The S5 Review Everyone Has Been Waiting For...

mi7chy said:
Meh... I'll wait for gsmarena's review.
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Feel free...

However, Anandtech is probably the highest regarded tech site when it comes to mobile phone reviews. With good reason... Anand is one of the smartest guys out there when it comes to being able to explain the intricacies of SOCs, GPUs and the like.
 
Very nice review. I was mostly concerned about battery life. It seems that it's about even with the One M8, but it charges significantly faster than the One. Pretty much what I expected.

NAND performance is quite surprising. I wonder if they got a bad unit? I wouldn't think it would be that significantly slower than the Note 3. But he did say this:
Keep in mind that most OEMs find multiple sources for their internal eMMC/NAND solutions, so what I'm testing here may only be representative of a portion of all GS5 devices.
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Seems like a pretty tight competitor with HTC One (M8). But, I do prefer the asthetics of the One, so might have to upgrade from my HTC One -> M8.

It is pretty cool that the S5 has the capability to record in 4k though. Very nice feature.
 
T4rd said:
Very nice review. I was mostly concerned about battery life. It seems that it's about even with the One M8, but it charges significantly faster than the One. Pretty much what I expected.

NAND performance is quite surprising. I wonder if they got a bad unit? I wouldn't think it would be that significantly slower than the Note 3. But he did say this:
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Samsung includes a better charger than HTC did, hence the faster charging speed.

P.S. I suppose my prediction of battery life vs HTC One came true.
 
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If only touchwiz wasnt so shitty looking and clusterfucked
 
S5 is pretty much a smaller Note 3 without pen.

Someone give CCC one to see if they can crack the fingerprint like they did with the iPhone 5S.
 
T4rd said:
Very nice review. I was mostly concerned about battery life. It seems that it's about even with the One M8, but it charges significantly faster than the One. Pretty much what I expected.

NAND performance is quite surprising. I wonder if they got a bad unit? I wouldn't think it would be that significantly slower than the Note 3. But he did say this:
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Exactly! The only thing that really surprised me about the review... USUALLY Samsung uses the fastest storage and memory available to them. It does make you wonder if it was a "bad" unit.
 
AT is better for indepth technical reviews, although the site tends to be biased in favor of Apple.
gsmarena reviews are the best for covering every detail of the phone and UI.
 
MrCrispy said:
AT is better for indepth technical reviews, although the site tends to be biased in favor of Apple.
gsmarena reviews are the best for covering every detail of the phone and UI.
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AT is very Apple biased. Anandtech isn't. Hence... Anandtech is the best place to go for in depth technical reviews of mobile devices. :)
 
Anandtech is apple biased too. They completely gloss over in like 1 sentence features that Samsung has over apple then talk in complete depth about issues where Samsung is competing or behind.

How much talk did anandtech do about removable battery or heart rate monitor, how about integrated IR emitter? They seem to ignore these useful hardware options. They aren't even listed in the conclusion. But take a feature like the finger print reader and spend a half a page comparing it to apple.


From the anandtech review the display is good but not quite as good as the other review. So we will see how it pans out.

Overall just looking at more and more reviews and information the galaxy S5 is a great phone certainly a top contender, not winning everywhere but bringing home solid performance in most areas. The one weak spot seems to be nand flash metrics.
 
QwertyJuan said:
AT is very Apple biased. Anandtech isn't. Hence... Anandtech is the best place to go for in depth technical reviews of mobile devices. :)
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I think I may have confused people, and myself :) I meant Anandtech but I see now that Ars fits the description as well :) And I think Anand is very much Apple biased.
 
I thought this was going to be a "Will it blend?" review :(
 
Anandtech had a perfectly fair review -- I don't think you need to have a metal body to have a premium design (see: Nokia), but calling it "Apple biased" to me seems to be an attempt to avoid the competitive reality. The GS5's main rival right now is the iPhone 5s, full stop; HTC, Nokia and the like mostly sit on the periphery. Many of your 'normal' friends ask "should I get an iPhone or Galaxy?" at the store, and they certainly aren't wrapped up in ideological wars over operating systems.

That and I'm not a fan of reviewers who exclude products in an attempt to appease readers that rage at the very mention of certain companies. If you can't accept that companies like Apple and Microsoft are competition, let alone that they might do some things better, you need to reevaluate your priorities in life.
 
Aurelius said:
Anandtech had a perfectly fair review -- I don't think you need to have a metal body to have a premium design (see: Nokia), but calling it "Apple biased" to me seems to be an attempt to avoid the competitive reality. The GS5's main rival right now is the iPhone 5s, full stop; HTC, Nokia and the like mostly sit on the periphery. Many of your 'normal' friends ask "should I get an iPhone or Galaxy?" at the store, and they certainly aren't wrapped up in ideological wars over operating systems.

That and I'm not a fan of reviewers who exclude products in an attempt to appease readers that rage at the very mention of certain companies. If you can't accept that companies like Apple and Microsoft are competition, let alone that they might do some things better, you need to reevaluate your priorities in life.
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thank you. I can't put that more eloquently.
 
QwertyJuan said:
Feel free...

However, Anandtech is probably the highest regarded tech site when it comes to mobile phone reviews. With good reason... Anand is one of the smartest guys out there when it comes to being able to explain the intricacies of SOCs, GPUs and the like.
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Agreed.
 
Aurelius said:
Many of your 'normal' friends ask "should I get an iPhone or Galaxy?"
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'Normal' friends aren't 'dbags'. More commonly asked is should I buy X or Y and maybe Z (replace X, Y and Z with GS5, G2, M8, Note 3, Nexus 5, etc.) Just look at the 'current rankings' on gsmareana or the threads and posts within this forum. Examples:

G2 or One (M8)? New to Android

LG G2 vs GS5 vs HTC One

Switching to Android

A rooted and ROM'd new One M8 ? Or a ROM'd Note 3 ?

Now I'm torn between the GS5, OneM8, Note3, and still like the large size of the One Max.
 
Aurelius said:
Anandtech had a perfectly fair review -- I don't think you need to have a metal body to have a premium design (see: Nokia), but calling it "Apple biased" to me seems to be an attempt to avoid the competitive reality. The GS5's main rival right now is the iPhone 5s, full stop; HTC, Nokia and the like mostly sit on the periphery. Many of your 'normal' friends ask "should I get an iPhone or Galaxy?" at the store, and they certainly aren't wrapped up in ideological wars over operating systems.

That and I'm not a fan of reviewers who exclude products in an attempt to appease readers that rage at the very mention of certain companies. If you can't accept that companies like Apple and Microsoft are competition, let alone that they might do some things better, you need to reevaluate your priorities in life.
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Lets be honest, those people aren't basing their decision on anything more than 'which one looks cooler, which one do more of my friends have, and costs less'.

That should not be the criteria for a phone review on a site like Anandtech, if popularity were the sole metric, then he can just stop reviewing products.

Stating that the Galaxy phones have a disadvantage because of plastic materials, while not mentioning at all that in fact it is tougher and better built than the 5S or the M8, reveals a bias. Its not just his own bias, he's also assuming that most people prefer metal/glass over plastic, which again need not be true. He also neglected to mention many unique features in the GS5 that distinguish it.
 
Anandtech is allowed to have an opinion like any review site...people just respect their opinion more than the average user....that's why they have a huge site and we do not.

Mr. Crispy, saying that the GS5 is better built than the IPhone or HTC One M8 is tough to believe at first, and at best a judgement influenced by your own opinion. Why is it better built? Because it is waterproof? It surely is not tougher than the M8, which predictably handles the drop tests it has been subjected to much better.

So it's all opinion....yours against the reviewers. Only his is more trusted.

As for people preferring metal to plastic, is it really that much of a stretch? People seem to prefer higher quality materials, and plastic is not considered high quality. There are not a lot of scientific studies on the subject, but smaller polls tend to reveal a trend...
https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/poll-what-kind-of-phone-design-would-you-like.312/
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Poll...roid-smartphones-with-a-premium-build_id54431

Bias is not all bad. I think we want reviewers to tell us what they like, and that means making choices based on their preferences/biases. What we do not want is for a reviewer to be prejudiced...and I think there's a really high bar for throwing that term around.
 
Misconception that metal is better than polycarbonate or composite. And, this metal we're talking about is recycled aluminum which is cheap and has drawbacks such as prone to bending, doesn't return to original shape when pressure is released, dents and scratches tend to be more visible, heavier, can affect radio signal, etc. Uninformed people tend to prefer recycled aluminum whereas people who follow science and technology tend to be fine with polycarbonate, composite, etc. such as used in Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor canopy and Boeing Dreamliner 787 and 777X. I don't mind my beer in recycled aluminum though.
 
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The M8 is cheap recycled aluminum? The aluminum they use exhibits those characteristics? Every review out there which seems to prefer the build of the M8 is...uninformed?

The GS5 is not made of airplane material, so your post seems either uninformed or irrelevant. Nor is the M8/IPhone made of the same grade aluminum as used in beer cans.

Or was this all just some pedantic excuse for you to post again? Anyway, we were discussing preference, not how we feel about people for having preferences. There's a not-so-subtle difference there.
 
M8 is probably not too different from my HTC Thunderbolt and they weigh about the same at 160g and 177g respectively. Heard the same hype but from ownership it's garbage. So heavy that it pulls the side of my pants/shorts down but so fragile that being fully protected in a Seidio case lined inside with felt and babied for it still developed pits on the body surface while an older plastic Samsung Galaxy S still looks like new.

So, are you talking from experience or hot air?
 
mi7chy said:
M8 is probably not too different from my HTC Thunderbolt and they weigh about the same at 160g and 177g respectively. Heard the same hype but from ownership it's garbage. So heavy that it pulls the side of my pants/shorts down but so fragile that being fully protected in a Seidio case lined inside with felt and babied for it still developed pits on the body surface while an older plastic Samsung Galaxy S still looks like new.

So, are you talking from experience or hot air?
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I've owned several HTC phones at this point. I'm contemplating which to get. My family also owns a GS4 and a couple of IPhones. So I have some perspective.

And, in case you actually believe that logic about similar weights equating to similar products, here are some other things that weigh similar weights but are very different:

A real diamond vs. a cubic zirconia
A 1954 Mercury Monterey vs.2014 Honda Accord
A human brain vs. a block of carved wood.

The Thunderbolt was released back in 2011, back when Samsung was still selling Galaxy S1's, and Apple was laughing down its nose at all rivals. Things have changed since then, including HTC phones.

But you know that.
 
Meh still rocking my GS3 with 4.3 official detoxed and rooted. Gonna wait at least 1 more year.
 
Im not sure what everyone is fired up over this review, they have generally positive view of the GS5?

one thing I wished the review did, and all their reviews for the matter, is keep the same damn set of phones when comparing the different aspects of the device.

Also why did they choose not to compare the note 3 in the photo section?
 
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So what's the word on custom ROMs for the S5 on Verizon then, doable?
 
Thuleman said:
So what's the word on custom ROMs for the S5 on Verizon then, doable?
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I can see why they don't like custom roms on the note series but the s series are a perfect division to allow it. I hope they keep it open.
 
Trimlock said:
I can see why they don't like custom roms on the note series but the s series are a perfect division to allow it. I hope they keep it open.
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It's not the OEM's choice though, it's the carriers (normally Verizon and AT&T) mandating these locked bootloaders and shunning root access under the guise of network stability and reliability.

Having said that, I wouldn't count on getting the Verizon GS5s bootloader unlocked. The GS4 was initially able to be unlocked through an exploit in the firmware the phones launched with. But after that was patched weeks after launch, there was never another unlock exploit available. The Verizon Note 3 was never unlocked either. So it seems that they've patched things up pretty well now. I'm amazed they were able to unlock the One M8 on Verizon.
 
Thuleman said:
So what's the word on custom ROMs for the S5 on Verizon then, doable?
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Bet money on ATT and Verizon never having unlocked bootloaders.

Regular s5 handsets on ATT and VZW are more than likely forever damned to TouchWiz

Vengance_01 said:
Meh still rocking my GS3 with 4.3 official detoxed and rooted. Gonna wait at least 1 more year.
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You have a much higher tolerance for BS than I do. TWiz on my Note2 lasted 18 hours.
 
This is one of the only thing that is keeping me from getting the GS5. My Galaxy Nexus finally bit the dust so I am back to my OG Droid until I figure out what I am going to get. Not sure if I can last on a phone that I can't install a custom ROM on....sigh
 
Renapd said:
This is one of the only thing that is keeping me from getting the GS5. My Galaxy Nexus finally bit the dust so I am back to my OG Droid until I figure out what I am going to get. Not sure if I can last on a phone that I can't install a custom ROM on....sigh
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You're not locked out of "custom ROMs"...you're locked out of anything that uses or requires a non-stock kernel or radio. So there should be 3rd party TWiz variants depending on the community....just no CyanogenMod or OmniROM or PA or Carbon or SlimKat etc.
 
I was under the impression that anything that modified the stock system partition would trip Knox, thus possibly voiding your warranty?
 
Renapd said:
I was under the impression that anything that modified the stock system partition would trip Knox, thus possibly voiding your warranty?
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If you're worried about tripping Knox then, well, yes.

Otherwise you can root and safestrap away....probably on s5 as with s4/Note3. Unless VZW/ATT/Sammy have made things more difficult.
 
Renapd said:
This is one of the only thing that is keeping me from getting the GS5. My Galaxy Nexus finally bit the dust so I am back to my OG Droid until I figure out what I am going to get. Not sure if I can last on a phone that I can't install a custom ROM on....sigh
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I was the same way on my Gnex. So I ROM'd my Note 2 when I got it too for a while. But the last few ROMs since 4.3 came out, I just went with mostly stock ROM's, downloaded Wanam Xposed, and am good to go. Wanam pretty much lets you modify and add all the additional features that most custom ROMs give to the stock ROM, including themes/skins. Performance is more than adequate on my old Note 2 on 4.3 too, so I'd imagine most would be pretty happy with the S5 given its hardware even on the bloated stock TW ROM (which is easy to debloat with root still). Also, given that I've never wanted or needed to run a custom kernel on my phone, I think I'd be fine with a locked bootloader now. I think with newer SoCs, the need to overclock and under-volt has diminished greatly.
 
T4rd said:
I was the same way on my Gnex. So I ROM'd my Note 2 when I got it too for a while. But the last few ROMs since 4.3 came out, I just went with mostly stock ROM's, downloaded Wanam Xposed, and am good to go. Wanam pretty much lets you modify and add all the additional features that most custom ROMs give to the stock ROM, including themes/skins. Performance is more than adequate on my old Note 2 on 4.3 too, so I'd imagine most would be pretty happy with the S5 given its hardware even on the bloated stock TW ROM (which is easy to debloat with root still). Also, given that I've never wanted or needed to run a custom kernel on my phone, I think I'd be fine with a locked bootloader now. I think with newer SoCs, the need to overclock and under-volt has diminished greatly.
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This is what I am hoping for. Since my wife is still on the GNex, we will probably end up getting the S5 with the B1G1 promo.
 
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