On the hardware front, the Galaxy S5 provides an arguably smaller upgrade than we’ve seen with past releases. The Super AMOLED display has seen a slight bump to 5.1-inches, and still packs the same 1080p resolution we’re used to. The Snapdragon 600 SoC of the Galaxy S4 is swapped out for the newer Snapdragon 801. A 16-megapixel camera is seen on the back, complete with 4K video recording. Nothing major, just continual improvements in all the key areas.
Samsung Galaxy S5
$99 with contract, $700 unlocked
- 5.1”, 1920 x 1080 Super AMOLED display (432 ppi)
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC
- 2.5 GHz quad-core CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM
- 16/32 GB internal storage, microSD card slot
- 16 MP camera, 1/2.6” sensor, f/2.2 lens, 4K video
- IP67 water resistant
- Fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor
- 2,800 mAh, 10.78 Wh battery
- LTE, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC
- Android 4.4 ‘KitKat’
- 145 grams, 8.1mm thick
There’s no doubting that Samsung’s massive marketing budget will make the Galaxy S5 very successful, but with increased pressure from HTC and their fantastic One M8, and the Sony Xperia Z2, Samsung is going to find it harder to have an absolute winner in the flagship Android space.
Design
Not much has changed, design-wise, between the Galaxy S III of 2012 and the Galaxy S5 of 2014. The plastic remains, the imitation metal remains, and typical Samsung elements like the protruding camera, physical home button and prominent sensor array, also remain. The back panel is removable and the display gets slightly larger with each release.
Click on any photo to enlarge
Where changes have been made, the changes are for the better. Samsung
has finally listened to the complaints and has opted for a plastic rear
housing that doesn’t feel cheap, slippery and awful. The new
Band-Aid-style texturing feels surprisingly nice, and gives the phone a
touch of class where it hasn’t had any in the past.
While it’s not the best smartphone build going around, it’s easily the best Galaxy S design so far. The Galaxy S5’s body is very ergonomic, with the curves seemingly sculpted to match the human hand. It’s not the slimmest phone ever released at 8.1mm thick, but it doesn’t feel chunky to hold, nor heavy at 145 grams. The shift away from the smooth, glossy back panel also makes the handset easier to keep in your hands as it’s considerably less slippery.
Next to the physical home button, which thanks to the fingerprint scanner has less travel than you’d expect, are the two capacitive soft buttons. Finally, the menu button has been canned after it was made a legacy feature in Android 4.0 way back in 2011. It's been replaced with the far more useful recent apps button, allowing quick multitasking and switching of apps.
The other button is the back button, which is on the opposite side to most Android handsets; not a huge deal, but you might be confused temporarily if you’re coming from a non-Samsung device.
Around the edges, you’ll find the volume rocker on the left-hand side, and the power button on the right, continuing Samsung’s tradition of placing it in the most comfortable location. Unlike other recent smartphones like the Nokia Lumia 1520 and HTC One M8, you can’t double tap the display to power on the device, but you do have the option of pressing the physical home button or the power button.
On the top edge is the 3.5mm headphone jack, plus the infrared LED which lets you control TVs, set-top boxes, home theatre systems and more. The bottom is where you’ll find the micro-USB 3.0 port covered by a flap, which is something that hasn’t been seen in a Galaxy device since the sliding cover over the original Galaxy S’ USB port. It’s quite annoying to have to constantly open the flap whenever you want to charge the device, but it’s necessary for a new feature: water resistance.
The Galaxy S5 is Samsung's first major release that is water resistant, with the company deciding that producing a separate Active-branded model (like the Galaxy S4 Active) wasn’t the ideal way to go. The S5 is IP67 rated, indicating it’s dust tight and resistant to up to one meter of fresh water for 30 minutes. It’s important to note that the Galaxy S5, like other water resistant smartphones, aren’t immune to salt water; if you take the S5 into the sea, you might end up corroding and damaging internal components.
I’m not convinced that water resistance is a hugely important feature for a phone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to have the ability to take underwater photographs and drop it in the bath without caring, but I rarely find myself in the situation where I’d like to use my phone in a wet environment. Plus, the capacitive touchscreen doesn’t work properly when it’s wet, so your use of the S5 in a pool or shower will be limited at best.
The back of the device sees the camera protrude slightly from the body (it’s 9.7mm thick at this point), and below it is the all-new heart rate sensor in a cut-out alongside the LED flash. Further down you’ll find the single rear speaker, and there’s the usual range of branding.
Behind the Galaxy S5’s back cover is the long and slim removable battery, plus the microSD card slot which is stacked on top of the microSIM slot. To the top left of the battery you can see a range of exposed pins, which are used for the Wireless Charging S-View Flip Cover, an optional accessory which is Qi-compatible.
With companies still charging a ridiculous sum for extra internal storage, Samsung included, I’m happy to see the inclusion of a microSD card. The removable battery is a slightly different story: very useful for a small percentage of users, but due to the extra housing necessary, it reduces the potential battery capacity. The S5's 2,800 mAh battery (10.78 Wh) is nothing to sneeze at, but Sony and LG have managed to pack 3,000 mAh (11.4 Wh) batteries in similar bodies.
One final feature I’d like to highlight is the cleverly hidden notification LED that you’ll find in the top-left corner. The LED is large, multi-colored and bright, making it easy to see when you’ve got notifications to attend to. It sits near the in-call speaker, prominent speaker array and front-facing camera.
Throughout this review you’ll see the “Shimmery White” model of the S5, but it’s also available in “Charcoal Black”, “Electric Blue” and “Copper Gold”, all of which look just as good.
Display: The New Super AMOLED
The Galaxy S5’s display is an incremental, but noteworthy update over the Galaxy S4’s display, despite a lack of significant changes on paper. The S5 packs a 5.1-inch 16:9 Super AMOLED display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution; crunching some numbers reveals a pixel density of 431 PPI, and a total screen area of 71.7 sq. cm.
Unlike LCD displays of this size and resolution, the Galaxy S5’s panel uses a PenTile subpixel matrix, which means there isn’t a dedicated red, green and blue subpixel per pixel in this display. This reduces the true resolution of the panel and, if this was an early AMOLED from 2011, would give it a grainy appearance. Luckily the technology has come a long way since then, and partially thanks to the high pixel density, the effects of the PenTile matrix are virtually unnoticeable.
The sharpness and clarity exhibited from the Galaxy S5’s Super AMOLED panel is as good as we’ve come to expect. Thin typefaces look especially fantastic on the S5’s display, giving that paper-like experience when browsing the web or viewing other text-heavy applications. The ability to view 1080p video content natively is always welcome, as is the extra detail you’ll see in images.
The AMOLED panels I’ve used over the past few years, in devices such as the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, have almost always been a step behind the top-end LCD competition. They couldn’t match LCD technology on brightness, white levels and balance, outdoor visibility, and color accuracy. But this all changes with the Galaxy S5’s much improved display.
For the first time in a long time, the AMOLED display in the Galaxy S5 made me go “wow.” From the moment I powered on the device it was clear how much effort Samsung has put into improving their AMOLED technology: this is now a panel that competes well with top-level LCDs like the HTC One M8’s Super LCD 3 and the Xperia Z2’s Triluminious IPS LCD.
The colors produced by the S5’s display look astonishing, with a level of saturation that only an AMOLED can achieve. There doesn’t appear to be a tint towards a certain color like I’ve seen in the past, resulting in reasonably balanced images that look fantastic nearly all of the time.
Accuracy is still not as great as I’ve seen in LCD panels like the Nexus 5’s, as the gamut exceeds the sRGB spectrum resulting in inflated saturation and blown-out color levels. There’s also an issue with the gamma being slightly too high, which darkens and can oversaturate images. The good news is that these problems don’t stop the display from looking great; only the color accuracy is affected, and while I always look for an accurate display, most users will accept or not even notice this issue when photos look so good.
Contrast from AMOLED panels is as good as it gets – essentially infinite contrast – as the panel is ‘off’ when displaying blacks. Naturally this makes blacks and shadows unbelievably deep, and white levels are surprisingly good too, with only slight tinting towards the blue/cold end of the spectrum.
One of the most significant areas of improvement is the Galaxy S5 display’s outdoor visibility. The S5’s maximum display brightness appears to be only slightly higher than AMOLEDs of the past, but the construction of the panel has been altered in such a way that reflections have been reduced. The thickness of materials between the light-emitting diodes and the Gorilla Glass front panel has been reduced, which along with the diagonally-installed polarization filter actually make it possible to read the display in strong sunlight or backlighting.
A downside to getting a white model of the Galaxy S5 is the reflective white bezel around the display, which can give an illusion that the display is dim when outdoors as it reflects much more light than the panel itself. This didn’t hinder my ability to view the display in these conditions as significantly as it has in the past, thanks to the improvements in display technology, but the black model will be free from this issue altogether.
The viewing angles on this AMOLED panel have also been improved to the point where it matches the best panel in this domain: the Super LCD 3. There’s little loss of brightness when viewing the S5’s display from an acute angle, and although there’s a slightly greater shift in colors compared to the fantastic Super LCD 3 display on the HTC One M8, it’s hardly a huge issue.
I had no issues using the Galaxy S5’s touchscreen, and for those living in cold climates, you’ll be glad to hear that there is an option to increase the touch sensitivity, allowing you to use the display with gloves on. This isn’t a new feature – it’s been a major feature of some phones since the Nokia Lumia 920 – but nevertheless it’s a welcome one.
Software: Refined TouchWiz
TouchWiz is back, but it’s not the same TouchWiz we’re used to. Paired with the latest version of Android 4.4 ‘KitKat’ out of the box, Samsung has given their custom software skin a major overhaul on the Galaxy S5, finally removing some of the elements that has made TouchWiz so hated over the past few years. However, this is still Samsung we’re talking about, so not every aspect of the Galaxy S5’s software is smooth sailing.The last iteration of TouchWiz, which was seen on the Galaxy Note 3, looked dated and was visually unpleasant. It was a mess of gradients, flat elements and horrible visual choices that melded awfully with the stock Android look of apps on the device such as Gmail, Google Now, Chrome and the Play Store.
Every aspect of TouchWiz on the Galaxy S5 has been overhauled, with the skin now having a coherent look and feel across all apps and pages. The teal highlights remain, but gradients have been completely ditched. Fonts are thinner and look nicer as well, icons have received a modern refresh, and several interface items have been improved with a new circular look.
TouchWiz certainly looks much nicer than previous iterations, but it still doesn’t integrate well with many stock Android items around the OS, meaning it lacks that cohesive feel of iOS, Windows Phone or vanilla Android. Samsung also hasn’t taken the opportunity to actually refine the interface layout of the OS or the apps included, so there’s still a fair bit of skinning for the sake of skinning.
Most base aspects of the OS are a typical affair. The home screen is what you’d expect with a 4x4 grid of icons and some standard Samsung widgets to use, although I’m glad that My Magazine has been shifted to the left of the home screen panels, rather than as a press of the home button on the home pane. The Flipboard-powered feature itself is visually quite nice, but essentially a rip-off of HTC’s better-implemented BlinkFeed.
The lockscreen looks surprisingly good and integrated weather, fitness information and music playback controls. Meanwhile, the notification pane still includes a scrolling panel of quick toggles at the top, plus a handy quick brightness control and links to S Finder and Quick Connect. Quick Connect is a handy tool to share content quickly with nearby devices, while S Finder is a slightly more comprehensive local phone search tool than Google Search.
S Voice is still part of the Galaxy S5’s software stack, accessible through double tapping the home button, although it faces still competition from Google Voice Search. Doing a quick comparison of S Voice and Google Voice Search reveals Samsung’s offering is much slower to respond, generally gives inferior results and has trouble understanding my Australian accent, making it not worth using. Not to mention Google Voice Search can be activated by saying “OK Google” on the home screen, whereas you need to physically launch S Voice to use it.
Most of the critical applications on the Galaxy S5, such as Messaging, Contacts, My Files and Calculator, are largely identical to versions found on previous Galaxy S devices, but with a new skin applied. Functionality in these key applications is still quite good, and I don’t feel like anything key is missing, plus the improved visual design makes it more appealing to use.
There’s another tier of apps which are Samsung-made, but duplicates of Google apps already on the device as part of the GME package. Chrome is a more feature-packed browser than Internet, and the jury is out on whether Samsung’s Music app is better than Google Play Music, but I prefer to use Samsung’s Gallery app than Photos. Annoyingly, having duplicates means you’ll see app selection pop-ups quite often, which is something Google and OEMs need to sort out.
Several apps have been improved going from the Galaxy S4 to the S5. S Planner is no longer a cluttered mess, and is actually a decent calendar application to use through its presentation of just the right amount of information. Small improvements have also been made to Smart Remote, the app used to view TV guides and control your home media equipment, that make it more friendly to use. I’m also glad S Note has been omitted from the S5, as its stylus-centric interface was hard to navigate on previous Galaxy S handsets.
And now for the list of Samsung bloatware, which has been significantly reduced compared to previous models. Samsung Apps is the worst of the lot, being a poor excuse for an app store and superfluous when the Play Store is factored in. But the worst part is that some apps, such as S Health and S Voice, must be updated through Samsung Apps, and to do that you need to enable installations from unknown sources in the device settings. How that is a good user experience is beyond me.
Other bloatware apps include ChatON, the Samsung Music Hub, and Catch-Up TV, the latter of which is just a link to download new apps.
While many aspects of the Galaxy S5’s software are acceptable, one area that’s definitely not is the settings screen. There are so many setting subsections in there it’s ridiculous. With repeat sections and options not being where you’d expect, I had difficulty finding what I wanted, so I wouldn’t be surprised if users got completely lost. Even Samsung acknowledges this, including a search feature within the settings pane; if you have to include a search option in your settings pane, it’s probably time to rethink the entire section.
The first thing you’ll want to do when you find the Sound section is to turn off the incredibly annoying touch sounds. By default, the S5 makes far too many bloopy noises, but luckily you can put a stop to it.
Browsing through the settings you’ll find typical Samsung features, including the ability to change the screen mode (although I’d leave it on default), screen mirroring, one-handed operation features, a blocking mode to reject calls and disable notifications during a certain time period, and safety assistance messages.
In what is an excellent choice on Samsung’s part, many of the gimmicky features have been cut from the Galaxy S5’s software. Smart Stay, which uses the front-facing camera to keep the display on when it detects you’re looking at it, is the only feature remaining from the ‘Smart’ selection, meaning the awful eye scrolling is gone. Motion and gesture controls have been cut down to the few useful ones, as has Air View, which now properly explains when and where you can hover your finger over the display to get extra information.
Multi-window returns, and its implementation is identical to previous Galaxy devices. When it’s enabled, you can long press the back button to get a tray of applications which can be allocated half the display in resizable ‘windows’. I’ve never been a huge fan of multiple windows on a smartphone display, because there’s not really enough screen real estate and multi-tasking using the Recent Apps button is very easy. However, there are some cases where it could come in handy, like when you want to take notes from a webpage.
Another multi-tasking feature, this time new to the Galaxy S5, is the Toolbox. When the Toolbox is enabled, a floating circle appears on the display that when pressed reveals up to five application shortcuts that you can customize from within the settings. The idea here is that you can quickly access favorites such as the camera while in another application, which is a novel idea, but I find that using the Recent Apps menu or flicking back to the homescreen is just as quick and doesn’t require an annoying circle floating around on the screen.
With that said, the toolbox is set up for note-taking tasks by default, so it could come in handy if you’re constantly switching between writing notes, taking photos and recording audio. We’ll likely see this feature become more established and useful on an upcoming Galaxy Note with its stylus support.
The keyboard has received some slight improvements in the Galaxy S5, and I’m glad to report that text predictions are not disabled by default like was the case in previous Galaxy models. I still find the keys to be slightly too small, and the predictive engine is poor, but it’s usable. Luckily on Android you can install third-party keyboards, and I’d recommend SwiftKey or even the stock Android keyboard to get the job done.
Fingerprint Sensor, Health Features
One of the major new features Samsung has been touting is the fingerprint sensor integrated into the home button, which provides several new security-oriented features. Fingerprint sensors aren’t new to smartphones – the Motorola Atrix, for example, included a fingerprint reader in the power button on the top – but with a comeback in the Apple iPhone 5s, the Galaxy S5 might not be the only Android handset to include one in the coming years.The Galaxy S5’s fingerprint scanner is the swipe-type, meaning you have to swipe the entirety of your print from top to bottom along the home button for it to register. Meanwhile, Apple uses a static sensor in the iPhone 5s, which simply requires you to press your finger to the home button. You can probably tell which implementation is better just from the description (hint: it’s the iPhone’s).
The main use of the Galaxy S5’s fingerprint scanner is securing the phone. Just like you can select to secure through PIN, password, or pattern, you can secure through fingerprint. To secure through fingerprint, you start by registering up to three fingerprints through a number of swipes across the sensor. You also have to set an alternate password, just in case you can’t unlock through fingerprint.
And not being able to unlock through fingerprint is a frequent occurrence. The problem isn’t associated with the scanner incorrectly scanning fingerprints, but the method of scanning. If you don’t have your finger exactly flat, swiping top to bottom over the exact middle of the sensor, it won’t register. The gesture is very unnatural, and quite tricky to perform properly without using two hands.
The difficulty in getting the fingerprint swipe right makes the whole feature one I just can’t recommend. I spent a week with fingerprint unlock enabled, and while my technique improved to an extent, the amount of times I failed to unlock the handset first try was high enough to be frustrating. I can’t see anyone having the patience to stick with the feature for this long, so in that regard it’s a failure.
You can also use the fingerprint scanner to authenticate purchases in PayPal and other apps that support Samsung’s API, which is a slightly more useful option. Admittedly, you could just use a password, but for secure services like this you’d hope your password is strong and tricky to remember. Having your fingerprint replace a tricky password is a better use of the new inclusion to the Galaxy S5, and less frustrating as you’ll be confronted with the scanner’s deficiencies less often.
At this stage it appears you can only authenticate purchases in PayPal, but it is early days and I hope more online payment-related apps integrate fingerprint unlock in the future.
Perhaps the biggest focus of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is fitness, with the handset packing a whole array of tools to assist you on your quest for getting into shape. These tools are collated within a fitness hub called S Health, which is well developed and filled with features.
To set up S Health you’ll have to input a few pieces of information about yourself, such as your height and weight, before the application estimates your BMI and lets you go about your fitness regime. I’ll readily admit that I have no fitness regime to speak of – I’m the opposite of overweight, but I wouldn’t describe myself as ‘in shape’ – but it’s easy to see how the app can be a great fitness asset as well as a motivational tool.
Right from the homescreen of S Health you can see your health statistics for the day, including how many steps you’ve taken, plus how many kilocalories you’ve burned and consumed. Tapping on these reveals more information, as well as the medals you’ve received. Medals are earned through completing the goals you set for yourself, giving you a small reward for exercising and keeping fit.
The start screen also has quick links to three of the main S Health tools, Pedometer, Exercise and Heart Rate, which can also be accessed through the sidebar. Other tools include Weight and Food, which track the respective items, plus you can download third-party tools/apps to integrate with S Health. Currently the third-party selection is limited to three apps, one of which is the popular RunKeeper, but more will likely be added as the Galaxy S5 becomes more popular.
Pedometer does exactly what you’d expect it to. When you press the start button it counts steps and roughly calculates how far you’ve travelled and how many calories you’ve burned. The step count is integrated into the lockscreen and the S Health widget so you’re always updated on how you’re going. The weight tracker is equally simple and equally functional: obviously the phone can’t weigh yourself, so you add in your weight totals and the app tells you how much you’ve lost.
The exercise tool is a more comprehensive general activity tracker with the ability to monitor distance-based activities such as running, walking and cycling. You can choose what goals to set for yourself, whether it’s distance, time or calories burned, and the tracker will show the path you take. The tracker also shows three key statistics out of several that you can choose from, including speed, pace, elevation and typical stats like time and calories burned. It also links up with the music app to provide quick controls, making it a comprehensive workout tool.
The Heart Rate tab uses the new heart rate monitor found on the back of the Galaxy S5. I believe the idea here is that you can measure your heart rate before and after a workout, but the implementation isn’t fantastic. For one, the measurements taken by the monitor seem inaccurate: I took five measurements in succession while I was at rest, and the result varied by up to 10 bpm each time. I don’t have a professional tool to compare with, but erratic results like this don’t seem right.
Secondly, the heart rate monitor doesn’t continually measure your heart rate, so you can’t see a progressive readout of how your heart rate changes over time. Every measurement is static, and while there is a graphing feature that can show how the average static measurements change each hour or day, I would have liked to see a continual readout so long as my finger was on the sensor.
Finally, it’s impractical to take heart rate measurements mid-workout using your smartphone. Unless you’re holding the device throughout the entirety of your routine, you’ll need to pull the device out, open S Health, initiate the heart rate monitor and take a reading, which kills the flow and intensity of your workout. The sensor makes much more sense on Samsung’s new smartwatches like the Gear Fit, where it will be in constant contact to the skin and able to take continuous readings without interruptions.
If measurements are static, impractical to perform and seemingly inaccurate, the usefulness of the sensor – which required new hardware in the phone itself – comes into question. It’s cool to measure your heart rate and see a readout on the display, but without the sensor being in constant contact to your finger during a workout it’s little more than a novelty.
The final tool in S Health is the food tracker, which separates your intake into the three main meals plus snacks. Each time you consume food, you can head into the app and search for what you just ate in a surprisingly comprehensive database of consumables. Every item in the database has a breakdown of the calorie count and nutritional information, making it an extremely handy tool for getting your diet right. Oh, and for those of you who love food photography, you can include a photo of what you’re eating alongside every meal.
If you get in the ballpark of your daily calorie intake goal, you win a medal; eat too little or too much and you won’t get it though. It takes quite a bit of effort to track every item of food you consume throughout the day, but if your serious about your diet, S Health will become a fantastic tool.
Performance: Snapdragon 801 Power
The main variant of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC, specifically the MSM8974AC with a quad-core Krait 400 CPU clocked at 2.45 GHz, an Adreno 300 GPU at 578 MHz, a Hexagon QDSP6V5A DSP at 600 MHz, and a 32-bit dual-channel LPDDR3 memory controller. This is essentially the same SoC as found in the Asian variant of the HTC One M8, so I’m not expecting a major difference in performance between the two devices.The Snapdragon 801 is paired with 2 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 16 GB or 32 GB of internal NAND, and a microSD card slot. Connectivity-wise there’s LTE Category 4 rated at 150 Mbps downstream and 50 Mbps upstream, plus 42 Mbps HSPA+ and quad-band 2G. You’ll also find Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with 2x2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and an infrared LED. Like the Galaxy Note 3, the Galaxy S5 has a USB 3.0 port on the bottom.
The other variant of the Galaxy S5 is one you probably won’t be seeing too often, as it lacks LTE networks and isn’t destined for North America, Europe or Asia. It comes with a Samsung Exynos 5422 SoC, which is a 2.1 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 CPU paired with a 1.5 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU in a big.LITTLE configuration with heterogeneous multi-processing and global task scheduling. The SoC also packs an ARM Mali-T628 GPU clocked at 695 MHz, and a dual-channel LPDDR3e memory controller.
This review focuses on the Snapdragon 801 model (the SM-G900F and others) as it’s far more common, but I will deliver an update on how the Exynos model (the SM-G900H) performs when I get hands-on time.
Below you’ll find a spec comparison between the two Galaxy S5 variants, and the three main Galaxy S4 variants, including the Snapdragon 800-powered i9506 which was released several months after the original variants.
| Specs | Galaxy S5 G900F | Galaxy S5 G900H | Galaxy S4 i9506 | Galaxy S4 i9505 | Galaxy S4 i9500 |
| Series | Galaxy S5 | Galaxy S4 | |||
| SoC | Snapdragon 801 MSM8974AC | Exynos 5422 | Snapdragon 800 MSM8974 | Snapdragon 600 APQ8064 |
Exynos 5410 |
| CPU | 4x Krait 400 @ 2.45 GHz | 4x ARM Cortex-A15 @ 2.1 GHz + 4x ARM Cortex-A17 @ 1.5 GHz | 4x Krait 400 @ 2.26 GHz | 4x Krait 300 @ 1.7 GHz | 4x ARM Cortex-A15 @ 1.6 GHz + 4x ARM Cortex-A17 @ 1.2 GHz |
| GPU | Adreno 330 @ 578 MHz |
ARM Mali-T628 @ 695 MHz |
Adreno 330 @ 450 MHz |
Adreno 320 @ 400 MHz |
PowerVR SGX544MP3 @ 480 MHz |
| Memory | 2 GB dual-channel LPDDR3 @ 933 MHz |
2 GB dual-channel LPDDR3 @ 800 MHz |
2 GB dual-channel LPDDR3 @ 600 MHz |
2 GB dual-channel LPDDR3 @ 800 MHz |
|
| Storage | 16/32 GB internal + microSD | ||||
| Wi-Fi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | ||||
| Bluetooth | 4.0 | ||||
| LTE | Category 4 | None | Category 4 | Category 3 | None |
| Other | NFC, Infrared LED, MHL, GPS, HSPA+, 2G | ||||
| Display | 5.1” 1080p Super AMOLED | 5.0” 1080p Super AMOLED | |||
| Battery | 10.78 Wh (2,800 mAh) | 9.88 Wh (2,600 mAh) | |||
| Camera | 16 MP 1/2.6” sensor with f/2.2 lens | 13 MP 1/3.06” sensor with f/2.2 lens | |||
The power of the Snapdragon 801 does assist with more intense tasks such as web browsing, on-the-fly image editing and processing, as well as gaming. The Adreno 330 GPU is very capable of rendering the latest games at 1080p without much difficulty, although high-end titles like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas continue to be too intense to run at their maximum graphics settings. This is just one example though, and the majority of games will run without a hitch on the Galaxy S5.
Surprise! The Samsung Galaxy S5 doesn’t cheat on benchmarks. That’s right, there’s no CPU clock speed boosting in certain applications, no aggressive governors, and no GPU speed increases. Massive kudos to Samsung here for getting out of the dodgy cheating game, making these following results more valid.
In general performance benchmarks, the Galaxy S5 performs as expected: on-par with the Snapdragon 801-powered HTC One M8, slightly ahead of Snapdragon 800 devices, and nearly twice as fast as Snapdragon 600 devices.
Again, in graphics tests the Galaxy S5 performed as I expected, with a slightly less aggressive governor resulting in lower scores (and likely better battery life). Below you’ll find NAND benchmarks, where the S5 performs acceptably too.
The Galaxy S5 supports Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with 2x2 MIMO, making it easy to stream content to and from the handset. I had no trouble streaming 1080p content from my home media server over my 5 GHz wireless N network, and obviously you’ll get better performance if you have an 802.11ac router. The S5 is also loaded with Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS+GLONASS and NFC, and all of them work well.
LTE Category 4, supporting downloads of up to 150 Mbps and uploads of 50 Mbps, is included as part of the Snapdragon 801 SoC alongside HSPA+ and 2G bands. On the software front, Samsung has packed in a Download Booster feature, which downloads files over 30 MB in size using both Wi-Fi and LTE. This is a handy feature if you want to speed up large downloads, and seems to work well, although be careful not to go over your data limit on LTE with it enabled.
Storage-wise the Galaxy S5 comes with either 16 GB or 32 GB of internal NAND, complemented by a microSD card slot that can accept cards up to 128 GB in size. In the 16 GB model, around 11 GB is available to use out of the box, so if you want to store a lot of music or videos on the device, you’ll probably want to make use of the microSD card slot.
The S5 features a micro-USB 3.0 port behind the bottom cover, which normally facilitates much faster transfers to and from the internal storage. Interestingly, unlike with the Galaxy Note 3, there is barely any performance advantage when using USB 3.0. I’m not quite sure why this is the case, although I did notice there’s no USB 3.0 setting to enable, which on the Note 3 was critical to achieving USB 3.0 speeds.
Maybe the lack of a USB 3.0 cable in the Galaxy S5’s box is Samsung saying they know USB 3.0 performance isn’t great. Who knows?
Camera: Superb In Sunlight
Camera-wise, the Samsung Galaxy S5 is an incremental upgrade on the Galaxy S4, moving from a 13- to 16-megapixel sensor. The hardware in question is Samsung’s S5K2P2XX CMOS with ISOCELL technology, which sees Samsung returning to using in-house camera sensors rather than Sony’s Exmor RS sensors, which were what we saw on the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S4.The S5K2P2XX is a 16-megapixel 1/2.6” sensor with an aspect ratio of 16:9, a capture resolution of 5312 x 2988, and a pixel size of 1.12 µm. The shift from 13 MP to 16 MP is essentially just to fill out the extra resolution needed to make photos natively 16:9: shots taken with the Galaxy S5 have nearly the same pixel height as the 4:3-aspect-ratio S4, although the S5’s shots are 1000 pixels wider.
The Galaxy S5 sticks with relatively small pixels, which may hamper low-light photography when comparing to other smartphones with larger pixels in their sensors, such as the HTC One M8 and iPhone 5s. Samsung claims some of this advantage is offset by the ISOCELL technology used in the S5’s CMOS, which reduces crosstalk between pixels by 30% compared to conventional BSI sensors.
The lens used on the S5 is 4.8mm in length, which equates to a 35mm-effective focal length of 31mm, and has an aperture of f/2.2. There’s no optical image stabilization (OIS) in the Galaxy S5, nor is the lens as wide open as I’ve seen, both of which will have an effect on possible shutter speeds.
The front-facing camera is 2-megapixels in size, and features the same 1.12 µm pixels thanks to a tiny 1/7.3” sensor. It captures 16:9 1080p (1920 x 1080) images through a lens with an f/2.0 aperture.
The Galaxy S5’s camera brings no surprises to the table in terms of image quality. Like the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, the unit performs extremely well in strong lighting, but isn’t quite as good when it comes to cloudy days, indoor photography and low-light situations.
When the conditions are right, you can get some truly spectacular shots out of the Galaxy S5’s 16-megapixel camera. Color reproduction is exemplary, dynamic range is perhaps the best I’ve seen on a smartphone camera, while images are reasonably crisp looking at full-resolution detail. At low ISOs, there doesn’t appear to be a ton of post-processing, which means images are usually free of nasty artefacts.
The high resolution images produced by the camera mean that there’s room for zooming and cropping, while original shots downscaled to 1080p have a superb level of sharpness and detail. When using the S5 for macro photography, you can generally get great results, although bokeh isn’t great from the f/2.2 lens as is typical for a smartphone.
Throughout my time testing the Galaxy S5’s camera, I noticed some interesting behaviour when the camera is shooting in automatic mode. In good lighting conditions, an ISO as low as 40 is used with a shutter speed as fast as it likes. Once it reaches ISO 50, the shutter speed starts getting slower the worse the light is, until it reaches 1/33 of a second; only after it reaches ISO 50 and 1/33s does it start to boost the ISO, regardless of whether you’ve turned on the image stabilizer feature or not.
ISO 50 is obviously less grainy and preserves more detail than higher ISOs, but there are some lighting conditions where 1/33s shutter speeds just don’t cut it. For example, if it’s a cloudy day and you’re trying to photograph a moving object like some gently rustling leaves, the automatic 1/33s shutter speed choice will mean you’re getting a blurry photo, despite higher ISOs being available. One way to avoid this is by overriding automatic ISO with a selection of your choice, but I’d prefer to see better setting selection on the software’s part.
The actual quality of the photos in moderate lighting conditions are fairly good. There’s an appropriate, lifelike amount of color saturation despite less than ideal conditions, and ISOs in the 100-400 range are serviceable through a decent lack of grain. Anything above ISO 400 and post-processing becomes an issue, where the Galaxy S5 tries to reduce grain which in turn noticeably reduces image quality.
The aforementioned image stabilizer is an interesting implementation in that it’s only active when the Galaxy S5 detects poor lighting, such as when you’re in a dark room or you’re shooting at night. In these situations, it takes significantly longer than usual to take a photo as it appears to be taking a burst capture during which it selects and keeps the least blurry shot.
Even more intriguing is how shots taken using the stabilizer are brighter and less grainy than their unstabilized counterparts, while remaining reasonably blur-free. It seems the feature actually uses a longer shutter speed and lower ISO, and the results are acceptable as far as I’m concerned. Obviously photos would be better with OIS and larger pixels, and the S5 is hopeless at capturing moving objects in low-light conditions, but it’s better than I’ve seen from past Samsung handsets.
However there’s no doubting that taking photos at night with the S5 produces clearly worse results than its rivals that are geared towards low-light photography. The S5 needs to use higher ISOs, and the prevalence of quality-reducing post-processing is something the image stabilizer cannot fix.
As has been the case with past models, the Samsung Galaxy S5 comes with a fantastic HDR mode. Thanks to improvements on the software, camera and SoC side, HDR mode is now quicker than ever, while its quality is just as good. Detail hidden in shadows is brought to life using HDR mode, and I achieved less ghosting than in the past when shooting moving objects.
Alongside HDR mode, Samsung has included a new feature called Selective Focus, which attempts to replicate the depth features of HTC’s Duo Camera. When you have a subject that is under 50cm from the camera, in this mode the S5 will take two images, one with focus on the subject, and one with focus on the background. Through a combination of depth detection and simulated bokeh, it gives the appearance of DSRL-like depth-of-field.
Except that it doesn’t work as well as you’d like. For one, it doesn’t work well with moving objects as the camera has to take two images, and secondly, the depth of field calculations are usually in some way wrong, giving strange and obviously fake results. For example the image above has pleasant simulated bokeh, but it abruptly stops half way down the fence line.
In the Gallery app you can go back and change the focus to one of three presets: near, far or pan (where everything is in focus); but it lacks the flexibility, accuracy and overall quality of HTC’s two-camera solution.
The Galaxy S5 doesn’t have the fantastic manual mode of the HTC One M8 or Nokia Lumia smartphones, but it does have a decent array of settings to play with. Everything from the metering mode to white balance and effects can be adjusted through the one panel, and there are several other shooting modes to play with. Samsung has actually reduced and condensed the shooting modes available (thankfully), with many being amalgamated into the Shot & More mode that utilizes burst photography.
Samsung has made a big deal about focusing and shutter times in the Galaxy S5’s camera, and I’m happy to report that the S5 is very quick at both of those tasks. It’s noticeably quicker at focusing in particular when comparing to other flagship handsets, although it’s roughly on-par with the HTC One M8.
The Galaxy S5 is capable of recording videos at a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 (4K Ultra HD) at 30 frames per second, which delivers fantastic results. Each frame looks just as good as a still image when you downscale to a 1080p display, while full resolution is surprisingly well detailed, with accurate colors and great dynamic range.
If you want to see a sample of 1080p60, labelled as “Smooth Motion” on the handset, you can download one here. It’s best to record in this mode when you’re capturing fast-moving items such as cars, people or sports, but be aware that it uses more space and is downsampled to 30 FPS when uploaded to popular services such as YouTube.
Battery Life
The Galaxy S5 is blessed with a 10.78 Wh (3.85 V, 2800 mAh) removable battery, which can be accessed underneath the rear cover. The battery itself is long and slim, but as you’d expect it provides a significant portion of the device’s weight. Charging is performed by the S5’s 10 watt (2A) charger included in the box, which supports Qualcomm Quick Charge. Wireless charging is possible with the Galaxy S5, but as I mentioned earlier you’ll need to purchase the Qi-compatible Wireless Charging S-View Flip Cover separately.The battery capacity of the Galaxy S5 is only a slight (9%) increase on the Galaxy S4, indicating Samsung aren’t trying to push for longer battery life, but to cover the extra power requirements of some of the new components such as the larger display. Due to improvements on Qualcomm’s side, the Snapdragon 801 should actually be more power efficient than the Snapdragon 600 despite an increase in performance, so there’s the possibility we might see better battery life.
However, during my time with the Galaxy S5, I tended to get good battery life, but nothing amazing and, from memory, right on par with the Galaxy S4. I was disappointed that one time during a long day away from my desk I managed to flatten the battery, although most other times I finished a day with around 30% capacity remaining. If you play games during the day or use the camera frequently, you’ll experience lower battery life.
For those of you who want a quantitative view on the Galaxy S5’s battery life, below you’ll find our most comprehensive selection of smartphone battery tests yet.
In our video playback test, the Galaxy S5 performs extremely well thanks to the power efficient SoC and improvements to the display’s power consumption. These days decoding a 720p video is far from hard work, and each generation we see decent gains here: the S5 lasts 52% longer than the S4.
Looking at results for Wi-Fi web browsing, and the Galaxy S5 performs as expected. With the same SoC as the HTC One M8, the Galaxy S5’s 7% advantage here most likely comes from the 9% larger battery and a slightly more efficient display.
Browsing in LTE reverses the advantage, putting the HTC One M8 ahead by 2%. Results like this can be put down to testing discrepancies, and in real world usage you’ll find both devices perform equally well.
Results in GFXBench are quite funny, because the Galaxy S5 crushes the HTC One M8. I’d put this down to the HTC One M8’s aggressive governor that’s designed to cheat at benchmarks, wasting CPU clock cycles throughout the duration of the looping benchmark. Real-world results would likely put the two devices closer.
Thanks to Qualcomm Quick Charge support, the Samsung Galaxy S5 can charge fully in a short period of time. A 10W charger is included in the box, so I’d expect a charge time of nearly exactly what is listed above.
The Galaxy S5 packs an Extreme Power Saving Mode, which turns the display black and white while turning off all major features and restricting access to just a few critical applications. I’m not convinced turning an AMOLED display to black and white will save battery as the PenTile matrix still needs to power on to display shades of grey, however restricting usage to a subset of the device’s features does give notably longer battery life.
I wouldn’t keep the mode on all the time, as the device essentially turns into a featurephone, but it’s useful to have when your battery is running low.
Final Thoughts
The Samsung Galaxy S5 is a well refined piece of hardware; it’s not a game-breaking, revolutionary device that blows the its predecessor or the competition out of the water, but Samsung has made a number of welcome improvements in key areas and sometimes that's just what we need in annual updates.The Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC at the heart of the device is the most powerful ARM chipset going around, clocking in at around twice as fast as the Galaxy S4’s Snapdragon 600. There’s no shortage of power in the S5, while energy efficiency has improved to give a respectable gain in battery life, thanks to display and SoC-side refinements.
Speaking of the display, we really have a winner on our hands here. Samsung still hasn’t managed to nail the color accuracy of their Super AMOLED panels, but the vibrancy, balance and overall quality of the S5’s display has really brought the technology back to a competitive level. Add in significant improvements to outdoor readability, plus a class-leading contrast ratio, and this is a display you’ll want to spend hours admiring.
Samsung has stood on the sidelines while rivals pursued low-light smartphone photography hardware, and it doesn’t seem to matter. The Galaxy S5’s camera provides fantastic results across most conditions, but in strong lighting results are truly phenomenal, complemented by a superb near-real-time HDR mode and 4K video recording.
Sure, the software image stabilizer can only go so far at improving photos taken in bad lighting – you’ll definitely get better results from your Nokia Lumia or HTC One at night – but I’d happily take the Galaxy S5’s 16 solid megapixels over HTC’s uninspiring 4-megapixel offering. Undoubtedly there’s still room for improvement through OIS, larger pixels, and better lenses, though I’m still quite content with what the S5 brings to the table today.
Samsung has finally received the message on horrible plastic exteriors, with the Galaxy S5 receiving a rear cover that actually looks and feels nice. The Galaxy S5 is an ergonomic, water resistant smartphone that fits well in the hand, though it still lacks the premium touch that blesses high-end competitors from Apple, HTC, Sony and others.
The two major additions to the Galaxy S5, the fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor, aren’t what I’d describe as useful additions. The swipe-style fingerprint scanner is frustrating to use and tricky to master, making it a feature that should (and likely will) be ignored. I generally liked the health-centric focus of the handset, and praise should be given for its solid S Health application; however the heart rate monitor is limited and impractical, keeping it to nothing more than a cool gizmo.
TouchWiz has been overhauled for the better, removing a large collection of pointless gimmicks and general clutter in favour of a more concise, visually appealing Android skin. With that said though, it’s still quite ‘heavy’ and meshes poorly with stock Android elements, not to mention the atrocious settings screen that requires a serious clean-up.
At the end of the day, the Samsung Galaxy S5 is a fine flagship smartphone that meets most criteria. Many refinements to the formula are great, others not so much, but the overall package is one that users should generally like and enjoy to use, current S4 owners included.
80
Pros: The AMOLED is back and it looks
better than ever. Fast, efficient Snapdragon 801 powers through tasks
without struggle. Great camera, especially in good lighting.
Improvements to software and design.
Cons: Fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor aren’t well implemented. Settings screen is terrible. Lacks the polish of its high-end competitors.
Cons: Fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor aren’t well implemented. Settings screen is terrible. Lacks the polish of its high-end competitors.
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