Galaxy S5 review

Samsung Galaxy S5 Review

Comfort, Status, design, these are some reasons people are so attached to their iPhones, the following are reasons to jump ship.
The Galaxy S5 is Samsung latest iteration of its flagship smartphone offering. If there is any doubt as to Android's and Samsung's popularity, the Samsung S5 is poised one of the best-selling handset in the world and the Android operating system owns nearly 80% of the smartphone market share worldwide. For those who have experienced Samsung's previous offering, the S4, this phone is not a drastic departure. It will feel familiar in your hands and new users will have very little to learn as far as the user experience. If this is your first time entering the Samsung galaxy, it will be a treat. Doing this review is a drastic departure for myself seeing as I have been a loyal iPhone user, owning every iteration that Apple has released. Given my past smartphone experience, I feel I can deliver an unbiased review of Samsung's flagship smartphone. Most electronic or gadget reviews seem to bog you down with endless hardware specifications and data, which will be mentioned, but the focus here will be on the whole user experience.
The S4 boasts impressive hardware across the board such as a 5.1inch Full HD Super AMOLED 1920 x 1080 resolution display, with an eye popping 432 pixels per inch, powered by Quad-core 2.5 GHz Krait 400 alongside 2GB RAM. For the photo bugs out there, Samsung has equipped the S5 with a 16 MP, 5312 x 2988 pixel rear facing camera and a 2-megapixel front facing camera. To store all those high resolution photos being taken this phone is available in 16 and gigabytes of storage and also includes a microSD slot that can add up to128GB of additional storage. Many other standard smartphone features are included such as LTE compatibility for ultra-fast data connections, Near Field Communication or NFC for using the phone as a credit card, Bluetooth 4.0 for wireless streaming, and WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac for insanely fast downloads. Powering all of this is a 2,800mAh battery which should be good for about 10 hours of talk time. Now that the tech stuff out of the way, lets get our hands on it and see what we what I think.

Coming from the iPhone, most have always heard that the quality and build of the Apple unit was second to none, well this phone will not challenge that. Its not to say the S5 is a poorly built phone, but when it is compared to the iPhone 5s, it just doesn't measure up. The S5 does fit nicely in the hands, smooth edges, conveniently placed buttons, a nice grippy back plate, but also a cheap plastic feel that you just don't have with the iPhone.

The first thing noticed when opening the box to this warlock is its size, it is HUGE. Coming from the Apple camp of 4 inch screens makes this thing seem like holding Mount Everest in the hands. At first the size may to be a bit awkward. Long reaches across the screen while using it one handed may take a bit of getting used to and holding this behemoth up to the ear may feel like holding a textbook. But after a bit of time some may come to appreciate the added real estate of the screen while typing and texting and while talking on the phone, the added size actually allows the mic to be more lined up with your mouth resulting in a clearer call for the recipient. All of which are welcome features. Next is the display itself, one word, gorgeous. The super AMOLED display is a work of art. The iPhone 5s was crisp when it debut, but this screen is downright dreamy, at 432 pixels per inch it absolutely blows away the iPhone5s's paltry 326 pixels per inch. The clarity of this screen just calls out in a way an older phone just does not. The bright vibrant colors, crisp and sharp images has the user watching movies on this sucker instead of a 70'' Sharp LED TV on the wall. It's that impressive.

The S5 runs the Android 4.4.2 kitkat operating system. This has proven the biggest challenge for this recent Apple convert. Learning to navigate through Android is such a contrast from the iOS of the iPhone. One can see the pros and cons of both and appreciate them, but at the end of the day, Apple fans are SO used to iOS and so unfamiliar with Android that one cannot honestly say which they prefer. Some feel that iOS is the pinnacle of stability when it comes to mobile computing. It rarely crashes and everything simply works without having to fiddle with it or adjust it. But this comes with a severe trade off. Within the Android space, you've got the freedom to whatever you like, whenever you like, such as customizing your background on your text screen or adding full motion wallpapers, just to name a few. A freedom that does not exist in the Apple ecosystem, without risky jailbreaking. The freedom to add full motion backgrounds, custom ringtones, customized button options, really the sky is the limit. Although one can enjoy the freedom of kitkat, It does come with a gripe or two. Now people who've been in the Apple camp for so long, they have an extensive iTunes collection including games, movies and music, all of which can prove problematic at best to get moved over. Sure Android offers an app to help with this transition, but it is painfully slow and crashes about every ten minutes, making moving over my large library down right bloodletting. The only other real gripe is all the bloatware (unwanted software added by the manufacturer) included on this phone, if this is Google's doing or Samsung's is not apparent, but either way it's annoying. It is easy to overlook these small issues for the world of freedom that comes with the Android universe.

With the S4's impressive display, solid hardware specs and the ever improving Android OS, this smartphone is at the top of the heap and arguable the best phone of 2014. I am here to tell you that if you're looking to upgrade your current Android phone or taking the leap and abandoning your precious iPhone, do not hesitate and don't be scared because afterwards you'll wonder just what took you so long.