Phones & Portable Devices / Samsung Galaxy S5

Samsung continues to refine its flagship smartphone with the Galaxy S5, which sports a stunning screen, superfast performance, and some innovative and, more importantly, useful new features. This sturdy, hard-wearing model is dust and water resistant and will keep running for an impressively long time on its enormous battery, with a power saving mode to eke out the last of the charge when power runs low. It scored highly across all tests in our independent labs, though its cousin, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, remains at the top of our smartphone leaderboard.

Beautiful on the inside

Not the most stylish model around, the Samsung Galaxy S5 emphasizes function over form. It is generally accepted that design has not been the strong point of Samsung products, with their plastic casing lacking the premium finish of the recent sleek, metal-backed offerings from Apple, HTC and Sony. The new phone has a more solid feel than its predecessor, the Galaxy S4, with a wider back and a dimpled faux-leather covering that makes it easier to grip but that has somewhat unkindly been likened to a sticking plaster. However, inside the plastic casing, there is much to admire, with very high specifications all round.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor, the fastest processor to appear on an Android phone yet, making for super-speedy and very smooth performance when surfing the Web, accessing multiple apps and switching between programmes.
It has a whopping 2800mAh removable battery that delivers a plentiful supply of power, with a fully charged phone enabling up to 21 hours of call time – more than double that of the Apple iPhone 5s, for example. And when power is running low, users can activate the Ultra Power Saving mode that will extend battery life by switching the screen to black and white and closing down all unnecessary features, providing up to a day’s worth of extra standby power.
Internal storage capacity is a relatively modest 16GB but, of this, a very healthy 11.7GB is available for users. In addition, memory capacity can be significantly expanded through the micro SD memory card slot by up to 128GB. Samsung’s newest smartphone runs Android 4.4.2, the latest version of the operating system, providing access to great Google apps like Google Maps as well as the extensive offerings of the Google Play Store.

Screen and camera

With a 5.1-inch screen, this is a large phone, which won’t suit everybody, but it does leave plenty of room to show off its stunning 1080 x 1920 Super AMOLED display. As well as being slightly bigger than the screen on the Galaxy S4, it is also brighter and more vibrant, with an Adapt Mode that constantly alters the display colour to deliver maximum readability, helping to deal effectively with challenging outdoor viewing conditions. The Galaxy S5 has a great 16-MP camera with a powerful sensor and swift autofocus as well as an effective HDR mode to make photos brighter and more vivid in strong sunlight. The camera also offers selective focus – or background defocus – where the subject remains in focus and the background or foreground is blurred for a professional effect. Many high-end smartphone manufacturers have started introducing this capability but other phones, such as the HTC One, deliver better in this area than the Galaxy S5, which can be a bit hit and miss. Video capabilities are impressive on the new Samsung phone, which can even capture footage in ultra-HD – or 4K resolution – though this option will take up a huge amount of storage space.

What else?

The Galaxy S5 offers plenty of advanced features with one much discussed offering being the heart rate monitor positioned on the rear of the device underneath the camera. By simply placing your finger on the sensor, you can measure your heart rate whenever you fancy it – though it is questionable how useful this feature really is beyond the initial novelty value. Another much talked-about element is the fingerprint scanner for unlocking the phone and authorising PayPal transactions. Although not matching the accuracy of Apple’s TouchID on its iPhone 5s, Samsung’s fingerprint scanner works pretty well as a security feature. This phone can access faster 4G for those to whom it is available and the Download Booster option can use both 4G and wi-fi simultaneously for super-speedy downloading of files larger than 30MB. The Galaxy S5 also offers an improved S Health app with fitness-tracking features that include a pedometer and a calorie counter.

There are a large number of good-to-excellent high-end smartphones already on the market competing for consumers’ attention. The Samsung Galaxy S5 certainly holds its own and although it did not quite outperform the manufacturer’s Galaxy Note 3, many will prefer the lighter, less unwieldy S5 with its range of functional features and improved camera capabilities.
As well as the more standard black and white versions, this Samsung phone is available in blue and gold colours and is priced at around €620.