone can be recharged in less than 15 minutes I will continue to buy phones that have user replaceable batteries. I swap batteries several times a week. I never have to worry about charging. I never have to wait more than time it takes to shut down, swap batteries and boot up.
The SD card slot is another nicety. Though not a deal breaker if it is missing, it sure is nice to have extra storage beyond what the phone makers offer among other conveniences of transferring files to devices that aren't networked..
goobersnatcher - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I agree about the removable battery. That's why I won't buy a M8 if I were interested in choosing between the S5 and M8.comomolo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
For such a rant about others idiocy, you don't seem to have very solid arguments, just a pretty subjective opinion.Lack of microSD and replaceable battery is a no go for many people (including myself) against the Nexus. Also, besides all the FUD around "tech" sites, AMOLED is just a much better technology for any screen and especially useful on mobile devices... if it was properly leveraged, which amazingly Samsung does not, but a knowledgeable user can. Even if you don't take advantage of the low consumption of dark themes on OLEDs, you get the best screen out there with the S5, according to DisplayMate.
Now why exactly is the Nexus 5 so "superior"?
goobersnatcher - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
The N5 isn't superior by any measure other than the promise of fast OS updates. However, when you take in the huge "bang for the buck" .......... the N5 is very compelling! The Moto X, very nice when it was on sale. You can buy a N5 and a nice tablet for the purchase price of a S5. The value for many for the $600.00+ price for a S5 ......... is prohibitive. Of course I respect those who value having one of the best ...... if that means that much! It's just "different stroke for different folks"!