Introduction
The
Samsung Galaxy S5 is probably the most anticipated refresh of a flagship Android device this year. How has it changed from the
S4?
First, the new Galaxy S5 comes with a redefined style: its new
soft-touch dimpled plastic back with a variety of fresh colors replaces
the more bland, thin hard glossy plastic of the S4. Not just that, the
whole device is now water- and dust-resistant (IP67), a level of
protection that is reassuring. A faster, Snapdragon 801 system chip
ticks under the hood, and Samsung claims to have made a small
breakthrough in mobile camera technology with its new ISOCELL sensor.
Samsung has also redesigned the TouchWiz Android user interface making
it more user-friendly, and added a fingerprint scanner and a heart-rate
monitor, two features that were not present in the Galaxy S4.
How
does that all work out in real life, and is the Galaxy S5 a change big
enough to convince you to upgrade from the Galaxy S4? We look at the
evolution of Samsung’s latest Galaxy to answer all these questions. Stay
with us.
Design
Samsung brings a brand new design
with the Galaxy S5 with perforated back and fresh new colors. It's also
gotten water and dust-resistant properties. However, the S5 is also
noticeably larger and bulkier.
Last year's S4 was almost
identical to its predecessor design-wise and sparked an outcry among
many because of its too small of an evolution in style. This year, with
the Galaxy S5, different has arrived. Samsung’s 2014 flagship is still
made out of plastic, but its looks have undergone a big change, and the
S5 features a dimpled soft-touch plastic back, whereas the preceding S4
had a slightly more bland, glossy plastic body. The S5 also arrives in a
variety of fresh colors right out the gate - you can pick between
‘electric blue’, ‘copper gold’, ‘shimmer white’, and ‘charcoal black’.
In
terms of size, though, the S4 was a more or less compact 5-inch phone,
while the same cannot be said about the Galaxy S5. Samsung’s newest
Galaxy is not gigantic - it’s certainly much smaller than phablets - but
it’s not compact either. The Galaxy S5 has grown bigger in all aspects:
it’s wider (2.85” vs 2.75” on the S4), taller (5.59” vs 5.38”), thicker
(0.32” vs 0.31”), and heavier (145oz vs 130oz), while at the same time
it's 5.1” screen is just marginally larger than the 5” display of the
S4.
Samsung is clearly willing to trade this added bulkiness for
newly acquired water and dust resistant properties of the S5. Samsung’s
new Galaxy is IP67-certified, which means that it’s dust protected and
can withstand being submerged in water up to 30 minutes in a depth of up
to 1 meter (3.3 feet).
In terms of buttons, the Galaxy S5
retains the signature for Samsung physical home key below the display
with a back and menu buttons around it. Just as on the S4, there is also
a lock key on the right, and a volume rocker on the left. The buttons
are equally clicky and easy to press on both. On the bottom, the S5
features a lid-protected microUSB 3.0 port, a change over the
unprotected microUSB 2.0 port on the S4. Both devices also feature
infra-red transmitters located on the top, a feature that allows you to
use the phone as a remote control for your TV.
However, the S5 also adds two new elements over the S4: a fingerprint scanner and a heart-rate monitor.
The
fingerprint scanner is a feature that has appeared every once in a
while in notebooks and phones, but it seems that it was Apple that led
the push for massive adoption of the feature by including a fingerprint
scanner in the iPhone 5s. The fingerprint reader on the Galaxy S5,
however, is different from the one on the iPhone 5s. In the S5, you have
to swipe in an almost straight line from the bottom of the screen and
through the home key, while in the iPhone 5s authenticating is simpler -
you just need to touch the home key (no need to actually press it, or
swipe through it). We found the fingerprint scanner on the S5 to be a
bit finicky, requiring us to swipe again and again when we hit it from
even a slight angle, and the swiping gesture is also hard to use with a
single hand. On the flip side of things, though, you can use the
fingerprint reader on the S5 for things that you cannot do on competing
devices, like authenticating PayPal payments.
The other new
feature of the Galaxy S5 is its heart-rate (pulse) monitor, located on
the back of the phone, right below the camera. It’s the first time we
see such a scanner in a smartphone. It requires you to put your finger
on it, so that it can beam up infra-red light and monitor the change in
the resulting reflections to come with a reading of your heart-rate. Our
experience shows that it gets accurate readings, but it requires some
patience: you need to be silent when you measure your pulse and wait for
a few seconds for a correct result. It’s definitely not a gimmick, but
you have to understand that it provides single-time readings, and might
not be a perfect fit for athletes who want to measure the continuous
change of their pulse during work out.
5.59 x 2.85 x 0.32 inches
142 x 72.5 x 8.1
5.11 oz (145 g)
5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches
136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm
4.59 oz (130 g)
Display
The Galaxy S5 has just a slightly larger
5.1” AMOLED display with the same 1080p resolution as on the Galaxy S4.
We, however, have bad news for those wishing for accurate colors on the
S5 – colors on it are overblown to an even larger extent than on the S4.
The
Galaxy S5 comes with a 5.1-inch display, just faintly larger than the
5-inch screen of the Galaxy S4. The resolution on both is 1080 x
1920-pixels, but due to the slightly different screen size, pixel
density is a bit higher on last year’s S4: 441ppi on it versus 432ppi on
the S5. This slight variance is practically impossible to notice, and
both screens look very sharp, rendering even smaller text fonts very
clearly, and you won’t notice any pixelization either.
The
screens on both handsets are of the Super AMOLED kind. Samsung has been
working on AMOLED displays for years, and in the S5 it brings some big
improvements to brightness and power efficiency. Maximum brightness in
regular conditions on the S5 has increased by nearly 20% in comparison
with the S4 (Samsung claims 351 nits on the S5 vs 287 nits on the S4),
and that – along with lower screen reflectance – makes the S5 much
easier to use outdoors. Not just that, Samsung has also lowered the
minimum brightness threshold, so that the S5 can get down to very dim 2
nits. This is great for night use when such low level that is less
disturbing to the eyes than traditionally higher minimum brightness
adjustments.
Switching over to color, Samsung is known for
calibrating its displays to eye-popping, but way overblown, unrealistic
colors. The Galaxy S4 was such a phone – it conformed to the Adobe RGB
standard, a much wider color gamut than the industry-standard sRGB, but
it also was poorly calibrated with a greenish white point and
oversaturated tones in the Standard viewing mode. With the Galaxy S5,
Samsung continues walking that territory of wild, unrealistic colors. In
Standard mode, colors on the S5 appear noticeably cold and greenish,
and the color temperature hits nearly 8000K, way above the 6500K gold
standard. In Professional Photo mode, colors appear better tempered with
slightly colder than perfect, 7270K color temperature. Still, the
display gives preference to colder, blue and green tonalities, and it's
not very accurate.
Finally, AMOLED screens traditionally have great viewing angles, and that’s also the case in both the S5 and the S4.
Display measurements and quality
Samsung Galaxy S5 360-Degrees View:
Drag the picture or use the keyboard arrows to rotate the phone.
Double click or press keyboard Space to zoom in/out
Samsung Galaxy S4 360-Degrees View:
Drag the picture or use the keyboard arrows to rotate the phone.
Double click or press keyboard Space to zoom in/out
Interface and Functionality
Samsung's new
TouchWiz user interface takes a few important steps to become more
user-friendly and likable. Plus, it feature a new S Health app that can
aggregate health and fitness data.
Samsung ships the Galaxy S5
with the latest version of its TouchWiz (TouchWiz Nature UX 3.0),
running atop the newest Android 4.4 KitKat. Good news is that the Galaxy
S4 has now also been updated to Android 4.4 KitKat, and it is confirmed
to also get the newest version of TouchWiz.
So what’s new in the
latest TouchWiz on the Galaxy S5? The skin has undergone evolution
towards improved user friendliness with larger icons, less clutter, and
visual cues instead of endless text lists. Samsung has refashioned all
the icons making them look flatter and modern-looking (less-cartoonish),
without radically changing their looks, so you’d still feel at home in
the new TouchWiz, if you’ve used a Samsung-made Android phone earlier.
In the settings, long text lists are replaced with quick settings icons
that give very clear visual cues that should help even newbie users
easier adjust their settings.
Core
apps like the phonebook and text messenger have also received a
redesign with the phonebook now featuring a dark theme with less empty
space, and with tiles for favorite contacts.
The
keyboard experience is almost identical on both devices - buttons are
well spaced, and typing is fast and easy, we found virtually no
difference between the two in this aspect.
The
new S Health app is worth a special mention since it has grown to
become a more comprehensive health and fitness hub that stores your
daily steps, calories burned, and heart-rate measurements (that you can
take with the new heart-rate monitor). Another new feature is Download
Booster that you can enable from the notification dropdown, a technology
that uses your 4G and Wi-Fi connections in combination for quicker
downloads of large files.
Processor and Memory
The
Galaxy S5 features the latest, quad-core Snapdragon 801 system chip,
and it's noticeably faster than the Snapdragon 600 silicon used in the
Galaxy S4.
Coming nearly a year after the S4, the Galaxy S5 -
naturally - features a faster system chip. There are actually two
versions of both the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxys S5 - each of the two is
available either in an Exynos-based model, or in a Snapdragon-based one.
We will be comparing the Qualcomm versions of the S4 and the S5 below,
since that is the version that will ship to most of the world, including
Western markets. The performance of the Exynos-based Galaxy S5 will be a
topic of a different discussion.)
The Galaxy S4 has the
Snapdragon 600, while the S5 ships with the newer and faster Snapdragon
801. The immediate practical benefits of the 801 chip include 2K video
capturing and decoding capabilities, as well as support for eMMC 5.0, a
new standard for faster memory transfers from memory. Diving deeper in
the technical details, you’d find that the S5 and S4 have a lot in
common - they both come with quad-core Qualcomm chips built on the 28nm
node, and both feature 2GB of RAM, but there are some important
differences as well. The S5’s Snapdragon 801 chip is manufactured using
the more efficient, 28nm HPm manufacturing (vs 28nm LP on the S4), and
its processor (called Krait 400) runs at much faster clock speeds of up
to 2.45GHz (1.7GHz on the S4). In addition to that, the Galaxy S5 also
sports Adreno 330 graphics, a chip running at up to 578MHz, much higher
than the 400MHz-capable Adreno 320 on the S4. These big differences in
clock speeds result in some very obvious real-world advantages the S5
has in areas like gaming.
Internal storage starts at 16GB on both
the S5 and the S4 (of that around 12GB are actually available to end
users), and - luckily - both support expandable storage via microSD
cards. Officially, the S5 supports up to 128GB microSD cards, and the S4
- up to 64 gigs.
Internet and Connectivity
You can only expect the best
from both the Galaxy S5 and S4 in terms of connectivity – both support
4G LTE, and surfing the web is a fast and enjoyable experience. The S5
has support for slightly faster LTE, though.
You access the web
via either Samsung’s custom Android browser, or via Google’s Chrome,
both of which come pre-loaded on the Galaxy S5 and S4. Samsung’s
solution has received a visual overhaul moving towards flatter looks,
and it also stands out with its full-screen mode that makes for a truly
immersive browsing. Chrome, on the other hand, has a well-suited for
touch interface, and comes with outstanding cross-devices syncing
capabilities. In reality both browser are zippy and get the job done.
Comparing the speeds between the S5 and S4, the Galaxy S5 has a very
slight advantage in page loading and rendering speeds, but it’s a minute
difference most users wouldn’t even notice. Scrolling and zooming
around on both devices’ browsers is smooth and lag-free.
In
terms of connectivity, both Galaxies come with 4G LTE support, but the
S5 supports higher download speeds of up to 150Mbps with its Category 4
Qualcomm Gobi modem, while the S4 maxes out at 100Mbps downlink
capacity.
Other connectivity options like dual-channel Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, an Infra-red beamer and NFC are on board on both.
Camera
The Galaxy S5 comes with a brand new 16MP
ISOCELL technology, a step up over the 13MP camera on the S4 in almost
every aspect, from the higher number of pixels, to the faster
auto-focus.
The Galaxy S5 comes with a brand new, 16-megapixel
ISOCELL camera, a step up over the 13MP shooter in last year's Galaxy S4
in practically every aspect.
Spec-wise, we're looking at a
1/2.6” sensor on the S5, nearly 20% larger than the 1/3.06” one in the
S4. After years of reliance on Sony camera image sensors in its
flagships, this year, Samsung ships the S5 with its own, in-house
ISOCELL sensor. The ISOCELL name refers to how Samsung isolates each of
the pixels in the camera sensor, so that light captured by each pixel in
that sensor does not leak out in adjacent pixel cells. In addition to
that, Samsung is also using phase-detection auto-focus with special
phase detection pixels placed right on the image sensor. A technology
from the DSLR world, phase
detection makes possible the fast, 0.3-second auto-focus on the S5.
Lens
aperture is fixed at f/2.2 on both cameras, but the Galaxy S5 uses a
6-element lens, while the S4 has a 5-element construction. In terms of
flash, both main cameras come with a single LED flash.
The
camera app on the S5 looks similar to the one in the S4 on the surface:
both come with separate image still and video buttons, and a dedicated
‘Mode’ button to switch between shooting modes. However, there are also
big changes that you start to see once you enter the manual settings
where you no longer have long lists of text-based menus. Instead, those
are replaced with a quick-to-access and much more user-friendly
tile-based menu. The manual settings you can control have not changed
much: you can still adjust ISO, white balance, exposure, metering and
effects, just in a much easier way.
So
how does the new 16-megapixel ISOCELL camera perform in real-life? The
Galaxy S5 captures pleasing images with vivid color, rich dynamics and
more fine detail than the Galaxy S4. Colors are a bit overblown on the
S5, just enough to add some artificial extra pop to an image, but not
too much to make it look unreal. The new Galaxy also exposes images
better – in identical conditions, the S4 often overexposes and blows the
whites, while the S5 keeps a better balanced image.
The S5 also
has some tricks up its sleeve with shooting modes like Selective Focus
that allow you to readjust the focus of an image to either fore-ground,
or back-ground after you've captured it. As cool as it sounds, it
requires you to hold the phone steady and shoot non-moving objects to
work well. Moreover, this mode does not work with every scene – you need
to have some contrast between the foreground and background objects to
apply this effect.
In terms of video, the Galaxy S5 can now
record 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160-pixel) footage at 30 frames per second,
while the S4 maxed out at 1920 x 1080-pixel recording at 30fps. That's a
huge boost in resolution as 4K recordings amount to some 8 million
pixels of information versus just around 2 million pixels in 1080p. In
reality, if you have a display with 4K video support, you'd see much
finer detail and texture in 4K videos. Another video recording feature
added in the S5 is 60fps recording at 1080p.
Comparing apples to
apples, or 1080p 30fps recordings in our case, we can say that footage
from both appears smooth and pleasing. The difference is in the actual
appearance of those recordings – just as in images, the S5 captures the
more vibrant, dynamic picture, while the S4 is a bit more toned down.
One neat feature the Galaxy S5 camera has is HDR video recording with
live preview of what's captured. Sound recording in video is also
audibly cleaner on the Galaxy S5, with a bit more depth, while the S4
captures flatter sound with more hiss.
The Galaxy S5 and S4 both
sport a 2-megapixel front-facing camera that gets the job done when you
need for the occasional selfie, or video chat.
Multimedia
Both the Galaxy S5 and S4 are great devices for media consumption, but the S5 adds the option for 4K video playback.
Smartphones
have become as much about calling, as they are about media consumption
nowadays, and the Galaxy S5 and S4 are in the fore-front of that trend.
The S5 is a tad bit more advanced with features like 4K video playback
that the S4 lacks, and with its slightly larger and brighter display,
it’s got the upper hand for video. Both devices crunch all common video
codecs without the need for a third-party movie player.
Both
the S5 and the S4 feature Samsung’s own music app in addition to
Google’s Play Music. Samsung’s multifaceted Music Player has just
slightly adapted its looks to the flatter style of the new TouchWiz,
while essentially remaining the same. It neatly organizes your music by
Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Recent and Playlists, and it shows large
and beautiful album art. More advanced options like an equalizer with
presets are on board as well.
Neither the Galaxy S5, nor the S4
feature stereo speakers. You have to make do with a single speaker
positioned on back side of both phones, which pumps out relatively loud
and clear sound on both.
Call Quality
We were not perfectly happy with call quality on the
Galaxy S4, as it sounds sufficiently loud in the earpiece, but the quality of transmitted sound leaves room for improvement.
In
the Galaxy S5, Samsung makes some improvements, but a lot of the issues
remain. The earpiece in the S5 is loud enough, but voices sound a bit
muffled. On the other end of the line, callers reported hearing our
voice loudly, but there was a slight hiss to the sound and
high-frequencies appear too loud. Summing it up, call quality on the S5
hovers around average.
Battery
The Galaxy S5 comes with a 2800mAh battery, slightly larger than the 2600mAh
juicer
on the Galaxy S4. Despite that small change in battery capacity, you
can expect some very noticeable gains in perceived battery life on the
S5. While heavier users should still expect to go to the charger every
night, scarcer usage of the S5 might keep the phone running up to two
days on a single charge.
The Galaxy S5 also gets a new 'Ultra
Power Saving Mode' that can be enabled via the notification dropdown
when your battery is in the red. With draconian measures like changing
colors to grascale, turning off mobile data, GPS and locations services,
it can extend your battery life to 24 hours of standby usage from just
10% battery juice remaining.
Good news is that the batteries on
both the S5 and the S4 are both user-removable, and easy to replace. All
it takes to get to the battery is to just peel off the back cover.
Conclusion
The
Samsung Galaxy S5 is not a radical upgrade over last year’s
Galaxy S4,
but it brings gradual evolution in almost every aspect – starting with
the fresh new design with added protection from the elements, to the
more user-friendly TouchWiz interface, faster under the hood engine, and
improved camera.
The new Galaxy retains the unrealistic,
eye-popping colors of its successor, though, and the flashy new features
like fingerprint scanner and heart-rate monitor come with some caveats,
and are a bit too fiddly. Another worrisome change in the S5 is its
larger footprint – while the Galaxy S4 felt like a large, but yet
compact for its size device, the same cannot be said about the new S5.
Summing
it all up, we'd say that Samsung has innovated mostly in areas that
make a difference, rather than focusing on adding many ad-friendly, but
rarely used features like Air Gestures. At the same time, it's hard to
argue that the evolution that has happened is gradual rather than
radical, and convincing Galaxy S4 users to upgrade to the S5 won't be an
easy task.
Source:
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-vs-Samsung-Galaxy-S4_id3637
