Samsung Galaxy S5 Full Review

Design

Appearance has never been a strong characteristic of Samsung's Android-powered products. As if the company realizes that, the South Koreans have been tweaking and changing the exteriors of their top smartphones with almost every new generation. Last year, the Galaxy S4 launched with a glossy plastic design, but the Note 3 brought forth a different take on that style – a faux leather look for the plastic back cover. That new design language made its way to some of the other phones and tablets of the company, but thankfully, with the Galaxy S5, Samsung is once again looking for that new visual style that would give its flagship phone a much-needed boost in the design department.

But the Glam look! Samsung's new design for the Galaxy S5 ditches the faux leather for a new rubbery plastic finish with a nice, dotted pattern. which gives it a nice grip and comfortable feel and it's by no means as slippery as some of its metal competitors (hello, HTC One (M8).

In terms of size ,  the Samsung Galaxy S5 got  quite a bit bigger from the relatively compact footprint that its predecessor Galaxy S4 had. While the display has only grown by 0.1 inches, the dimensions have increased from 5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches (136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm) in the Galaxy S4 to 5.59 x 2.85 x 0.32 inches (142 x 72.5 x 8.1) in the GS5 , Over all the phone is quiet big but still comfortable to hold and work with.

In terms of weight, the Galaxy S5 tips the scales at 5.11 oz (145 g) – a bit heavier than the (130 g) of the GS4, but oh well, we guess all the new goodies hiding under the hood are to blame for the bigger dimensions and added heft. Even then, however, the Galaxy S5 remains lighter than some of its top competitors, like the HTC One (M8) (160 g), and the Sony Xperia Z2 (163 g)).


Besides the sizable 5.1" display, the front side of the Samsung Galaxy S5 houses the earpiece and Samsung's logo, positioned near the top edge. Below the screen, there are the physical Home key (doubling as a fingerprint scanner), and the touch-sensitive Multitasking and Back keys. In contrast to most other Android makers out there, Samsung is refraining from using on-screen navigation buttons, leaving the entire 5.1" display available to system and third-party. We actually tend to appreciate this, since we don't like it when there's a thick, black bar taking up precious screen space, as it is on the new Nexus, One and Xperia smartphones. Of course, this benefit will become less important in the future, when more and more applications begin to take advantage of Android 4.4 KitKat's Immersive Mode, but at the current time, having every pixel of your screen available to your content is definitely a good thing. But back to the physical keys and their execution – the home button, as well as the volume rocker and the power/lock key all function really well. They are easy to find by touch alone (the power key could be a bit better in this respect), while they also have that nice, clicky feel, making them pleasant to use.

The volume rocker of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is occupying its traditional place on the left hand side of the phone. The same goes for the power/lock key that's found on the right hand side. The top edge is where you'll find the 3.5 mm headphone jack, as well as the IR blaster, while the bottom side houses the securely covered microUSB 3.0 port.


The back side of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is where the new, 16 MP camera resides. Naturally, the slightly protruding camera is accompanied by an LED flash, as well as the Samsung logo and the loudspeaker, but there's also something else... Right next to the LED flash is where we find a brand new feature – a dedicated heartrate sensor! Whether it works well and if it's more beneficial than all those apps claiming to detect your heartrate accurately

 

Display 

Super AMOLED screen technology gets better remains just as flashy as before.

 You may not think that there's much difference between the 5-inch, 441ppi screen on the Galaxy S4and the 5.1-inch, 432ppi display on the Galaxy S5
Both sport the same 1080 x 1920 resolution and boast Super AMOLED technology to ensure a bright, colourful display, but the Galaxy S5 has been shown to perform way above its predecessor.

 As usual with Super AMOLED displays, viewing angles are superb. Yes, there's some visible color alteration happening as you start tilting the display, but brightness and contrast barely budge. This is especially convenient if you have a bunch of friends alongside you and you're all watching a video or something else on your phone. Of course, having good viewing angles is also helpful in a variety of other cases, such as reading.

 Software 

This is a totally new Samsung that we're seeing here in the Galaxy S5. The company's latest flagship smartphone introduces a new, vastly improved version of the TouchWiz user interface.
Powered by Android 4.4.2 KitKat , the GS5's TouchWiz UI has gone through some serious visual simplification. Following recent trends, most design elements, such as icons or built-in widgets, now appear flat and more simplistic-looking, with less gradient effects and more solid colors. The transitions used when switching between homescreen pages have also been reworked, mostly for the better. All in all, the general UI aspects have gotten cleaner and simpler, but also more polished than before. For example, icons finally have tap effects (a visual effect that appears when the user taps on an icon), while response times have been brought to a minimum.

Fingerprint sensor

Right below the 5.1” display, hiding just underneath the home button is the fingerprint sensor. Being of the swipe type, the Galaxy S5's scanner works differently from that of the Apple iPhone 5s, as you actually have to slide your finger down over the home button/sensor for it to read your fingerprint. Samsung's solution also doesn't work as seamlessly as that of Apple, because getting a correct reading with the Galaxy S5's sensor depends too much on the exact positioning of your finger. To be more specific, the chances of getting a correct reading are quite low if your finger isn't perfectly vertical, relative to the phone, which is rarely the case for your thumb when you're holding the device in your hand. This means that probably the most suitable way to use the fingerprint scanner is by registering the index finger (or some other one) of your other hand – the one that you're not holding the phone with. This way, the success rate when using the sensor is quite high, but you have to go through the discomfort of having to use two hands. Users are allowed to register up to 3 fingerprints on a Galaxy S5, each of which can be used to unlock the phone, authorize PayPal payments, or authorize access to their Samsung accounts. So, having the ability to authorize PayPal purchases is quite big, but Samsung has also created an SDK for developers that allows them to make use of the fingerprint scanner in their apps. This means that in the future, there will be third-party applications that use this feature for access authorization or other purposes. Meanwhile, Apple isn't giving developers such options, and is keeping Touch ID as a way to unlock your iPhone, or authorize iTunes purchases only.
In short, we don't see the Galaxy S5's fingerprint sensor as a suitable method for phone unlocking, but it could be quite useful, if you're making purchases through PayPal often.

Heart rate monitor

Another unusual feature the Samsung Galaxy S5 comes with is the heart rate monitor. This new sensor is integrated with the new S Health application, which is designed to track a variety of health-related parameters, a new one of which being your pulse. Checking your pulse is actually very easy, at least in theory – you just activate the feature, position your index finger on the sensor (located next to the LED flash), stand still without moving or talking for a few seconds, and voila – S Health will tell you what your heart rate is at the moment... provided it works fine, of course. Unfortunately, we found that the app has trouble reading our heart rate in a substantial part of the attempts we made. It probably works in more than 50% of the tries, but overall, the success rate isn't so high. Of course, you should have in mind that even if it does get a reading, it's possible for the measurements to not be spot on at times – after all, that's not professional medical equipment.

The idea of having a heart rate monitor in your phone is a cool one, but now that we've tested it against a popular pulse-detecting app from the Play Store, it appears that their readings are actually almost identical. This makes us wonder if it was really needed for Samsung to include a dedicated sensor for this task in the GS5...

Processor and Memory

Sporting the most powerful variant of the Snapdragon 801 system chip (MSM8974-AC), you can imagine just how fast the Samsung Galaxy S5 is going to be. Indeed, the horsepower hiding under the hood of this spectacular smartphone is just mind-blowing. Let's take a look at the specificis!

The above-mentioned Snapdragon 801 chipset features a super-fast, quad-core Krait 400 CPU, with each core having a maximum clock frequency of 2.5 GHz. Alongside this, there's the Adreno 330 graphics processing unit, which might appear the same as the one on the slightly older, Snapdragon 800 processor, but it should actually be capable of performing even faster in some situations (up to 28% faster). RAM amount is set to 2 GB – more than enough for any high-end smartphone right now, even though the Sony Xperia Z2 has that number upped to 3 GB.

What we're really glad to report is that the Samsung Galaxy S5 actually treats us to some remarkably low response times with its interface. Hi-end Android smartphones have gotten very fast and powerful, but should you compare their response times directly to an iPhone, it gets obvious that Apple's product is much more instantaneous in its responds to the user's touches. Well, it looks like Samsung has tried to achieve a similar effect on the Galaxy S5, as this is probably the most instantaneous Android smartphone that we've used!

Meanwhile, we have absolutely no worries with regards to games, other heavy applications, or multitasking, since the cutting-edge silicon powering the Galaxy S5 is sure to deliver more than enough punch for it all to work seamlessly and fluidly.

On the storage space side of things, the GS5 comes with either 16 GB (10.7 GB accessible to the user), or 32 GB (26.7 GB accessible to the user) of internal memory, but for those who require more, there's always the option of installing a microSD memory card, and guess what – that card can have a capacity of up to 128 GB!

Camera

16 megapixels, large sensor, phase detection autofocus – it's a treasure trove for smartphone camera enthusiasts.

 

Samsung's phone cameras are usually among the very best ones available, and we have every reason to think that the one in the Galaxy S5 would further cement this position. Equipped with a new, 16 MP camera with a relatively large, 1 / 2.6” sensor (native aspect ratio is 16:9), and an aperture of F2.2, this already shapes up as a rather formidable camera module! The individual pixel size of the shooter is 1.12 micron, suggesting that digital noise should be kept at reasonable levels.


What's more, Samsung is throwing in some innovation here as well, by including phase detection autofocus – an autofocusing technique used in SLR cameras. Smartphone cameras, on the other hand, traditionally use the so-called 'contrast detection autofocus'. In this method, the camera determines the amount of contrast between nearby pixels, and it adjusts the focus according to this data. The main disadvantages of this system are that it doesn't work very well in low-light scenarios, plus it's not super-fast. Meanwhile, phase detection autofocus allows the camera to adjust the focus based on an analysis of the light that enters the sensor, rather than the contrast between pixels. This system has allowed Samsung to enable the Galaxy S5's camera to lock a focus in just about 0.3 seconds!

It's an excellent camera! The images produced by it have a wonderful detail level – everything looks exceptionally sharp and fine when viewing the images from a zoomed-out view. Viewing them in actual size reveals some areas where pixels kind of blend together, but why would you need to view 16 MP photos in actual size... Colors are more than realistic – neither too warm, nor too cold. The fact is that if you're looking at a photo taken with the Samsung Galaxy S5, chances are that the things in that photo have looked exactly the same way in real life, at the time when the picture was taken. The handset also seems to be doing a very good job with exposure – we noticed that it made the more preferable decision in some tricky situations, even if that meant cranking up the exposure in a very dark room, just so that we can actually see what's been there in that room, despite all the noise.

Battery

 A new 'Ultra Power Saving Mode' can get you up to 24 hours of stand-by time with just 10% battery level!

The Samsung Galaxy S5 packs a juicy, 2800 mAh battery. That's less than the Xperia Z2's 3200 mAh, but more than the One (M8)'s 2600 mAh. Of course, there are other important factors to consider when it comes to battery life, such as the screen, chipset, and software running on the phone, so making conclusions about battery life based on capacity alone would be unwise.

Actually, official statistics claim that the Galaxy S5 would be able to deliver the remarkable 21 hours of talk time and about 16.2 days of stand-by. Meanwhile, continuous web browsing is rated at 10 hours, and continuous video playback time is said to be about 12 hours.

The result from our battery life is fairly optimistic – the GS5 managed to last through it for the respectable 7 hours and 38 minutes, suggesting excellent longevity. In comparison, it promises to deliver more than the HTC One (M8) (7h 12 min), but less than the Sony Xperia Z2 (8h 10 min).

Even though we believe Samsung's handset should provide decent battery life, comparable to what you can get out of most top-shelf smartphones out there, Samsung has also added a compelling new set of features: Power Saving Mode and Ultra Power Saving Mode. The former is pretty straightforward – it limits the phone's performance in order to save battery energy. The Ultra Power Saving Mode is more intriguing - what it essentially does is to disable non-vital phone features and leave you with a phone that has just the basic set of functionality enabled. Oh, it's also going to switch to a grayscale mode for the display – yes, things may not look as pretty as when you have those jolly Super AMOLED colors displayed, but Ultra Power Saving Mode is said to increase battery life greatly: for example, with just 10% battery level and Ultra Power Saving Mode enabled, the Galaxy S5 should be able to remain powered-on for up to 24 hours in stand-by, and that's awesome!