just remove the touchwiz UI! every single samsung device has lags because of it! after installing google edition\diffrent roms that not based on it, the lags dissappeard! the UI is their most weak point, no matter how fast the cpu\gpu or ram will be, the ui, after several software insallation will L-A-G. just go over youtube and see it for yourself! wether it is GALAXY note 1,2,3 or galaxy s 12345, or tabs. they are lagging! (except google edition)
In my opinion Galaxy S5 does not reach up to the same level as the competition, even from other Samsung phones (see http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/ ). For example HTC One M8 and Motorola Moto G are fantastic. But we can agree on one thing – Galaxy S5 wipes iPhone off the table any time of the day.
I hate to break it to you, but how stable it is when using apps isn't exactly relevant when using touchwiz. On my friend's S4, there is noticeable slowing when doing motions in the basic UI, which is what we are talking about.
I hate to break it to you, every phone, no matter brand or OS can be slow if you install the wrong apps.
Your "friends" phone is completely irrelevant to everybody who's actually used a GS4. Because we know you just full of it. How do I know I am more right than you? Because I know which Android phone is dominating sales. By a gigantic margin. If anything of what you're making up is true, Samsung wouldn't be as dominant, no matter how much money they would throw at their marketing department.
Dominating sales has nothing to do with what you're describing. Have you tried the google play version of the galaxy s? The one that comes with stock android and doesn't feature the silly overlays? Yup, runs more stable than the "regular" galaxy s and actually gets updated in terms of software.
The reason why manufacturers drop those skins is not so they "look different" only but because they can somehow rationalize not updating the software on the device later and force you into an upgraded device sooner.
Anyone buying a non-nexus phone is in this boat unless they want to do some work on their own to keep the devices up to date and that doesn't always quite work out right in terms of stability.
If you don't understand what Android is, I really don't see why I should discuss it with you.
Android is a free to use open source platform. This means, manufacturers has to compile the code to their specific hardware, which takes a few months. NO ONE IN THE REAL WORLD CARES ABOUT THIS DELAY NIVA. NO ONE.
People who are been obsessed with stock experience pushed to their phones the minute Google announces a new update buy a Nexus phone. Everyone else buys the phone they feel best suits them. Most people teds to buy Galaxy S phones, simply because they are the best, and one of the very few with an OLED display.
Skinning Android is a necessity to create a feeling of an ecosystem the buyer feels at home with. For instance, I could never live with the skin Sony crams into their phones, in my opinion it's ugly in really incoherent. I have a Nexus tablet too, but I prefer TouchWiz, simply because it gives you a lot of really, really useful add/on features.
Anyone arguing a Nexus phone is the only choice, just because it has stock Android doesn't understand what a smartphone is. The Nexus 5 is a mediocre phone. At best.
I have to agree with the parents here. The Samsung Touchwiz UI suffers from lots of stuttering when in motion. When doing simple things like sliding between home screens, there is stutter.
My friend has an HTC One which has a different UI and his phone is really smooth when doing transitions.
The Samsungs are brilliant phones, but they should really fix the stutter.
Try putting the exact same widgets on those two phones when you scroll. TouchWiz doesn't stutter from simple scrolling. However all operating systems stutter for instance when information has to be swapped from storage to RAM. Even my 8GB quadcore Haswell desktop PC does that fairly often.
You should really try one out for real instead of basing your ideas off something you've basically read on a forum on the internet.
Just use a different launcher from Touchwiz. My Note2 struggles a little in Touchwiz. I use Nova Launcher now and everything is much smoother. No root required, just install it and set as default launcher.
pls --- a Nexus is on par with the currently leading phones for about 2/3 of the price -- that doesn't a mediocre phone make. And the usefulness of the Touchwiz addons is completely subjective -- had a Galaxy S and an SIII and in both cases it wasn't long till i flashed a custom ROM to get rid of all the crammed in usefulness...
Don't paint a product with your personal experience and then extrapolate to everyone else. It just doesn't work that way and if you had any intention of being fair you'd know that. I don't like Touchwiz. Some do (i.e. you) but you can't argue that they add a bunch of apps that aren't directly tied to core functionality (like messaging for example which can't be removed) without even giving you a choice to uninstall what you deem unnecessary .... Lack of choice is always a grade down for me. I don't need the multitude of hubs for this and that and i can't get rid of them.
and btw, on the "NO ONE IN THE REAL WORLD CARES ABOUT THIS DELAY NIVA. NO ONE." part -- there is a large modding community that begs to differ ...
The Nexus phones are nice. But they are not on par. They're good value high/end phones, where the manufacturers cuts corners on pretty important things like display quality, camera and other things that are not easy to present in tech specs but are pretty obvious when you use them.
You are right, nexus aren't on par: they are better. When it comes to build quality, Samsung's devices disappear. A nexus 5 is far better build than a 700$ Galaxy S5 .... The nexus 5 isn't perfect, for sure. Battery and camera aren't the best on the market, but still is superior to any Galaxy S .... at a lower price point. Stock Android makes it fast and responsive, without tons of gimmicks added by Samsung. The only Samsung I would consider is a GPE.
Build quality is better in the Nexus 5? Just because it's different materials, it definitely does not mean it's better built. The GS5 is IP67 certified, which actually requires higher precision and build quality than, you know, no IP certification.... :)
I work for a company that has IPX certified our products just this year, and I know first hand that IPX certification does not account for build quality or materials. I could get a cellphone made with cardboard and cellophane tape IP67 certified. This doesn't mean it is durable or well made.
Of course .... everyone's opinion ..... is an opinion ......just like yours. However, the nexus 5 is an excellent device. Let me say .... my personal device is a Samsung and I have no problems with Touch-Wiz but use a custom launcher (Nova). What you get in a N5 for $349.00 is astounding One can purchase a N5 and a Nexus 7 and still have change left for what you pay for the S5.Yes ..... the S5 is very nice ....... but I'm not "bending over"!!!
nikon. Let me see what your grammars looks like in your third language... It helps if you actually brings something valuable to the discussion instead of nitpicking on irrelevant things in a poor attempt to sound clever. :)
People buy Samsung just because of their BS marketing .... And most of the Samsung sold are crappy cheap devices like the Galaxy Ace series. Nexus 5 is much better than Galaxy S4 and it costs less money.
Your comment about comparison between Nexus 5 and GS4??? This is the GS 5 review derp. The GS5 is pretty awesome btw - personal experience - owned since release...
They put skins to look different, your made-up logic of developing skins to delay software updates is basically stupid. They put more work into the skins if you compare it to just updating to the latest Android that comes from Google.
The skin is developed by a different team than those who compiles the Android core for a specific hardware, it's something each manufacturer works on internally while Google themselves works on what the operating system should offer. Or do you seriously believe that each company only has one developer on their payroll, doing one thing at the time? Your logic is so flawed that I don't even know why I wasted time replying to you.... :)
Heh. Sales are meaningless without profit and Samsung isn't making much. That would be Apple. Actually we know S4 sales were quite weak and manufacturing had to be cut back as a result. Samsungs sales were largely el cheapo phones not the cheap derivative S 4 with allots barely working features.
Everyone knows the more a company extracts from its user base in profit the better it is run and is. That's why people just love Comcast. At least three times the margin as Apple, it's the best ever.
Exactly! I love handing over massive amounts of extra cash every time I buy a device so I can claim that the company that makes my device has the highest profit margins!
More on profits in a moment but foray I think this bears repeating: "I love handing over massive amounts of extra cash every time I buy a device so I can claim that the company that makes my device has the highest profit margins! $100 for an extra 16 GB is nbd so long as I can wave my idick around to show everyone how big it is!"
I have a nexus 5 and am happy to report that I didn't waste hundreds of extra dollars so that LG or Google could boast higher profit margins.
Now regarding Samsung and Apple, Samsung's profits actually exceeded apple's in Q2 and Q3 last year. Overall apple finished ahead last year with $35 billion in profit to Samsung's $30 billion but it was far from a blow out and Samsung will have plenty of capital to invest in R&D, etc to challenge apple even more. There is a reason apple's internal slide show says "people want what we don't have" - yep....
Actually I have a Note 3 that not 4 mos old that is up for sale because of the UI. So I admit it, I got suckered by Sammy, Never again. Their attempt to create their own OS on top of google sucks. Most people are stupid, look at how many bought into and keep buying the IPhone.
Of course that is nonsense and posting foolish thing from the android central shill site doesn't help your case. Try android police. Or by all means go the Android central forums and see all the people who dumped the S 4 for some other android phone. Hilarious!
Android central is reputable, as is Android Police, but the "report" you linked to didn't originate from either of those websites. It came from "crittercism," whatever the hell that is.
Anyways, best selling devices do not automatically equal the best devices on the market. It comes down to marketing. It's the reason why people used to think all android phones were "droids" and how the average person can't tell apart a galaxy note from an S class device.
And lastly, it seems that the past 2 iterations of the S series have launched with unoptimized software. Look at the early S4 reviews, and look at Anand's own words, there is still lag that is present in Touchwiz that doesn't show up on say, the M8.
He is speaking about performance (lag), what does your link mean ? Do you feel the need to defend your beloved Samsung ? Touchwiz is a crappy piece of software, I would buy a galaxy ONLY in GPE.
I don't why Anand is pretending that there is an open race out there.(Actually, I do, because how else to retain people's Interest?).
The Nexus 5 (Black) wins on basically everything, especially software. It has no weak points, and it is by far cheaper than Z2/M8/S5. Sure, there are individuals areas, like metallic body for M8 that some prefer(although the notion thqt metql material = better, has become little more than conventional wisdom), but the total package is unbeatable.
Still, people are swayed by marketing, which is why Samsung can get away with charging 200 dollars too much. People are irrational.
Speak for yourself, Kemosabe. Nexus 5's lack of MicroSD and tiny battery is much more of a deal breaker to me than getting mad over dropped frames on the UI.
It wins on everything except battery, sd card, not having to be google's ver. 4.x.0 guinea pig (because most people with nexus devices remember 4.2.0 and 3 months of misery that caused) a better screen (anand can screech and scream about "rgb gamut" or whatever but most people prefer pretty colours really ;) ) oh and better camera (one that works for one) decent touchscreen (one that works properly - I know multitouch is a new thing - one day it'll work on recent two nexus-es)... Oh and S5 is also waterproof... And the gpu is faster...
But yeah nexus 5 wins on everything else. Mostly though on being cheap. *shrug*
I prefer accurate colours to ridiculous overblown colours any day. My skin, for example, is a pale pinkish-white colour, not oompa-loompa orange like the default settings on a lot of TVs and now smartphones paint it.
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.
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.
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.
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..
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.
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"!
I disagree, the LG G2 is the same as the Nexus or even better in some areas (camera, battery). Plus, I can always switch to the Google Now Launcher if I want stock android look.
So you are telling me you judge an ui lag base on 23 fps youtube video? That's like measuring a rocket speed using a radar gun that max out at 60 mph. .
I made one change to my Galaxy S3. I replaced the stock ROM with Cyanogenmod 11. Stuttering and crashes went away. Agreed -- Touchwiz is the weak point for Samsung and always has been.
Agreed, but as xsoft7 has pointed out Samsung has a way of making the change seem bigger than it is. Personally I would have liked to see the power button moved so you don't press it when you pick up the phone.
Just wondering - what did Samsung missed out in your opinion? I thought their battery life is phenomenal, camera is improved, new features (finger scan, heart rate, etc.) are evident. To me the only lacking feature is absence of Qi wireless charging out of the box. Other then that they have a very appealing phone.
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 :).
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
The first few generations of modern smartphones were playing catch-up with the rest of the tech industry. They're now at the forefront - incremental gains is all you're going to see from now on.
Really? Maybe I'm old fashioned but I was under the impression that the better device is what's important, at least for us consumers. If you work for Samsung or are a stock holder, than yes, their sales figures should definitely concern you. Otherwise if you think it's important than you're just another sheep.
If u want highly over saturated colors and no ability to read in sunlight and greenish tint and RGBG cheating.. yeah go for it. cant help. NEXUS 5 is having the best screen till date and it is using LCD and so is HTC ONE M8 and LG G2.
Maybe you're right and its oversaturated (reading in direct sunlight is impossible on any of the current crop of backlit panels - sorry but that's just how life is) but using anything after the samoled screen looks bland, grey and frankly crap.
But yeah that rgb spectrum is important or something. We should care or whatever.
Its not like I haven't seen the last two iphones (5s and 5 - let alone 4s 4 and earlier, I haven't seen the m8 - nor do I care to its not going to sell anyway. Just like last year.). They were just as unreadable in the sun as my current S4. So lets not argue anecdotal evidence mkay?
That said - S5 has a locked bootloader. Thus holds no interest for me. Plus its a rehash with slightly better internals. Just like every other "flagship" this year so far.
What a boring year in the mobile space. That is to say until apple's ip6 (and if that's a rehash - the whole year is a write off)
Slightly? You mean that twice the speed is a slight improvement, among other things? The screen works just fine outdoors, by the way, and it will work better than the S5, as it's still noticeably brighter.
Sorry, gotta call BS. A) you've NOT seen the latest iPhones 4-5s or B) you're not using 'currently an S4'. The iPhone for YEARS has both had a phenomenal display, well calibrated out of the box and EXTREMELY EASY to read in sunlight, bright rooms, choose the place. I own the 5s (my personal phone) and Note 3 (Biz). Love em both...but to proclaim an iPhone isn't easy to read in sunlight or outdoors is Pure, GradeAAA horse pucky. It's not tough to cheat my N3 in bright rooms and outdoors, and I'm enjoying both displays. SAMOLED & my LCD. Kinda cool time to be a part of technology but the S4 was a bad joke. S3 owners had/have a special phone. If they have exhausted a two year contract, the S5 is a HUGE Win for them. A massive boost in every facet compared to the '4' and a worthy upgrade for the Galaxy fans. Boring year? You're a tough fella to impress. 4k capture on a mobile cam. HiDPI displays, 'Moore's Mobile Law' seems in effect. We got a 64bit chip last year. The A8 instruction set. A quad core, 2.3GHz phone with 3GB of RAM...& these numbers from the Snapdragon and Adreno graphic updates...on 32bit SOCs. Phenomenal cameras, LTE and AC WiFi, USB 3 and waterproofing. The iPhone fingerprint scanner is phenomenal. If this one's good...that's some incredibly convenient security! Man...'rehash'. 'Write the year off!' Where do bozos like you hail from?
@Alexey291 R u dumb or acting like one. Read the charts once more regarding display. Nexus 5 is has best screen out there till date. Dude u do so much comedy...
If it had an SD card slot it would have a smaller screen and battery and be mediocre like the S5. I haven't had a phone with an SD card slot in years and am doing just fine.
My LG Optimus Pro G has a MicroSD slot, and a larger screen, and was a lot cheaper than the G2. That said, I won't buy an LG phone again - third party support is too weak, and there are some really annoying bugs in the software that haven't been fixed. I would like to go back to Apple, but need a larger screen, and enough space for 24 GB of music.
lol very funny. Ignoring all best aspects like battery life gorgeous screen and knock code and superb camera. just cause its not having SD card it sucks. I am doing just fine with my Nexus 5 32 GB phone.
Streaming is possible. Welcome to 2014. SD cards are a requirement on tablets, not phones. If you need more space on your phone, you are not using it right.
Yes because endless free mobile data is a global thing. I travel a lot I don't like to pay roaming charges for streaming all around europe. I suggest you try it one day and see how that works for you.
And I approve of the "you're not holding/using it right" comment at the end.
SD cards are a requirement on a device that I require to have an SD card. Simple as that. Besides why the hell does a tablet need an sd card more than a phone? Can't you by your own (silly) logic simply stream Blueray movies or something? Or is that going to be a 2015 thing?
Yeah if you loose internet or signal while I'm watching a wide selection of movies an listening to an extended library you can enjoy your sad replay list
It's a shame that Nokia picture samples aren't included in comparison. Either Lumia 1020, 1520, or Icon (930). Heck, even an older 920/925 would be adequate.
On top of that it would be nice to see the results of at least some windows phones on the graphs. I can understand that a lot of windows phones have lower end hardware because they aren't very resource intensive, and thus probably don't always top the benchmarks, but it would be nice to know how they compare. Even if it's just a single entry at the bottom as an "FYI"
I believe the review lacks the comparison with Windows 8 phones, because this site has no reviews with ANY Windows 8 phone. It just avoids them. At least Brian Klug did that. So, if he's not around, the better the things will be. Let's see if anything changes here. In the mean time, as far as smarthpones goes, I read mainly other sites.
Yeah, I'm curious if Anandtech is still going to ignore Windows Phone entirely (as far as full-length reviews go) as it has since the WP8 was initially released. I guess time will tell.
yeah, good to see that Brian Klug is no longer writing for Anandtech, he personally hated Windows phones and used to mock them publically. Also, there was no review for Nokia phones eventhough Nokia sent all the flagship models last year like 920,925, 1020 to Brian Klug.
And from what i can make out this fiasco has led to Nokia no longer inviting Anandtech to their events and no samples too, hopefully Anand or the new writers can restore the relationship.
Ah, I see. Was this in previous versions of the AOSP launcher? I know that Sense had this edit mode as far back as Sense 4.0, and I don't recall anything else at the time that had the same UI for home screen editing.
No, I don't believe so. I don't think there was an edit mode at all, aside from the widget drawer.
I have to ask, though. How were you adding widgets to the Nexus 5's home screen without knowing about that mode? (Or is it not a device you normally use?) I don't think there's any other way to do it, since the widget drawer is no longer conjoined to the app drawer.
And yes, I think that UI first showed up in Sense 4. Google definitely borrowed it, but didn't implement it as well. You can't delete entire home screens with at once, for example.
Guys apple uses two BIG cores not small ones in quad or octa core andrioid's...compare the chip area and u will get to know. Its always the debate between big cores or small multiple cores. There is no magic wand with apple.
Exactly. Two different concepts. The alone fact that those "measly" cores have the same, maybe even slightly higher power draw as the four Krait 400 cores, shows that they are entirely different beasts
On the camera page, no mentions of the G2, which, to me, seems to produce better-looking output in the low-light shots than the rest (though, for all I know, that might be mostly a difference in postprocessing)? What's up--was that added after the text was written, or am I an outlier for thinking the G2's shots look nice?
For starters, it means that the resolution is not actually 1920x1080, but 1493x840. 1,25 megapixels instead of 2, so in reality it's closer to a 720p RGB display than a 1080p one.
I honestly wish Android phones stopped getting bigger. I upgraded from an HTC Thunderbolt to an S3 about 2 years ago and still haven't got used to such a big phone. I'm seriously considering switching to the iPhone simply for the overall phone size.
"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."
Try Xperia Z2. I don't really see any significant negative points with that device.
Is there a way for you guys to test the display touch latency, as shown here? I'm interested in this, the M8 and the Note 3 before it finally made Android phones faster than the iPhones touch latency
I'm glad to see more testing of the cameras and screens, it is too bad the M7 wasn't represented in the screen shots, as it is a very high density screen. I realize you can't test everything and a last-gen phone is not high on the priority list. On that note there is no excuse for no including a Nokia in the camera tests. My better half's 1520 cam makes this M7 user cry, it is that awesome, and that's not even Nokia's best.
Yes, you're wrong. The 64-bit thing is totally overblown. It's not going to make any practical difference until we get to a point where 4GB of RAM is a limiting factor in mobile devices. Which won't be for a long time.
Oh wait, you said 805 not 808, my bad. 805 looks to be a largely incremental update, asides from the GPU. So yeah, in a sense I guess you're right. I don't think the difference is anything to be so concerned about that you'd delay a purchase for a half year or so over it, though.
Yes, you're wrong. It's not like when 64 bit Android drops all 32 bit will be deprecated. Both will still be supported for a long ass time. In fact it may take a long time for 64 bit apps to come around.
After my wife owning a GS3 my self owning the GS4 we have plenty of experience with their products and both agree we dont want another one.
When people used to say Samsung made cheap phones we thought that was blown out of proportion. WE WERE WRONG.
Samsung Galaxy phones are cheap plastic crap. The screens break too easily. My wife has had her screen shatter 3 times and every single time the phone was in a case. I used to drop my HTC evo on the cement without a case and it had nothing but a scratch/dent.
Next upgrade will likely be to the new HTC One M8 or maybe an LG G2. I bought my son and LG G2 for Christmas and have been jealous ever since. Everything about that phones design trumps the Samsung Galaxy phones, even the software.
What I would really like to get my hands on is a Nokia Lumia 930. I was able to play with these at a private Nokia party during Microsoft Build this year and let me tell you this phone is absolutely amazing. Some of the software features on it are going to make all other phones pale in comparison. They had side by side demos of the 930, iPhone 5S, SGS4 and some of the things the 930 could do were amazing.
"What I would really like to get my hands on is a Nokia Lumia 930. I was able to play with these at a private Nokia party during Microsoft Build this year and let me tell you this phone is absolutely amazing. Some of the software features on it are going to make all other phones pale in comparison. They had side by side demos of the 930, iPhone 5S, SGS4 and some of the things the 930 could do were amazing."
Unfortunately, the Lumia 930 won't be coming states-side anytime soon. The Nokia flagships for the time being will be the 1520 on AT&T or the Icon (which is essentially the same as the 930) on Verizon.
LG G2 still is smaller, has bigger screen, bigger battery and nearly the same performance as GS5 at incredibly lower price. This GS is a shame compared to half year old LG.
1) How did you measure NAND performance on an iPhone? 2) Sequential measurements aren't interesting. The random performance is what differentiates good NAND from bad.
I love the galaxy, I hate apple, but I will not buy another phone that uses micro usb plug. If this means I have to buy an apple, which KILLS me inside to say, I will.
Yeah, streaming is possible. It's just hugely more expensive and infinitely less reliable than having what you want on an SD card. So what is your point?
When you say "I can see why Samsung would want to optimize for these two cases as they are quite common in regular usage" what is this based on? Usage models show that >90% of commands sent to eMMC during regular usage are 4k random writes. Sequential read and write is rarely used in the system, and most sequential read/write events are not dependent on eMMC having great sequential performance, ie video playback, recording video using built-in camera, etc.
I'd love to see the GS3 in some of these charts to get a good comparison of how the GS line has improved over time. I have a GS3 and my 2 years is up this fall so the GS5 will be an option for me. The GS4 wasn't due to timing so having the 3, 4, and 5 in there would be more beneficial info to have.
Must not have read...or comprehended the review? Metal is an incredible conductor of heat, a natural 'heatsink' for the 'guts'. See the scores in the M8 vs S5? Consistently higher benchmarks and faster, longer performance without throttling due to the ability of metals to dissipate that heat. Plastic is more insulator than anything. I own the Note 3, had the S3 and original Note as well. Metal, Apple's 'plastic' and all the Nokias I've seen have significantly better plastic build quality than my Sammys. To defend samsung and their use of extremely cheap 'housings' on the high end phones is silly. Kinda the joke of the entire industry. Such cool ideas, fast processing, great displays and digitized screens with styli... Yet they have FINALLY gotten around to improving TouchWiz...a bit more refined this time around, still kinda 'old' looking and heavy with crap you won't use...NOR have they increased or 'bettered' their manufacturing process when it comes to building the phone housing. I'm not saying it HAS to metal, though the iPhone is gorgeous, as are the latest HTCs and XPerias...but plastics can be molded, hardened, shined up and 'feel' solid if done right. Samsung's cheap rear plate is a joke. Nice to access a battery, but I've never owned a second one...my Note 3 will last two days. Nice to have the SD storage. And IMHO they actually did a pretty good job with the N3's 'textured' faux leather design on the black model. I'll hold judgement on this one til I see it...but @ 5.1" it's starting to creep into that Note/Phablet territory...one a bit more niche than the typical user. I love my Note3 but it's a two handed device for everything and anything I do with it. Even after owning one for two and a half years, I still hate using it as a phone. Too damn big. But anymore, talking on our phones is tertiary. MMS,SMS, Facebook and Twitter, emails and texts. So many more efficient ways to communicate. But when you've got to make a call, it's nice to have a comfortable phone. I love the iPhone for a lot of reasons, but a big one is the ease of one handed use. While the N3 has the 4" small screen option, the hardware is still in the same spot so it's kinda useless with the exception of phone dialing or single handed texting.
"Pretty much all the flagships offer some set of tradeoffs that prevent any one from being the perfect device (iPhone's screen size...)"
Not really what I would choose to knock the iPhone - in my opinion the iPhone is about the right size and screen size is a knock against pretty much everyone else. That said, iPhone doesn't allow MicroSD expansion, doesn't feature different screen size options, has the closed Apple environment, charges outrageous prices for storage expansion - there are a lot of less subjective criticisms that can be made.
What's with the constant 5s pitch. In the low light lab shot the z1s clearly has the better picture compared to 5s (less noise, similar brightness/tone) yet is not mentioned.
No word in this review about the 16GB version only having 5GB of space for Apps? Come on, the press is the second to last bastion for consumer rights! Offering 16GB and advertising it as such when 70% of it is taken up by the OS, is as close to lying on the box as you can get. Also, SD cards are basically useless for apps at this point, so putting one on the phone, then having the press point it out is just a big middle finger in the face of the consumer.
Well finally it is mentioned that amoled even with pentile is a better technology then IPS , LCD, etc. I personally hate pentiles but the true blacks that you get plus much better contrast, lower battery consumption and better colors make amoled the clear winner, now we just need someone else to start using them other then Samsung, I'd definintly get the g2 if it was amoled but I might be stuck with Samsung as I can't go back to an overbright backlit LCD phone.
One crappy thing about AMOLEDs is that they seem to get worse over time. On several older phones I have the screens are now discolored, and overall look crappy. I'll stick with IPS screens.
The device you refer to in your conclusion sounds a lot like the upcoming xperia Z2. I for one can't wait to see how it fares. Any plans on reviewing that device? I'm asking since I've noticed the Z1s pop up in this review. I know Sony's release schedule in the US can be a bit wonky.
Why are things like removable battery, sd card, IR transmitter, HR monitor barely mentioned or completely ignored, while the fingerprint reader gets a detailed criticism? The fact is the S5 is a very well balanced phone.
How exactly do the GS5 materials 'prevent it' from being a perfect device? This stupid myth about 'metal > plastic' needs to die, and its one this site likes to keep repeating. The GS5 is much more durable and waterproof compared to the 5S or M8, yet its seen as a tradeoff ?!! I don't want a metal body, plastic is shown to be better built and more durable.
There's plastic, and then there's plastic. Not all plastic is the same. The problem isn't that Samsung uses plastic; the problem is that they use cheap, crappy plastic.
Does the S5 work with the Smart Dock Multimedia Hub? I know that the Galaxy Note 3, which also has the larger USB 3.0 hub, does, but it'd be great to know if the same is true for the S5.
You're never going to get Android/Samsung sheep to be objective about what's wrong with their choices. They just blindly say its the best thing ever even when there are much better choices
The thing is that the colours can bd mostly tamed and amoled is the only one to be accurate with a very important color: black. Once you see how much true, absolute black enhances movies and reading, it is hard to go back to they greys of lcd.
"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."
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.
"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.
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 .
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?
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 podcast
You're a delusional fanboy that thinks everything revolves around bashing Samsung. Simple because you have a man crush on them.
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?
I have not said nor has anybody else said that Samsung wad the only one.
Hell this site has a theme going up where they update the benchmark cheating chart. But yet you still push your BS.
And Samsung was the only OEM to actually overclock the gpu. But since it's Samsung you got the nerv to even suggest well is it really cheating....
They complained loud and clear about this. In public on the reviews. In public on the podcast. Even in public we want Sony to send us a phone so we can see if they are cheating and add them to the chart
And now they are advertising the m8 in the article. So I guess you weren't paying any attention ever when a review compared different SoCs bins. Like the Samsung Galaxy s4 with its 1.9ghz s600 in the nexus 7 2013 article. Funny how that isn't advertising. Or when comparing screens on the tablets in the market. But of course you're a blinded fanboy so yeah.
They "discovered" the cheating not because it was Samsung. Because somebody on twitter Tweeted at Brian Klug and they investigated it from there. They weren't even looking for it period. And what did they do right after testing it on the Samsung device. Look at all the other players in the market to see if they were doing it. But facts and reality don't matter a delusional fanboy like yourself.
Oh and keep telling yourself aluminum is cheap crap. Aka a beer can.
TheSailorMan - you can't go round spouting fanboy crap such as iAnand and expect to be able to claim you're not a fanboy. You're worse than anyone else I've seen.
I'm not fan boy to any brand!!!!! And you hippocrates, do not lie, that this all BS was not meant OLNY for bashing Samsung . Even here iAnand mention AGAIN Samsung slyly, but didn't mention it about HTC (they even did it again with M8 , and didn't give a sh.... about iAnand "discoveries", saying that it was NOT cheating )
Good job on the display analysis this year guys. Last year theS4 review did not go into the dynamic brightness adjustment issue and I feel you have nailed this down this year.
Though it would have also been nice to see the maximum brightnes in boost mode not only for 100% white but for an APL of 80% which is the average APL of web browsing content. It will probably be in the region of 500cd/m² based on the curves I measured last year. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2...
If you look at the curves I produced and typical brightness for content at different APL levels, it shows how brightness progresses. - On the S4 it decreased from 478cd/m² at 1% APL down to only 283cd/m² for a 100% white picture, so a 60% loss. - On the S5, displaymate noted 698cd/m² at 1% APL and you noted 440cd/m² at 100% white, which is also about 60%. -Based on the apparently same progression and prorating my results from last year, at 80% APL we should still have 475 cd/m2 for web browsing, which is very close to the HTC One (approx 500cd/m², through this also varies with APL). For video content and some web content we should actually see brightness well above 500cd/m².
You certainly did a much better job than Displaymate in terms of objectivity.
S5 reminds me a lot of the S4 Active which I used last year. Sucks to see HTC and Samsung go bigger and heavier this year.
I have the Nexus 5 and I'll never pay more than $350 off contract for a phone ever again. 30 grams less than the N5. Speaker is fine for short YouTube vids. I use bluetooth speakers and headphones in all other situations. Camera is solid after 4.1.1. Lack of SD slot is a letdown but I pinned my favorite music. Feels amazing in hand. Stock Android. Can't recommend it enough. $300 less than S5 and M8 off contract. And AT&T saves me $15 a month for bringing my phone to their service.
S5 best Display 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
"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
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?
You just keep telling yourself that. The iPhone has documented connectivity problems. See eg http://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.
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.
Not a single word about actually making phone calls? No call quality / HD Voice stuff? I was awestruck by how awesome my iPhone 5 handles regular non-HDVoice calls, and the GS3 was good, too, but my old HTC One was subpar.
Also, how come camera comparisons don't take WP's in to account? No Lumia 1020/1520/930?
I thought Anandt ech knew that the Samsung Browser is faster than chrome and achieves in the Galaxy S5 even better results than the iphone 5s in sunspider.
The LG G2 is the unsung camera hero here. It outperforms it all. Why are only the HTC M8 and 5S called out for their good low light performance when the G2 is actually (subjectively) better?
There should be more talk about the lack of a 64MB option. I have a 64MB HTC One (M7) and enjoy never having to worry about running out of storage for apps, etc. Losing half my storage is a big disincentive to "upgrading" to a new phone.
Well they did include a micro SD card that supports up to 128gb.
I am not going to make the case that having more storage considering the outrageous prices of the these devices. But at a point it gets a ridiculous. People complain loud OMG no external storage. No buy. Then they make 32gb device with expandable storage. People still complain
Uh, because SD cards are dog slow compared to storage on the motherboard. SD CARDS SUCK and that is why HTC includes larger storage options. Just another reason the M8 is the best Android phone money can buy.
I'm disappointed no Nokia's showed up in the camera tests. I've love to see how this lined up with my Lumia 920, particularly in the low light tests. My wife's 1020 is a beast too.
What I'm most impressed by, is how well the LG G2 is performing at these benchmarks against much newer phones. I have had my G2 for a while now, and it is an awesome phone.. so much so that these phones look more like side grades than upgrades even though, I mean it was released September 12, 2013 and now almost 6 months later, the epic increases of speed in mobile seems to be subsiding some.
The galaxy ace has cyanogen mod 7.2 installed on it. The S3 has touchwiz based on android 4.3
In terms of hardware spec the S3 is many multiples more powerful than the ace.
However many basic functions are much snappier on the ace, in particurly using it as a phone, bringing up the call log, scrolling the call log, making calls, answering calls, opening contacts, all these functions much faster on the ace. The ace also wakes up immediatly whilst the S3 has wake lag, the ace has much longer lasting battery even tho it has a weaker battery. However the ace does suck when it comes to using it for the internet/gaming most 3rd party apps as thats where its hw spec hits it, but its limitations are mostly down to its lack of ram. IT seems to always have more spare cpu cycles than the S£ as the S3 is bogged down by touchwiz.
So why havent I got the S3 on AOSP. google edition etc? the problem is the contacts/dialer app on AOSP sucks really bad, its aweful. Especially with the default white background. Samsung have at least maintained a half decent UI design in their dialer/contacts the problem is its mega laggy. But sadly UI design wins over performance. CM7.2 has the best ever dialer/contacts I have seen on a android phone but new phones cannot use CM7.2.
I have recently decided to start using the ace as my main phone (its easier to use out and about also due to its smaller size) and primarily use the S3 as a portable computing device. That way I can stick AOSP on the S3 and not worry about the crappy contacts app.
Do samsung deliberatly make their interface laggy? not sure, its certianly possible tho as they want to give a people a reason to upgrade to the next phone every year.
Also notice how every new software update increases the fotn size as well, to give people a reason to want the higher DPI. The relative font size looks equal on my ace vs the S3 even tho the S3 has a way higher resolution.
I would be an incredibly shortsighted business plan to purposely create a laggy UI and hope it makes people upgrade... It will make them upgrade... To a competitor's phone. If the lag was your problem with the device, why would you but another device that very well might be laggy as well?
The reason why manufacturers drop those skins is not so they "look different" only but because they can somehow rationalize not updating the software on the device later and force you into an upgraded device sooner. http://qr.net/stx3
No comments about radiated sensitivity in the two wifi bands, nor in Cellular, PCS, or AWS bands. This review is somewhat pointless.. If someone buys this device and it has weak RF performance, they're not going to be happy with any of the features (esp. download booster) if connectivity is horrible due to poor antenna design.
He told you that it works great. What else you want? To tell you that iphone5s is the best device???(or M8?) He couldn't say it strait(cause he pretend not be biased) , but hinted it many times. And he even said here that the ALUMINUM is great and very important feature for him(as "tech guru" he should know that aluminum is the WORST material for smartphones, though). Besides he did "great job" already, to play-down all the great features that S5 has.
Maybe it's just me, but I now think anand now very carefully selects test results that makes apple devices look better, while pretending to be unbiased.
Stock browser beats iPhone 5 with sunspider (slower chrome was used instead). AMOLED screen sucks at web browsing and excels at movie playing and there is no movie playing battery benchmark. Display brightness is shown with manual brightness (which is capped).
And again the "plastic is bad" conclusion - I absolutely HATE phone case and always carry tiny backup battery. Why he keep saying that mobile devices should be made in metal? Metal gets scratched and bent, is heavier and slippery so everyone puts case over it - then WHY?
If you're in the market for an Android phone you don't give a crap about Apple. What you want is to be able to compare Android phones against one another. So Anand picks a neutral browser to allow a good comparison.
PLEASE add to your phone reviews whether the GPS functions work when the phone is in airplane mode or out of cellular range. I use my HTC Amaze for camping and other off the grid trips and do so because the GPS works with my offline maps etc.
Samsung still makes the most well-around and practical phone out there. It's funny so many people are crazing the metal stuff that bends and scratches without case.
I used to love Samsung phones, but not so much anymore. If I'm going to spend 600 bucks on a phone, can we please stop making it feel like a toy? I'm not saying anything about using metal; Nokia's Lumia devices are made of polycarbonate but they feel rock-solid and excellently constructed.
AMOLED? Meh. IPS is where it's at. AMOLED's oversaturated to the point of cartoonishness. With AMOLED, in six months of decently heavy use, tons of the blue subpixels burn out and the display gets weird unless you're very, very careful to make sure that all your subpixels wear evenly. White webpages drain the crap out of battery. I had a Galaxy Nexus for eighteen months (the one with the RGBG pentile matrix that's supposed to reduce the effects of subpixel burn out) and within half that time I had blue stripes where the status bar and nav bar were whenever I put it in landscape mode. IPS doesn't have this issue; my Nexus 4's screen looks exactly the way it did when it was new, eight months later.
The only new device I really care much about right now is the Xperia Z2. Sony phones have been awesome for a while now except for Sony's insistence on using crap screens, but the Z2's display is amazing. Not oversaturated, looks natural and fantastic, has great viewing angles... not to mention an sdcard slot and a gigantic battery.
Samsung doesn't sell a ton of phones because they're the best device, just like Apple doesn't. They both sell a ton of phones because they both spend a ridiculous amount of money on marketing.
My review is simple. Get in line and get this phone: http://amzn.to/1ksys3o - Got a chance to test it and this is one awesome phone. Finally Samsung got something right with the S5. I've had HTC & Samsung phones prior to the Galaxy series came out. And nothing has come close to this phone. Great resolution, great camera, love it still has a sd slot to expand your storage capacity along with the high gb internal memory. Lots of ways to tweak to your liking.
Anyone know how Anandtech measure the phone's power consumption? Do they just hook up a voltmeter between the battery terminals, get the voltage readout and compute from that?
People who are been obsessed with stock experience pushed to their phones the minute Google announces a new update buy a Nexus phone. Everyone else buys the phone they feel best suits them. Most people teds to buy Galaxy S phones, simply because they are the best, and one of the very few with an OLED display. http://evo9.it/qr.net/a
I really didn't get the capture latency part. Unlike iphone, android phones support continuous drive, so if you want to capture multiple photos, just don't release your finger.
I am (actually more than a little) disappointed that Samsung is trying to do the right thing on one hand with the introduction of Knox for securely running enterprise applications on these devices, yet on the other hand not taking suffient care to really enable them to be what they are:
Very small and portable yet incredibly powerful workstations, quite capable of replacing entry level PCs by just sticking them into (better placing them on a wireless) docking station, which has a set of full sized screens, keyboard and mouse connected to them so you can run either light office applications right off the phone or use Citrix (or any other terminal server protocol) for some heavier stuff, which still requires a beefy VDI to run.
To call them "phones" today is like calling a PC a "word processor": Sure that's how they started, but that's not what the have become.
I bought the Note 3 (like its predecessor, a Note 1) as a very personal workstation, also bought the docking station, which gave me HDMI video and audio out as well as 3 USB (2.0) ports, but I was extremely disappointed to find that the "handheld workstation" wouldn't properly initialize the Asix USB Ethernet adapter, which *every* Android I've ever tried works with out of the box.
And the monitor was little better: Even though the phone's screen is actually turned off with KitKat and orientation properly switches to landscape mode, all UI elements look groteskly swollen because they were sized to fit a 1080p resolution on a ~6" screen, but not the 32" LED TV I use on my desktop. Needless to say that word processing is no fun when letters are taller than your thumb.
Clearly the only use case Samsung seems to support via the HDMI port is watching movies: Something I don't need a workstation for.
After no essential Knox features or applications were forthcoming I went ahead and rooted my Note 3, essentially killing any chance of ever using Knox on that device now. With two "netcfg eth0 dhcp" commands in sequence I can now properly bring up Ethernet and thus connect to the securized office LAN and run Citrix, but with the built-in and fixed DPI settings all other desktop use is still painful to look at.
There are of course solutions to that problem: Any Parandroid ROM and derivative has wonderful multi-DPI support built in, but unfortunately since the MHL adapter in the Samsung devices doesn't have an open source driver, you immediately loose the HDMI connect, once you put one of these multi-DPI capable Androids on the workstation: Catch-22!
The only one who can fix this is Samsung and it doesn't look like they are using this opportunity to make their devices more appealing for enterprise use.
I have quite a number of Android devices and having a different flavour on each one of them would make them pretty unusable. So I put Omnirom on all my Galaxys (except the Note 3), my Nexus 4, 7, 10, Oppo Find 5, Asus TF101, Notion Ink Adam and even switched the return and menu keys around on all the Nexus devices to put them back where "God" (Samsung) intended them to be on my first Galaxy S, with home in the center.
And since the original launchers were always far too limited and boring I've been running SPB 3D shell on all of these devices for years, which gives me both speed and a nice look as well as a level of consistency across phone, portrait and landscape tablet sized Androids, not possible otherwise.
Custom Androids give me choice, configurability and privacy: Let the hardware vendors concentrate on creating the best workstation they can make and leave the OS alone!
I bought a post-PC darn it, like in "personal" not a blackmail subscription!
Why are the tester do not test audio quality?? The background is, that people between 15-30 years do consume 90% of music on their smartphone. So it would be a smart move to give the audio quality a higher priority in the test. Finally the S5 has in my view the best audio quality available on a smartphone these days. A really smart move from samsung....that was formerly one of the key the departements of apple....Sadly the competitors needed a few years to understand the importance...
I wish phone reviewers would test audio quality. I really, really do. But more than that, I wish they would test the one thing that is absolutely most important to audio quality on headphones, the one thing that can ruin good sound quicker than anything if it's not within the correct ratio...
Output impedance.
Nobody does this except that Korean blog Golden Ears, and the English translations just don't keep up with the new devices coming out. I really, really wish someone, anyone, anandtech or otherwise, would break out the multimeter and test output impedance!
I agree. They did do an audio comparison of smartphones a few months ago that included, I think the S4. I believe the iPhone came out as the best overall audio quality in those tests.
The reason why manufacturers drop those skins is not so they "look different" only but because they can somehow rationalize not updating the software on the device later and force you into an upgraded device sooner.
Anyone buying a non-nexus phone is in this boat unless they want to do some work on their own to keep the devices up to date and that doesn't always quite work out right in terms of stability.
I wonder, is it possible to do a review on the Oppo Find 7a? I think it'd be quite interesting to see it up against the giants of the mobile phone industry.
I gonna buy this when the price goes down a little bit , hope this works well on my WIWOFIT Wireless Charger bought from Amazon. of course I will get a receiver card www.amazon.com/dp/B00J2TEL28
This cpu performance review is wrong. Webbrowser can't measure exact cpu performance. It's severely dependent on javascript engine. Iphone and Android 's javascript engine are not same.
The GS5 is great, the camera is fantastic! Just remove all the annoying widgets and the phone is great. I protect my phone with a case from leather phone .com so it looks sharp
Good thing that they have upgraded this nice phone. What to do with my current phone though... Wait a minute.. if I can sell my current phone I will be able to recoup some of the cost and just top up. I found Gadgets and Toy to be helpful. find it here http://www.gadgetsandtoy.com/
I have samsung galaxy s5 . I tried to put in the water , when I opened the back cover , water leaks inside the battery . I thought the galaxy s5 is water resistant ?
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
296 Comments
Back to Article
xsoft7 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
just remove the touchwiz UI!every single samsung device has lags because of it!
after installing google edition\diffrent roms that not based on it, the lags dissappeard!
the UI is their most weak point, no matter how fast the cpu\gpu or ram will be, the ui, after several software insallation will L-A-G. just go over youtube and see it for yourself! wether it is GALAXY note 1,2,3 or galaxy s 12345, or tabs. they are lagging! (except google edition)
BedfordTim - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
That is a deliberate feature put there so that you will upgrade to a "faster" phone.theduckofdeath - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The GS4 is the most stable phone of 2013. People who has actually held a phone know that people like you and xsoft7 are just trolling.http://www.androidcentral.com/apps-crashed-most-gi...
Give it up. No one cares about your opinion.
theduckofdeath - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
*People who has actually held a GS4 know....Astarael - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
*havenoel_newell - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
In my opinion Galaxy S5 does not reach up to the same level as the competition, even from other Samsung phones (see http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/ ). For example HTC One M8 and Motorola Moto G are fantastic. But we can agree on one thing – Galaxy S5 wipes iPhone off the table any time of the day.earthrace57 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I hate to break it to you, but how stable it is when using apps isn't exactly relevant when using touchwiz. On my friend's S4, there is noticeable slowing when doing motions in the basic UI, which is what we are talking about.theduckofdeath - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I hate to break it to you, every phone, no matter brand or OS can be slow if you install the wrong apps.Your "friends" phone is completely irrelevant to everybody who's actually used a GS4. Because we know you just full of it. How do I know I am more right than you? Because I know which Android phone is dominating sales. By a gigantic margin. If anything of what you're making up is true, Samsung wouldn't be as dominant, no matter how much money they would throw at their marketing department.
niva - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Dominating sales has nothing to do with what you're describing. Have you tried the google play version of the galaxy s? The one that comes with stock android and doesn't feature the silly overlays? Yup, runs more stable than the "regular" galaxy s and actually gets updated in terms of software.The reason why manufacturers drop those skins is not so they "look different" only but because they can somehow rationalize not updating the software on the device later and force you into an upgraded device sooner.
Anyone buying a non-nexus phone is in this boat unless they want to do some work on their own to keep the devices up to date and that doesn't always quite work out right in terms of stability.
darwinosx - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Even Nexus phones are not always updated immediately as we have seen in the last year.theduckofdeath - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
If you don't understand what Android is, I really don't see why I should discuss it with you.Android is a free to use open source platform. This means, manufacturers has to compile the code to their specific hardware, which takes a few months. NO ONE IN THE REAL WORLD CARES ABOUT THIS DELAY NIVA. NO ONE.
People who are been obsessed with stock experience pushed to their phones the minute Google announces a new update buy a Nexus phone. Everyone else buys the phone they feel best suits them. Most people teds to buy Galaxy S phones, simply because they are the best, and one of the very few with an OLED display.
Skinning Android is a necessity to create a feeling of an ecosystem the buyer feels at home with. For instance, I could never live with the skin Sony crams into their phones, in my opinion it's ugly in really incoherent. I have a Nexus tablet too, but I prefer TouchWiz, simply because it gives you a lot of really, really useful add/on features.
Anyone arguing a Nexus phone is the only choice, just because it has stock Android doesn't understand what a smartphone is. The Nexus 5 is a mediocre phone. At best.
jezzgoodwin - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I have to agree with the parents here. The Samsung Touchwiz UI suffers from lots of stuttering when in motion. When doing simple things like sliding between home screens, there is stutter.My friend has an HTC One which has a different UI and his phone is really smooth when doing transitions.
The Samsungs are brilliant phones, but they should really fix the stutter.
theduckofdeath - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Try putting the exact same widgets on those two phones when you scroll. TouchWiz doesn't stutter from simple scrolling. However all operating systems stutter for instance when information has to be swapped from storage to RAM. Even my 8GB quadcore Haswell desktop PC does that fairly often.You should really try one out for real instead of basing your ideas off something you've basically read on a forum on the internet.
Kidster3001 - Wednesday, April 30, 2014 - link
Just use a different launcher from Touchwiz. My Note2 struggles a little in Touchwiz. I use Nova Launcher now and everything is much smoother. No root required, just install it and set as default launcher.Latzara - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
pls --- a Nexus is on par with the currently leading phones for about 2/3 of the price -- that doesn't a mediocre phone make. And the usefulness of the Touchwiz addons is completely subjective -- had a Galaxy S and an SIII and in both cases it wasn't long till i flashed a custom ROM to get rid of all the crammed in usefulness...Don't paint a product with your personal experience and then extrapolate to everyone else. It just doesn't work that way and if you had any intention of being fair you'd know that. I don't like Touchwiz. Some do (i.e. you) but you can't argue that they add a bunch of apps that aren't directly tied to core functionality (like messaging for example which can't be removed) without even giving you a choice to uninstall what you deem unnecessary .... Lack of choice is always a grade down for me. I don't need the multitude of hubs for this and that and i can't get rid of them.
and btw, on the "NO ONE IN THE REAL WORLD CARES ABOUT THIS DELAY NIVA. NO ONE." part -- there is a large modding community that begs to differ ...
theduckofdeath - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
The Nexus phones are nice. But they are not on par. They're good value high/end phones, where the manufacturers cuts corners on pretty important things like display quality, camera and other things that are not easy to present in tech specs but are pretty obvious when you use them.Max(IT) - Saturday, April 19, 2014 - link
You are right, nexus aren't on par: they are better. When it comes to build quality, Samsung's devices disappear. A nexus 5 is far better build than a 700$ Galaxy S5 ....The nexus 5 isn't perfect, for sure. Battery and camera aren't the best on the market, but still is superior to any Galaxy S .... at a lower price point.
Stock Android makes it fast and responsive, without tons of gimmicks added by Samsung.
The only Samsung I would consider is a GPE.
theduckofdeath - Friday, April 25, 2014 - link
Build quality is better in the Nexus 5? Just because it's different materials, it definitely does not mean it's better built. The GS5 is IP67 certified, which actually requires higher precision and build quality than, you know, no IP certification.... :)DiHydro - Friday, April 25, 2014 - link
I work for a company that has IPX certified our products just this year, and I know first hand that IPX certification does not account for build quality or materials. I could get a cellphone made with cardboard and cellophane tape IP67 certified. This doesn't mean it is durable or well made.Kidster3001 - Wednesday, April 30, 2014 - link
I'd much rather have my plastic phone that bounces a little than a metal one. My personal opinion.heomapnhat - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
The GS3 is the most stable phone of 2013. People who has actually held a phone know that people like you and xsoft7 are just trolling.heomapnhat - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
The GS3 is the most stable phone of 2013. People who has actually held a phone know that people like you and xsoft7 are just trolling.http://iphonechinhhang.org/
goobersnatcher - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Of course .... everyone's opinion ..... is an opinion ......just like yours. However, the nexus 5 is an excellent device. Let me say .... my personal device is a Samsung and I have no problems with Touch-Wiz but use a custom launcher (Nova). What you get in a N5 for $349.00 is astounding One can purchase a N5 and a Nexus 7 and still have change left for what you pay for the S5.Yes ..... the S5 is very nice ....... but I'm not "bending over"!!!yumax_ph - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
"The Nexus 5 is a mediocre phone. At best."You're funny
nikon138 - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
It helps to sound like you know what you're talking about if your grammar is correct... just saying.theduckofdeath - Friday, April 25, 2014 - link
nikon. Let me see what your grammars looks like in your third language... It helps if you actually brings something valuable to the discussion instead of nitpicking on irrelevant things in a poor attempt to sound clever. :)Max(IT) - Saturday, April 19, 2014 - link
People buy Samsung just because of their BS marketing .... And most of the Samsung sold are crappy cheap devices like the Galaxy Ace series.Nexus 5 is much better than Galaxy S4 and it costs less money.
skingtech - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
Your comment about comparison between Nexus 5 and GS4??? This is the GS 5 review derp. The GS5 is pretty awesome btw - personal experience - owned since release...Veruca5alt - Sunday, April 27, 2014 - link
"The Nexus 5 is a mediocre phone. At best."Epic facepalm directed at you.
insurgent - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
They put skins to look different, your made-up logic of developing skins to delay software updates is basically stupid. They put more work into the skins if you compare it to just updating to the latest Android that comes from Google.You're stupid and you should use your brain more.
theduckofdeath - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
The skin is developed by a different team than those who compiles the Android core for a specific hardware, it's something each manufacturer works on internally while Google themselves works on what the operating system should offer. Or do you seriously believe that each company only has one developer on their payroll, doing one thing at the time? Your logic is so flawed that I don't even know why I wasted time replying to you.... :)TheSailorMan - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
" Have you tried the google play version of the galaxy s4?"Have you???
I have heard that at least 5-6 ppl in world have it.
It is Samsung too. Right? Why not millions of ppl? Is that what you wanna do Samsung?????
darwinosx - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Heh. Sales are meaningless without profit and Samsung isn't making much. That would be Apple. Actually we know S4 sales were quite weak and manufacturing had to be cut back as a result. Samsungs sales were largely el cheapo phones not the cheap derivative S 4 with allots barely working features.theduckofdeath - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Samsung aren't making a profit? Take it easy on that cool-aid, darwinosx.ESC2000 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Samsung's profits have been exceeding apple's as of late. You picked the wrong company to pick on haha.hero4hire - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Everyone knows the more a company extracts from its user base in profit the better it is run and is. That's why people just love Comcast. At least three times the margin as Apple, it's the best ever.ESC2000 - Saturday, April 12, 2014 - link
Exactly! I love handing over massive amounts of extra cash every time I buy a device so I can claim that the company that makes my device has the highest profit margins!doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
'Samsung's profits have been exceeding apple's as of late'What? Don't be ridiculous. They are way behind, and saw a drop while Apple saw a decline.
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
While Apple saw an increase* sorryESC2000 - Saturday, April 12, 2014 - link
More on profits in a moment but foray I think this bears repeating: "I love handing over massive amounts of extra cash every time I buy a device so I can claim that the company that makes my device has the highest profit margins! $100 for an extra 16 GB is nbd so long as I can wave my idick around to show everyone how big it is!"I have a nexus 5 and am happy to report that I didn't waste hundreds of extra dollars so that LG or Google could boast higher profit margins.
Now regarding Samsung and Apple, Samsung's profits actually exceeded apple's in Q2 and Q3 last year. Overall apple finished ahead last year with $35 billion in profit to Samsung's $30 billion but it was far from a blow out and Samsung will have plenty of capital to invest in R&D, etc to challenge apple even more. There is a reason apple's internal slide show says "people want what we don't have" - yep....
skingtech - Wednesday, April 23, 2014 - link
holy misinformation batman! Your post is basically complete bs.Doc Wyeth - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Actually I have a Note 3 that not 4 mos old that is up for sale because of the UI. So I admit it, I got suckered by Sammy, Never again. Their attempt to create their own OS on top of google sucks. Most people are stupid, look at how many bought into and keep buying the IPhone.Max(IT) - Saturday, April 19, 2014 - link
You don't even need to install any apps to have touchwiz lagging ....bigstrudel - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Watching the gallery app load on the GS4 is hilariously laggy.darwinosx - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Of course that is nonsense and posting foolish thing from the android central shill site doesn't help your case. Try android police. Or by all means go the Android central forums and see all the people who dumped the S 4 for some other android phone. Hilarious!theduckofdeath - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Android Central is one of the most level-headed Android sites. But then again, anything not Apple cult related is a shill site to you , isn't it?Apple trolls should be banned from the internet.
erikiksaz - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Android central is reputable, as is Android Police, but the "report" you linked to didn't originate from either of those websites. It came from "crittercism," whatever the hell that is.Anyways, best selling devices do not automatically equal the best devices on the market. It comes down to marketing. It's the reason why people used to think all android phones were "droids" and how the average person can't tell apart a galaxy note from an S class device.
And lastly, it seems that the past 2 iterations of the S series have launched with unoptimized software. Look at the early S4 reviews, and look at Anand's own words, there is still lag that is present in Touchwiz that doesn't show up on say, the M8.
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
'Apple trolls should be banned from the internet.'You do realise you're a troll too, right? Just for a different company.
evo98custom - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Had one and I have to respectfully disagree.Max(IT) - Saturday, April 19, 2014 - link
He is speaking about performance (lag), what does your link mean ? Do you feel the need to defend your beloved Samsung ? Touchwiz is a crappy piece of software, I would buy a galaxy ONLY in GPE.Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Well that's why it was nice to have an unlocked bootloader (in europe anyway - idk or care about US).Now with the advent of knox and the locked bootloader by default the galaxy brand looks less enticing.
Mondozai - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I don't why Anand is pretending that there is an open race out there.(Actually, I do, because how else to retain people's Interest?).The Nexus 5 (Black) wins on basically everything, especially software. It has no weak points, and it is by far cheaper than Z2/M8/S5. Sure, there are individuals areas, like metallic body for M8 that some prefer(although the notion thqt metql material = better, has become little more than conventional wisdom), but the total package is unbeatable.
Still, people are swayed by marketing, which is why Samsung can get away with charging 200 dollars too much. People are irrational.
nathanddrews - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"People are irrational."You're just learning this now? ;-)
Gigaplex - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
No microSD, no sale. That rules out the Nexus 5 for me.miketh - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
And can't swap batteries when this dies at end of long day.YuLeven - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Speak for yourself, Kemosabe. Nexus 5's lack of MicroSD and tiny battery is much more of a deal breaker to me than getting mad over dropped frames on the UI.Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
It wins on everything except battery, sd card, not having to be google's ver. 4.x.0 guinea pig (because most people with nexus devices remember 4.2.0 and 3 months of misery that caused) a better screen (anand can screech and scream about "rgb gamut" or whatever but most people prefer pretty colours really ;) ) oh and better camera (one that works for one) decent touchscreen (one that works properly - I know multitouch is a new thing - one day it'll work on recent two nexus-es)... Oh and S5 is also waterproof... And the gpu is faster...But yeah nexus 5 wins on everything else. Mostly though on being cheap. *shrug*
Sushisamurai - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
^ "the lags disappeared!", har har har. Reminds me of the time someone wanted the iPhone with the WIFI's.evilspoons - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I prefer accurate colours to ridiculous overblown colours any day. My skin, for example, is a pale pinkish-white colour, not oompa-loompa orange like the default settings on a lot of TVs and now smartphones paint it.comomolo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
You might want to learn a few things about the S5 screen: http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_S5_ShootOut_1.ht...You're welcome.
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"!darwinosx - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Huh? No weak points? The lousy camera, speakerphone and build quality?LakerHater - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I disagree, the LG G2 is the same as the Nexus or even better in some areas (camera, battery). Plus, I can always switch to the Google Now Launcher if I want stock android look.goobersnatcher - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Great phone ....by the way. Can get it for a little over $400.00. The G2 can do it all! :)nos024 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Wow...you just called out all the apple users out there basically.max1001 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
So you are telling me you judge an ui lag base on 23 fps youtube video? That's like measuring a rocket speed using a radar gun that max out at 60 mph. .pjcamp - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I made one change to my Galaxy S3. I replaced the stock ROM with Cyanogenmod 11. Stuttering and crashes went away. Agreed -- Touchwiz is the weak point for Samsung and always has been.sabot00 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Rather unfortunate to see very incremental changes lately. Both the new HTC One and the GS5 are small evolutions.BedfordTim - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Agreed, but as xsoft7 has pointed out Samsung has a way of making the change seem bigger than it is.Personally I would have liked to see the power button moved so you don't press it when you pick up the phone.
hlovatt - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Disappointing upgrade, the Galaxy Ho Hum :)Netscorer - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Just wondering - what did Samsung missed out in your opinion? I thought their battery life is phenomenal, camera is improved, new features (finger scan, heart rate, etc.) are evident. To me the only lacking feature is absence of Qi wireless charging out of the box. Other then that they have a very appealing phone.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.evilspoons - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The first few generations of modern smartphones were playing catch-up with the rest of the tech industry. They're now at the forefront - incremental gains is all you're going to see from now on.coburn_c - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Loses to the Lg G2 in battery life. Loses to the LG G2 in design. Loses to the LG G2 in life.hobochangba - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Although i predict it will monster the G2 in sales. Which, in this modern age, is all that's really important.coburn_c - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Shame too, the G2 is 200 dollars cheaper at T-mobile.marcolorenzo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Really? Maybe I'm old fashioned but I was under the impression that the better device is what's important, at least for us consumers. If you work for Samsung or are a stock holder, than yes, their sales figures should definitely concern you. Otherwise if you think it's important than you're just another sheep.inighthawki - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I'll take a SAMOLED display over an LCD any day.pppp6071 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
If u want highly over saturated colors and no ability to read in sunlight and greenish tint and RGBG cheating.. yeah go for it. cant help. NEXUS 5 is having the best screen till date and it is using LCD and so is HTC ONE M8 and LG G2.Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Maybe you're right and its oversaturated (reading in direct sunlight is impossible on any of the current crop of backlit panels - sorry but that's just how life is) but using anything after the samoled screen looks bland, grey and frankly crap.But yeah that rgb spectrum is important or something. We should care or whatever.
And nexus 5 has a crap screen btw.
dylan522p - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"current crop of backlit panels - sorry but that's just how life is"No, M8 and iPhone have extremely good brightness and can be.
Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Its not like I haven't seen the last two iphones (5s and 5 - let alone 4s 4 and earlier, I haven't seen the m8 - nor do I care to its not going to sell anyway. Just like last year.). They were just as unreadable in the sun as my current S4. So lets not argue anecdotal evidence mkay?That said - S5 has a locked bootloader. Thus holds no interest for me. Plus its a rehash with slightly better internals. Just like every other "flagship" this year so far.
What a boring year in the mobile space. That is to say until apple's ip6 (and if that's a rehash - the whole year is a write off)
Mondozai - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Alexey, your unwittingly hilarious comments are comedy gold. Keep up the good work! :DAlexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
*shrug*I'm glad to have amused you. So did you already preorder one of the last year's devices repackaged for this year's prices? :)
melgross - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Slightly? You mean that twice the speed is a slight improvement, among other things? The screen works just fine outdoors, by the way, and it will work better than the S5, as it's still noticeably brighter.akdj - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Sorry, gotta call BS. A) you've NOT seen the latest iPhones 4-5s or B) you're not using 'currently an S4'. The iPhone for YEARS has both had a phenomenal display, well calibrated out of the box and EXTREMELY EASY to read in sunlight, bright rooms, choose the place. I own the 5s (my personal phone) and Note 3 (Biz). Love em both...but to proclaim an iPhone isn't easy to read in sunlight or outdoors is Pure, GradeAAA horse pucky. It's not tough to cheat my N3 in bright rooms and outdoors, and I'm enjoying both displays. SAMOLED & my LCD. Kinda cool time to be a part of technology but the S4 was a bad joke. S3 owners had/have a special phone. If they have exhausted a two year contract, the S5 is a HUGE Win for them. A massive boost in every facet compared to the '4' and a worthy upgrade for the Galaxy fans.Boring year? You're a tough fella to impress. 4k capture on a mobile cam. HiDPI displays, 'Moore's Mobile Law' seems in effect. We got a 64bit chip last year. The A8 instruction set. A quad core, 2.3GHz phone with 3GB of RAM...& these numbers from the Snapdragon and Adreno graphic updates...on 32bit SOCs. Phenomenal cameras, LTE and AC WiFi, USB 3 and waterproofing. The iPhone fingerprint scanner is phenomenal. If this one's good...that's some incredibly convenient security! Man...'rehash'. 'Write the year off!' Where do bozos like you hail from?
Streamlined - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Gotta agree with this one. Say what you will about the iPhones but they are, hands down, the best phones to read in bright sunlight.pppp6071 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
@Alexey291 R u dumb or acting like one. Read the charts once more regarding display. Nexus 5 is has best screen out there till date. Dude u do so much comedy...Myrandex - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I read in direct sunlight on my Lumia 920 and it's LCD screen. Color accuracy washes out but it does get very bright.deathdemon89 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Same with my 925 and its OLED screen. It's probably more a software implementation thing with the Nokia devices.sephirotic - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
G2 Doesn´t have a SD card slot, so it sucks, would never buy it.coburn_c - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
If it had an SD card slot it would have a smaller screen and battery and be mediocre like the S5. I haven't had a phone with an SD card slot in years and am doing just fine.kmmatney - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
My LG Optimus Pro G has a MicroSD slot, and a larger screen, and was a lot cheaper than the G2. That said, I won't buy an LG phone again - third party support is too weak, and there are some really annoying bugs in the software that haven't been fixed. I would like to go back to Apple, but need a larger screen, and enough space for 24 GB of music.Cheesew1z69 - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
Spreading your BS here too...how...cute.pppp6071 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
lol very funny. Ignoring all best aspects like battery life gorgeous screen and knock code and superb camera. just cause its not having SD card it sucks. I am doing just fine with my Nexus 5 32 GB phone.Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Very funny indeed. I have more music on my sd (thanks g-music subscription) than you have on your device.Lets not even look at apps and other media that I may have on there. But do go on.
Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
that is to say I have more gigs of music on my sdSorry :)
Mondozai - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Streaming is possible. Welcome to 2014.SD cards are a requirement on tablets, not phones. If you need more space on your phone, you are not using it right.
Alexey291 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yes because endless free mobile data is a global thing. I travel a lot I don't like to pay roaming charges for streaming all around europe. I suggest you try it one day and see how that works for you.And I approve of the "you're not holding/using it right" comment at the end.
SD cards are a requirement on a device that I require to have an SD card. Simple as that. Besides why the hell does a tablet need an sd card more than a phone? Can't you by your own (silly) logic simply stream Blueray movies or something? Or is that going to be a 2015 thing?
twebber - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yeah if you loose internet or signal while I'm watching a wide selection of movies an listening to an extended library you can enjoy your sad replay listVeruca5alt - Sunday, April 27, 2014 - link
Who cares??You use over 20GB of music everyday?
Pointless to carry around that much content.
Chaser - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Couldn't agree more. The G2 is the winner this round.Thermogenic - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
It's a shame that Nokia picture samples aren't included in comparison. Either Lumia 1020, 1520, or Icon (930). Heck, even an older 920/925 would be adequate.StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yeah I wouldn't mind a Lumia being included in the comparisons, then we can see how every platform stacks up in these reviews.inighthawki - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
On top of that it would be nice to see the results of at least some windows phones on the graphs. I can understand that a lot of windows phones have lower end hardware because they aren't very resource intensive, and thus probably don't always top the benchmarks, but it would be nice to know how they compare. Even if it's just a single entry at the bottom as an "FYI"mtoma - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I believe the review lacks the comparison with Windows 8 phones, because this site has no reviews with ANY Windows 8 phone. It just avoids them. At least Brian Klug did that. So, if he's not around, the better the things will be. Let's see if anything changes here. In the mean time, as far as smarthpones goes, I read mainly other sites.coburn_c - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Doesn't the Sony use the same camera hardware?melgross - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Did you read the whole review? If you did, you would have read that this is Samsung's own sensor this year.kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yeah, I'm curious if Anandtech is still going to ignore Windows Phone entirely (as far as full-length reviews go) as it has since the WP8 was initially released. I guess time will tell.wrkingclass_hero - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Did Brian Klug leave? I haven't seen anything written by him in a while, and his twitter hasn't been updated.BMNify - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
yeah, good to see that Brian Klug is no longer writing for Anandtech, he personally hated Windows phones and used to mock them publically. Also, there was no review for Nokia phones eventhough Nokia sent all the flagship models last year like 920,925, 1020 to Brian Klug.And from what i can make out this fiasco has led to Nokia no longer inviting Anandtech to their events and no samples too, hopefully Anand or the new writers can restore the relationship.
Myrandex - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Yea I agree they seem to ignore that platform completely. They reviewed the HTC 8X but that is the last I saw out of AT here.SirPerro - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
It's a shame that Nokia puts such a nice camera on a deprecated OSkyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
WP8 is not deprecated. I can only assume you don't know what that word means.piroroadkill - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Maybe he means the REAL Nokia camera phone, the 808 PureViewkyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Maybe. Although I don't see how the 808 Pureview is superior to the Lumia 1020 in any way. Unless maybe it took microSD?Myrandex - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
The 1020 isn't real?Archipelago - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I too would love to see a high end Lumia in the comparisons.HangFire - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
This. Even the 1520 camera beats out all these phones.melgross - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Heh! At least someone here has a sense of humor.Myrandex - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I wouldn't be surprised if the 20MP OIS Camera in the 1520 would beat all these too...ayram - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Decent review! But I have to say that the writing is bad and lacks cohesiveness. Where is Brian Klug by the way?!stacey94 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The home screen edit mode is just like that on the Google Now Launcher for Nexus devices. I don't think that's Sense-specific.JoshHo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The stock Nexus 5 in front of me doesn't have any helicopter view if I try to pinch inwards, how did you get the home screen edit mode to appear?stacey94 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Press and hold on an empty part of the home screen. The pinch effect isn't there.JoshHo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Ah, I see. Was this in previous versions of the AOSP launcher? I know that Sense had this edit mode as far back as Sense 4.0, and I don't recall anything else at the time that had the same UI for home screen editing.stacey94 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
No, I don't believe so. I don't think there was an edit mode at all, aside from the widget drawer.I have to ask, though. How were you adding widgets to the Nexus 5's home screen without knowing about that mode? (Or is it not a device you normally use?) I don't think there's any other way to do it, since the widget drawer is no longer conjoined to the app drawer.
And yes, I think that UI first showed up in Sense 4. Google definitely borrowed it, but didn't implement it as well. You can't delete entire home screens with at once, for example.
JoshHo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I didn't have any issues setting up widgets/homescreens on the Nexus 5, although it seems that I didn't remember exactly how I did.It may be that Samsung is simply following Google's lead in this respect.
rogueninja - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
TouchWiz is still so ugly, and Apple's measley dualcores are still kicking every Android's terribly optimized glutes.Brian Z - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
If you think the dual core in Apple devices is measly, then you really need to read the site more.pppp6071 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Guys apple uses two BIG cores not small ones in quad or octa core andrioid's...compare the chip area and u will get to know. Its always the debate between big cores or small multiple cores. There is no magic wand with apple.darkich - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Exactly.Two different concepts.
The alone fact that those "measly" cores have the same, maybe even slightly higher power draw as the four Krait 400 cores, shows that they are entirely different beasts
tipoo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
They certainly aren't measly cores. Extremely wide for mobile.tipoo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I believe Nvidia will be following this concept next, two big cores rather than four low power small ones.Streamlined - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I was shocked that last years iphone still seemed to outperform Samsungs latest. Holy crap!twotwotwo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
On the camera page, no mentions of the G2, which, to me, seems to produce better-looking output in the low-light shots than the rest (though, for all I know, that might be mostly a difference in postprocessing)? What's up--was that added after the text was written, or am I an outlier for thinking the G2's shots look nice?coburn_c - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
That OIS really makes the difference in low light. The stock camera app actually does stupid things in low light, XDA camera apps make it even better.peterfares - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Still PenTile. Yuck.pppp6071 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I guess the review deliberately avoided PenTile RGBG issue. Its just cheating in my view. LG G2 and Nexus 5 and HTC One M7,8 uses RGB pixels.tipoo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Who cares anymore when in every measurable aspect it's a great display?melgross - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Not great by any means, but better than before.kaelynthedove78 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
For starters, it means that the resolution is not actually 1920x1080, but 1493x840.1,25 megapixels instead of 2, so in reality it's closer to a 720p RGB display than a 1080p one.
solipsism - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I didn't notice any comments about CPU benchmark doping. Does this mean the G5 is clean?kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
That issue is explicitly addressed in the article in paragraph two of page seven.tipoo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
It says as much in the CPU section. Appears clean.Nintendo Maniac 64 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
No mention of the Professional Photo mode and how said mode is optimized for the Adobe RGB color gamut?JoshHo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I ran the numbers for all the display modes, but Cinema mode has the best accuracy for sRGB.Nintendo Maniac 64 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Uhh... Adobe RGB is a completely different color gamut than sRGB, it's about 17% wider than sRGB.JoshHo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yes, I understand. Adobe RGB content is effectively nonexistent as sRGB remains the standard, thus we only target sRGB for the calibration test.Mooseparade - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I honestly wish Android phones stopped getting bigger. I upgraded from an HTC Thunderbolt to an S3 about 2 years ago and still haven't got used to such a big phone. I'm seriously considering switching to the iPhone simply for the overall phone size.devione - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
There's the Xperia Z1 Compact for that.And rumour has it the Z2 Compact is on its way.
solnyshok - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Too bad that z1 compact is too fat and heavy. It weighs same as LG G2 which has got much bigger screendevione - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
LG G2 = 143gGalaxy S5 = 145g
Xperia Z1 = 170g
HTC One M8 = 160g
Apple iPhone 5S = 112g
Sony Xperia Z1C = 137g
One Mini = 122g
Galaxy S4 Mini = 107g
I think the Z1C stacks up pretty well, considering it punches well above its weight compared to the competiton.
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
It doesn't, though. It's heavier and slower than a 5S. Larger, too.darkich - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Superior review, Anand!I'd really like to hear what Raymond Soneira would have to say about your display measurements
dishayu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"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."Try Xperia Z2. I don't really see any significant negative points with that device.
tipoo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Is there a way for you guys to test the display touch latency, as shown here? I'm interested in this, the M8 and the Note 3 before it finally made Android phones faster than the iPhones touch latencyhttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2...
AnnonymousCoward - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
Yes, I agreeHangFire - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I'm glad to see more testing of the cameras and screens, it is too bad the M7 wasn't represented in the screen shots, as it is a very high density screen. I realize you can't test everything and a last-gen phone is not high on the priority list. On that note there is no excuse for no including a Nokia in the camera tests. My better half's 1520 cam makes this M7 user cry, it is that awesome, and that's not even Nokia's best.ΔrNTA - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Am I wrong in saying untill Qualcomm start making the SnapDragon 805, all phones exept the obvious one are already out of date until next year?kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yes, you're wrong. The 64-bit thing is totally overblown. It's not going to make any practical difference until we get to a point where 4GB of RAM is a limiting factor in mobile devices. Which won't be for a long time.kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Oh wait, you said 805 not 808, my bad. 805 looks to be a largely incremental update, asides from the GPU. So yeah, in a sense I guess you're right. I don't think the difference is anything to be so concerned about that you'd delay a purchase for a half year or so over it, though.doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
'The 64-bit thing is totally overblown'Just wondering if you actually read this website or not...
tipoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Yes, you're wrong. It's not like when 64 bit Android drops all 32 bit will be deprecated. Both will still be supported for a long ass time. In fact it may take a long time for 64 bit apps to come around.cknobman - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Eh, my family is done with Samsung phones.After my wife owning a GS3 my self owning the GS4 we have plenty of experience with their products and both agree we dont want another one.
When people used to say Samsung made cheap phones we thought that was blown out of proportion. WE WERE WRONG.
Samsung Galaxy phones are cheap plastic crap. The screens break too easily. My wife has had her screen shatter 3 times and every single time the phone was in a case. I used to drop my HTC evo on the cement without a case and it had nothing but a scratch/dent.
Next upgrade will likely be to the new HTC One M8 or maybe an LG G2. I bought my son and LG G2 for Christmas and have been jealous ever since. Everything about that phones design trumps the Samsung Galaxy phones, even the software.
What I would really like to get my hands on is a Nokia Lumia 930. I was able to play with these at a private Nokia party during Microsoft Build this year and let me tell you this phone is absolutely amazing. Some of the software features on it are going to make all other phones pale in comparison. They had side by side demos of the 930, iPhone 5S, SGS4 and some of the things the 930 could do were amazing.
Duraz0rz - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"What I would really like to get my hands on is a Nokia Lumia 930. I was able to play with these at a private Nokia party during Microsoft Build this year and let me tell you this phone is absolutely amazing. Some of the software features on it are going to make all other phones pale in comparison. They had side by side demos of the 930, iPhone 5S, SGS4 and some of the things the 930 could do were amazing."Unfortunately, the Lumia 930 won't be coming states-side anytime soon. The Nokia flagships for the time being will be the 1520 on AT&T or the Icon (which is essentially the same as the 930) on Verizon.
cknobman - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
At build mr elop presented the phone himself saying US availability would be June 2 (give or take a week).kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Are you sure he wasn't talking about EU availability?mmsmsy - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
LG G2 still is smaller, has bigger screen, bigger battery and nearly the same performance as GS5 at incredibly lower price. This GS is a shame compared to half year old LG.kaelynthedove78 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
For comparison, here are the NAND 256k sequential speeds for a couple of iPhones:4S (32GB model): 54,2MB/s read, 21,2MB/s write.
5S (16GB model): 164MB/s read, 39,8MB/s write.
Measured with dd, file caching disabled and circa 2,5GB files.
kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
1) How did you measure NAND performance on an iPhone?2) Sequential measurements aren't interesting. The random performance is what differentiates good NAND from bad.
twebber - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I love the galaxy, I hate apple, but I will not buy another phone that uses micro usb plug. If this means I have to buy an apple, which KILLS me inside to say, I will.kmmatney - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I've gone through so many micro USB cables - the lightening connector is certainly something Apple got right.ΔrNTA - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
And the EU want to make all phones have a Micro USB connector as standard. That could be trouble.Arbie - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I agree: No microSD = No Sale, so the Nexus 5 is not an option.Arbie - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Yeah, streaming is possible. It's just hugely more expensive and infinitely less reliable than having what you want on an SD card. So what is your point?Asylum1621 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
When you say "I can see why Samsung would want to optimize for these two cases as they are quite common in regular usage" what is this based on? Usage models show that >90% of commands sent to eMMC during regular usage are 4k random writes. Sequential read and write is rarely used in the system, and most sequential read/write events are not dependent on eMMC having great sequential performance, ie video playback, recording video using built-in camera, etc.kelemvor33 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
I'd love to see the GS3 in some of these charts to get a good comparison of how the GS line has improved over time. I have a GS3 and my 2 years is up this fall so the GS5 will be an option for me. The GS4 wasn't due to timing so having the 3, 4, and 5 in there would be more beneficial info to have.rrecine - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Metal does not mean a phone is built better than another phone. Metal is for isheep and magnets.akdj - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Must not have read...or comprehended the review? Metal is an incredible conductor of heat, a natural 'heatsink' for the 'guts'. See the scores in the M8 vs S5? Consistently higher benchmarks and faster, longer performance without throttling due to the ability of metals to dissipate that heat. Plastic is more insulator than anything. I own the Note 3, had the S3 and original Note as well. Metal, Apple's 'plastic' and all the Nokias I've seen have significantly better plastic build quality than my Sammys. To defend samsung and their use of extremely cheap 'housings' on the high end phones is silly. Kinda the joke of the entire industry. Such cool ideas, fast processing, great displays and digitized screens with styli... Yet they have FINALLY gotten around to improving TouchWiz...a bit more refined this time around, still kinda 'old' looking and heavy with crap you won't use...NOR have they increased or 'bettered' their manufacturing process when it comes to building the phone housing. I'm not saying it HAS to metal, though the iPhone is gorgeous, as are the latest HTCs and XPerias...but plastics can be molded, hardened, shined up and 'feel' solid if done right. Samsung's cheap rear plate is a joke. Nice to access a battery, but I've never owned a second one...my Note 3 will last two days. Nice to have the SD storage. And IMHO they actually did a pretty good job with the N3's 'textured' faux leather design on the black model. I'll hold judgement on this one til I see it...but @ 5.1" it's starting to creep into that Note/Phablet territory...one a bit more niche than the typical user. I love my Note3 but it's a two handed device for everything and anything I do with it. Even after owning one for two and a half years, I still hate using it as a phone. Too damn big. But anymore, talking on our phones is tertiary. MMS,SMS, Facebook and Twitter, emails and texts. So many more efficient ways to communicate. But when you've got to make a call, it's nice to have a comfortable phone. I love the iPhone for a lot of reasons, but a big one is the ease of one handed use. While the N3 has the 4" small screen option, the hardware is still in the same spot so it's kinda useless with the exception of phone dialing or single handed texting.doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Good post.maecenas - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"Pretty much all the flagships offer some set of tradeoffs that prevent any one from being the perfect device (iPhone's screen size...)"Not really what I would choose to knock the iPhone - in my opinion the iPhone is about the right size and screen size is a knock against pretty much everyone else. That said, iPhone doesn't allow MicroSD expansion, doesn't feature different screen size options, has the closed Apple environment, charges outrageous prices for storage expansion - there are a lot of less subjective criticisms that can be made.
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
Hardly any phones offer different screen size options, including the Galaxy S4...OCedHrt - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
What's with the constant 5s pitch. In the low light lab shot the z1s clearly has the better picture compared to 5s (less noise, similar brightness/tone) yet is not mentioned.rauelius - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
No word in this review about the 16GB version only having 5GB of space for Apps? Come on, the press is the second to last bastion for consumer rights! Offering 16GB and advertising it as such when 70% of it is taken up by the OS, is as close to lying on the box as you can get. Also, SD cards are basically useless for apps at this point, so putting one on the phone, then having the press point it out is just a big middle finger in the face of the consumer.eastbei - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Well finally it is mentioned that amoled even with pentile is a better technology then IPS , LCD, etc. I personally hate pentiles but the true blacks that you get plus much better contrast, lower battery consumption and better colors make amoled the clear winner, now we just need someone else to start using them other then Samsung, I'd definintly get the g2 if it was amoled but I might be stuck with Samsung as I can't go back to an overbright backlit LCD phone.kmmatney - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
One crappy thing about AMOLEDs is that they seem to get worse over time. On several older phones I have the screens are now discolored, and overall look crappy. I'll stick with IPS screens.Cyleo - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The device you refer to in your conclusion sounds a lot like the upcoming xperia Z2. I for one can't wait to see how it fares. Any plans on reviewing that device? I'm asking since I've noticed the Z1s pop up in this review. I know Sony's release schedule in the US can be a bit wonky.MrCrispy - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Why are things like removable battery, sd card, IR transmitter, HR monitor barely mentioned or completely ignored, while the fingerprint reader gets a detailed criticism? The fact is the S5 is a very well balanced phone.How exactly do the GS5 materials 'prevent it' from being a perfect device? This stupid myth about 'metal > plastic' needs to die, and its one this site likes to keep repeating. The GS5 is much more durable and waterproof compared to the 5S or M8, yet its seen as a tradeoff ?!! I don't want a metal body, plastic is shown to be better built and more durable.
kyuu - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
There's plastic, and then there's plastic. Not all plastic is the same. The problem isn't that Samsung uses plastic; the problem is that they use cheap, crappy plastic.MrCrispy - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
What makes the polycarbonate used by Samsung 'cheap' and 'crappy', besides subjective opinion?doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
The fact that it looks and feels cheap and crappy.jharvey31 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Does the S5 work with the Smart Dock Multimedia Hub? I know that the Galaxy Note 3, which also has the larger USB 3.0 hub, does, but it'd be great to know if the same is true for the S5.jharvey31 - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
I tested this, and the hub does NOT work with the S5. Looks like Samsung finally updated their website to reflect this as well: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones-acces...rogekk - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
its a great phone , not that impressed as so is this review http://buff.ly/1mYfgYm, but I believe samsung can make phones out of better materialsEgg - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Where is Brian Klug? :'(rogueninja - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Inaccurate colors. But it's AMOLED! Saturated colors. But it's AMOLED! Burn-in on PS Vita, Galaxy 3,4, and 5. But AMOLED!KoolAidMan1 - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
You're never going to get Android/Samsung sheep to be objective about what's wrong with their choices. They just blindly say its the best thing ever even when there are much better choicesHuman Bass - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
The thing is that the colours can bd mostly tamed and amoled is the only one to be accurate with a very important color: black. Once you see how much true, absolute black enhances movies and reading, it is hard to go back to they greys of lcd.az060693 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Sounds just like apple fans lol.Samus - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Why does the LG G2 seem to have the best camera?MrSpencer - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
"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."So basically... the HTC One M8.
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?
Brian Z - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Yes you are a obvious fanboy.I have not said nor has anybody else said that Samsung wad the only one.
Hell this site has a theme going up where they update the benchmark cheating chart. But yet you still push your BS.
And Samsung was the only OEM to actually overclock the gpu. But since it's Samsung you got the nerv to even suggest well is it really cheating....
They complained loud and clear about this. In public on the reviews. In public on the podcast. Even in public we want Sony to send us a phone so we can see if they are cheating and add them to the chart
And now they are advertising the m8 in the article. So I guess you weren't paying any attention ever when a review compared different SoCs bins. Like the Samsung Galaxy s4 with its 1.9ghz s600 in the nexus 7 2013 article. Funny how that isn't advertising. Or when comparing screens on the tablets in the market. But of course you're a blinded fanboy so yeah.
They "discovered" the cheating not because it was Samsung. Because somebody on twitter Tweeted at Brian Klug and they investigated it from there. They weren't even looking for it period. And what did they do right after testing it on the Samsung device. Look at all the other players in the market to see if they were doing it. But facts and reality don't matter a delusional fanboy like yourself.
Oh and keep telling yourself aluminum is cheap crap. Aka a beer can.
Clueless uninformed pathetic fanboy
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
TheSailorMan - you can't go round spouting fanboy crap such as iAnand and expect to be able to claim you're not a fanboy. You're worse than anyone else I've seen.TheSailorMan - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
I REPEATI'm not fan boy to any brand!!!!!
And you hippocrates, do not lie, that this all BS was not meant OLNY for bashing Samsung .
Even here iAnand mention AGAIN Samsung slyly, but didn't mention it about HTC (they even did it again with M8 , and didn't give a sh.... about iAnand "discoveries", saying that it was NOT cheating )
Veruca5alt - Monday, April 28, 2014 - link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HippocratesVeruca5alt - Monday, April 28, 2014 - link
bahahahhaha what a trolltastic fanboy you arepuremind - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link
Good job on the display analysis this year guys. Last year theS4 review did not go into the dynamic brightness adjustment issue and I feel you have nailed this down this year.Though it would have also been nice to see the maximum brightnes in boost mode not only for 100% white but for an APL of 80% which is the average APL of web browsing content. It will probably be in the region of 500cd/m² based on the curves I measured last year.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2...
If you look at the curves I produced and typical brightness for content at different APL levels, it shows how brightness progresses.
- On the S4 it decreased from 478cd/m² at 1% APL down to only 283cd/m² for a 100% white picture, so a 60% loss.
- On the S5, displaymate noted 698cd/m² at 1% APL and you noted 440cd/m² at 100% white, which is also about 60%.
-Based on the apparently same progression and prorating my results from last year, at 80% APL we should still have 475 cd/m2 for web browsing, which is very close to the HTC One (approx 500cd/m², through this also varies with APL). For video content and some web content we should actually see brightness well above 500cd/m².
You certainly did a much better job than Displaymate in terms of objectivity.
TheSailorMan - Monday, April 14, 2014 - link
"You certainly did a much better job than Displaymate in terms of objectivity."Really? Better job than Displaymate? LOL
iAnand did his job AGAIN.
Human Bass - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
The really iffy thing I found about the S5 was the lack of OIS in the main camera.TheSailorMan - Monday, April 14, 2014 - link
Still one of the best on smatphones(if not the best)Blairh - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
S5 reminds me a lot of the S4 Active which I used last year. Sucks to see HTC and Samsung go bigger and heavier this year.I have the Nexus 5 and I'll never pay more than $350 off contract for a phone ever again. 30 grams less than the N5. Speaker is fine for short YouTube vids. I use bluetooth speakers and headphones in all other situations. Camera is solid after 4.1.1. Lack of SD slot is a letdown but I pinned my favorite music. Feels amazing in hand. Stock Android. Can't recommend it enough. $300 less than S5 and M8 off contract. And AT&T saves me $15 a month for bringing my phone to their service.
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.Saltank - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Not a single word about actually making phone calls? No call quality / HD Voice stuff? I was awestruck by how awesome my iPhone 5 handles regular non-HDVoice calls, and the GS3 was good, too, but my old HTC One was subpar.Also, how come camera comparisons don't take WP's in to account? No Lumia 1020/1520/930?
Lightstorm66 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I thought Anandt ech knew that the Samsung Browser is faster than chrome and achieves in the Galaxy S5 even better results than the iphone 5s in sunspider.Galaxy S5: 385,8 ms
iphone 5s: 414,7 ms
ryanmt - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
The LG G2 is the unsung camera hero here. It outperforms it all. Why are only the HTC M8 and 5S called out for their good low light performance when the G2 is actually (subjectively) better?echo9251 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
There should be more talk about the lack of a 64MB option. I have a 64MB HTC One (M7) and enjoy never having to worry about running out of storage for apps, etc. Losing half my storage is a big disincentive to "upgrading" to a new phone.Brian Z - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Well they did include a micro SD card that supports up to 128gb.I am not going to make the case that having more storage considering the outrageous prices of the these devices. But at a point it gets a ridiculous. People complain loud OMG no external storage. No buy. Then they make 32gb device with expandable storage. People still complain
Streamlined - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
Uh, because SD cards are dog slow compared to storage on the motherboard. SD CARDS SUCK and that is why HTC includes larger storage options. Just another reason the M8 is the best Android phone money can buy.Myrandex - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I'm disappointed no Nokia's showed up in the camera tests. I've love to see how this lined up with my Lumia 920, particularly in the low light tests. My wife's 1020 is a beast too.Souka - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Here's a another way to test durability and take apart a S5https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=newNF1UsOcw
dlang1234 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
What I'm most impressed by, is how well the LG G2 is performing at these benchmarks against much newer phones. I have had my G2 for a while now, and it is an awesome phone.. so much so that these phones look more like side grades than upgrades even though, I mean it was released September 12, 2013 and now almost 6 months later, the epic increases of speed in mobile seems to be subsiding some.chrcoluk - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
agreed.I own a S3 and a galaxy ace.
The galaxy ace has cyanogen mod 7.2 installed on it.
The S3 has touchwiz based on android 4.3
In terms of hardware spec the S3 is many multiples more powerful than the ace.
However many basic functions are much snappier on the ace, in particurly using it as a phone, bringing up the call log, scrolling the call log, making calls, answering calls, opening contacts, all these functions much faster on the ace. The ace also wakes up immediatly whilst the S3 has wake lag, the ace has much longer lasting battery even tho it has a weaker battery. However the ace does suck when it comes to using it for the internet/gaming most 3rd party apps as thats where its hw spec hits it, but its limitations are mostly down to its lack of ram. IT seems to always have more spare cpu cycles than the S£ as the S3 is bogged down by touchwiz.
So why havent I got the S3 on AOSP. google edition etc? the problem is the contacts/dialer app on AOSP sucks really bad, its aweful. Especially with the default white background. Samsung have at least maintained a half decent UI design in their dialer/contacts the problem is its mega laggy. But sadly UI design wins over performance. CM7.2 has the best ever dialer/contacts I have seen on a android phone but new phones cannot use CM7.2.
I have recently decided to start using the ace as my main phone (its easier to use out and about also due to its smaller size) and primarily use the S3 as a portable computing device. That way I can stick AOSP on the S3 and not worry about the crappy contacts app.
Do samsung deliberatly make their interface laggy? not sure, its certianly possible tho as they want to give a people a reason to upgrade to the next phone every year.
Also notice how every new software update increases the fotn size as well, to give people a reason to want the higher DPI. The relative font size looks equal on my ace vs the S3 even tho the S3 has a way higher resolution.
ESC2000 - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
I would be an incredibly shortsighted business plan to purposely create a laggy UI and hope it makes people upgrade... It will make them upgrade... To a competitor's phone. If the lag was your problem with the device, why would you but another device that very well might be laggy as well?StevenSMay - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
The reason why manufacturers drop those skins is not so they "look different" only but because they can somehow rationalize not updating the software on the device later and force you into an upgraded device sooner. http://qr.net/stx3SpeedsterRadio - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
No comments about radiated sensitivity in the two wifi bands, nor in Cellular, PCS, or AWS bands. This review is somewhat pointless.. If someone buys this device and it has weak RF performance, they're not going to be happy with any of the features (esp. download booster) if connectivity is horrible due to poor antenna design.TheSailorMan - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
He told you that it works great. What else you want? To tell you that iphone5s is the best device???(or M8?)He couldn't say it strait(cause he pretend not be biased) , but hinted it many times. And he even said here that the ALUMINUM is great and very important feature for him(as "tech guru" he should know that aluminum is the WORST material for smartphones, though).
Besides he did "great job" already, to play-down all the great features that S5 has.
nerd1 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Maybe it's just me, but I now think anand now very carefully selects test results that makes apple devices look better, while pretending to be unbiased.Stock browser beats iPhone 5 with sunspider (slower chrome was used instead). AMOLED screen sucks at web browsing and excels at movie playing and there is no movie playing battery benchmark. Display brightness is shown with manual brightness (which is capped).
And again the "plastic is bad" conclusion - I absolutely HATE phone case and always carry tiny backup battery. Why he keep saying that mobile devices should be made in metal? Metal gets scratched and bent, is heavier and slippery so everyone puts case over it - then WHY?
doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
No, it's not just you. Any Samsung fanboys in denail will agree with you.doobydoo - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
denial*Streamlined - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
If you're in the market for an Android phone you don't give a crap about Apple. What you want is to be able to compare Android phones against one another. So Anand picks a neutral browser to allow a good comparison.omaudio - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
PLEASE add to your phone reviews whether the GPS functions work when the phone is in airplane mode or out of cellular range. I use my HTC Amaze for camping and other off the grid trips and do so because the GPS works with my offline maps etc.az06093 - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
There are 3 options for the GPS on android devices. GPS only, network assisted gps, and network location only. Just set it to gps only.nerd1 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
Samsung still makes the most well-around and practical phone out there. It's funny so many people are crazing the metal stuff that bends and scratches without case.synaesthetic - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
I used to love Samsung phones, but not so much anymore. If I'm going to spend 600 bucks on a phone, can we please stop making it feel like a toy? I'm not saying anything about using metal; Nokia's Lumia devices are made of polycarbonate but they feel rock-solid and excellently constructed.AMOLED? Meh. IPS is where it's at. AMOLED's oversaturated to the point of cartoonishness. With AMOLED, in six months of decently heavy use, tons of the blue subpixels burn out and the display gets weird unless you're very, very careful to make sure that all your subpixels wear evenly. White webpages drain the crap out of battery. I had a Galaxy Nexus for eighteen months (the one with the RGBG pentile matrix that's supposed to reduce the effects of subpixel burn out) and within half that time I had blue stripes where the status bar and nav bar were whenever I put it in landscape mode. IPS doesn't have this issue; my Nexus 4's screen looks exactly the way it did when it was new, eight months later.
The only new device I really care much about right now is the Xperia Z2. Sony phones have been awesome for a while now except for Sony's insistence on using crap screens, but the Z2's display is amazing. Not oversaturated, looks natural and fantastic, has great viewing angles... not to mention an sdcard slot and a gigantic battery.
Samsung doesn't sell a ton of phones because they're the best device, just like Apple doesn't. They both sell a ton of phones because they both spend a ridiculous amount of money on marketing.
ashleynelson548 - Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - link
My review is simple. Get in line and get this phone: http://amzn.to/1ksys3o - Got a chance to test it and this is one awesome phone. Finally Samsung got something right with the S5. I've had HTC & Samsung phones prior to the Galaxy series came out. And nothing has come close to this phone. Great resolution, great camera, love it still has a sd slot to expand your storage capacity along with the high gb internal memory. Lots of ways to tweak to your liking.SymphonyX7 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
Anyone know how Anandtech measure the phone's power consumption? Do they just hook up a voltmeter between the battery terminals, get the voltage readout and compute from that?nerd1 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
I think they used in-line powermeter.Stiv21 - Thursday, April 10, 2014 - link
This fake , here's flagshiphttp://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=6040&...
RonaldNCoady - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
People who are been obsessed with stock experience pushed to their phones the minute Google announces a new update buy a Nexus phone. Everyone else buys the phone they feel best suits them. Most people teds to buy Galaxy S phones, simply because they are the best, and one of the very few with an OLED display. http://evo9.it/qr.net/aacrodex - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
I really didn't get the capture latency part. Unlike iphone, android phones support continuous drive, so if you want to capture multiple photos, just don't release your finger.abufrejoval - Friday, April 11, 2014 - link
I am (actually more than a little) disappointed that Samsung is trying to do the right thing on one hand with the introduction of Knox for securely running enterprise applications on these devices, yet on the other hand not taking suffient care to really enable them to be what they are:Very small and portable yet incredibly powerful workstations, quite capable of replacing entry level PCs by just sticking them into (better placing them on a wireless) docking station, which has a set of full sized screens, keyboard and mouse connected to them so you can run either light office applications right off the phone or use Citrix (or any other terminal server protocol) for some heavier stuff, which still requires a beefy VDI to run.
To call them "phones" today is like calling a PC a "word processor": Sure that's how they started, but that's not what the have become.
I bought the Note 3 (like its predecessor, a Note 1) as a very personal workstation, also bought the docking station, which gave me HDMI video and audio out as well as 3 USB (2.0) ports, but I was extremely disappointed to find that the "handheld workstation" wouldn't properly initialize the Asix USB Ethernet adapter, which *every* Android I've ever tried works with out of the box.
And the monitor was little better: Even though the phone's screen is actually turned off with KitKat and orientation properly switches to landscape mode, all UI elements look groteskly swollen because they were sized to fit a 1080p resolution on a ~6" screen, but not the 32" LED TV I use on my desktop. Needless to say that word processing is no fun when letters are taller than your thumb.
Clearly the only use case Samsung seems to support via the HDMI port is watching movies: Something I don't need a workstation for.
After no essential Knox features or applications were forthcoming I went ahead and rooted my Note 3, essentially killing any chance of ever using Knox on that device now. With two "netcfg eth0 dhcp" commands in sequence I can now properly bring up Ethernet and thus connect to the securized office LAN and run Citrix, but with the built-in and fixed DPI settings all other desktop use is still painful to look at.
There are of course solutions to that problem: Any Parandroid ROM and derivative has wonderful multi-DPI support built in, but unfortunately since the MHL adapter in the Samsung devices doesn't have an open source driver, you immediately loose the HDMI connect, once you put one of these multi-DPI capable Androids on the workstation: Catch-22!
The only one who can fix this is Samsung and it doesn't look like they are using this opportunity to make their devices more appealing for enterprise use.
I have quite a number of Android devices and having a different flavour on each one of them would make them pretty unusable. So I put Omnirom on all my Galaxys (except the Note 3), my Nexus 4, 7, 10, Oppo Find 5, Asus TF101, Notion Ink Adam and even switched the return and menu keys around on all the Nexus devices to put them back where "God" (Samsung) intended them to be on my first Galaxy S, with home in the center.
And since the original launchers were always far too limited and boring I've been running SPB 3D shell on all of these devices for years, which gives me both speed and a nice look as well as a level of consistency across phone, portrait and landscape tablet sized Androids, not possible otherwise.
Custom Androids give me choice, configurability and privacy: Let the hardware vendors concentrate on creating the best workstation they can make and leave the OS alone!
I bought a post-PC darn it, like in "personal" not a blackmail subscription!
tomgadd - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
Why are the tester do not test audio quality??The background is, that people between 15-30 years do consume 90% of music on their smartphone. So it would be a smart move to give the audio quality a higher priority in the test.
Finally the S5 has in my view the best audio quality available on a smartphone these days.
A really smart move from samsung....that was formerly one of the key the departements of apple....Sadly the competitors needed a few years to understand the importance...
synaesthetic - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
I wish phone reviewers would test audio quality. I really, really do. But more than that, I wish they would test the one thing that is absolutely most important to audio quality on headphones, the one thing that can ruin good sound quicker than anything if it's not within the correct ratio...Output impedance.
Nobody does this except that Korean blog Golden Ears, and the English translations just don't keep up with the new devices coming out. I really, really wish someone, anyone, anandtech or otherwise, would break out the multimeter and test output impedance!
Streamlined - Sunday, April 20, 2014 - link
I agree. They did do an audio comparison of smartphones a few months ago that included, I think the S4. I believe the iPhone came out as the best overall audio quality in those tests.Zoide - Sunday, April 13, 2014 - link
Is it me or is the LG G2 the clear winner in the photo comparisons? I wonder why there's no mention of that in the review.rwalker - Monday, April 14, 2014 - link
curious about why you used Chrome and not Samsung's Android browserheomapnhat - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
The reason why manufacturers drop those skins is not so they "look different" only but because they can somehow rationalize not updating the software on the device later and force you into an upgraded device sooner.Anyone buying a non-nexus phone is in this boat unless they want to do some work on their own to keep the devices up to date and that doesn't always quite work out right in terms of stability.
Davidjan - Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - link
Like it. Galaxy phones always support Meenova MicroSD reader to add storage: http://goo.gl/2iJ6gf4techlover - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
the latest and greatest..http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-f...
4techlover - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
the latest and greatest..http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-f...
Tjoe - Saturday, April 19, 2014 - link
I wonder, is it possible to do a review on the Oppo Find 7a? I think it'd be quite interesting to see it up against the giants of the mobile phone industry.charliehill - Sunday, April 20, 2014 - link
I gonna buy this when the price goes down a little bit , hope this works well on my WIWOFIT Wireless Charger bought from Amazon. of course I will get a receiver cardwww.amazon.com/dp/B00J2TEL28
bill.steave - Saturday, May 10, 2014 - link
This cpu performance review is wrong.Webbrowser can't measure exact cpu performance. It's severely dependent on javascript engine. Iphone and Android 's javascript engine are not same.
gumble_stilts - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
The GS5 is great, the camera is fantastic! Just remove all the annoying widgets and the phone is great. I protect my phone with a case from leather phone .com so it looks sharphizoka - Friday, May 23, 2014 - link
best prix for Samsung Galaxy S5 16GB in amazonSM-G900H WHITE $574.98
http://goo.gl/ccCMaJ
G-900H Black $571.01
http://goo.gl/tL6Kg8
Chomba - Wednesday, June 4, 2014 - link
Good thing that they have upgraded this nice phone. What to do with my current phone though... Wait a minute.. if I can sell my current phone I will be able to recoup some of the cost and just top up. I found Gadgets and Toy to be helpful. find it here http://www.gadgetsandtoy.com/jayarcollantes - Monday, September 1, 2014 - link
I have samsung galaxy s5 . I tried to put in the water , when I opened the back cover , water leaks inside the battery . I thought the galaxy s5 is water resistant ?fridsun - Saturday, September 27, 2014 - link
Is it possible to test NAND performance of an iPhone? I am looking for data comparing that with other devices.