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Samsung launches flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone

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Boring design almost identical to LG's phone. Not interested.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Let’s start with the basic Galaxy S5 specs:

5.1-inch display. Android 4.4 KitKat. 16-megapixel rear camera. 2 gigabytes of RAM. Storage options of 16 or 32 gigabytes. MicroSD card storage. Waterproofing with a IP67 rating. 802.11 ac Wifi, with MIMIO (2x2). Bluetooth 4.0 LE USB 3.0. NFC. IR port. 2,800 mAh (removable) battery.

The most interesting development out of the GS5's announcement might be the arrival of waterproofing as a mainstream feature. Other Android manufacturers, notably Sony, have been doing this for a while, my LG isai is Waterproof with a IP67 rating.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Overall, I've gotta admit, I'm not exactly blown away with this model. Sounds like they're starting to get a bit stagnant in terms of innovation, like Apple started becoming many years ago. I was expecting a bit more of a RAM and processor upgrade. I do like the water resistance and camera upgrade though. That Xperia Z2 sounds interesting. At least it's still a better phone than any iPhone reincarnation.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Sony Z2 is much better in every aspect.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Samsung made about 30 percent of all smartphones sold in the world last year, nearly twice the share of archival Apple

This is totally relevant, Apple never went after market share, never, it always went after profit. Samsung market share is mostly made up from selling low cost, low end models with tiny profits. As a proof of that, Apple took 87% of phone handset profits last quarter while Samsung took only 32.2%.

http://news.investors.com/technology-click/021114-689654-2014-mobile-phone-market-to-see-little-or-no-growth.htm

The smartphone boasts a full high definition 5.1-inch screen, a 16-megapixel camera and, catching up with Apple, the home button doubles up as a fingerprint reader to unlock the device or to secure documents.

This is wrong. They didn't catch up with Apple, they are just trying to fool people (and apparently it's working) to believe that this is similar to the iphone 5S by copying Apple and invisibly embedding the fingerprint scanner in the home button. The similarities stop here as Samsung is still using an old approach by using a swipe fingerprint reader which is the case on all other phones using a fingerprint scanner but the iPhone.

This is totally clunky as a swipe reader is easy to miss and you have to perfectly swipe straight-down in the middle of the button. Clunky and low tech compared to the much more advanced sensor in the iphone 5S as it just needs the user to put the finger on the home button. Also in contrary to the iphone 5S, you can't use the sensor and unlock the phone with one hand because the swipe reader forces the user to hold the phone in one hand and use the other hand to do the swipe gesture. This is terrible, the iphone 5S allows to do everything with one hand.

The second thing is that the Samsung awful implementation forces the user to perform two actions to unlock the phone. The user must first press the home button to wake up the phone and then make the swipe gesture to try to unlock it. The iPhone 5S implementation is a single-press implementation, the user wakes up and unlocks the phone at the same time.

The smartphone boasts a full high definition 5.1-inch screen

This is wrong. Samsung still used AMOLED PenTile screens (and this is amazing that they still using such low tech screen technology) that uses green pixels interleaved with alternating red and blue pixels.

a 16-megapixel camera

Typical Samsung, marketing numbers in order to fool the user. Japanese makers do the same actually, yes you Sony. They keep increasing the number of pixels without increasing their size. The Galaxy S5 keeps the 1.12 micron for the pixel size but increase the number of pixels. Anyone with some knowledge about cameras knows that this is the wrong thing to do as fewer lights reaches the pixels, and this is even worse as the camera keeps an aperture of F/2.2. Ridiculous. The iPhone 5S showed that a good balance between sensor size, number of pixels, pixel size and aperture is the key for a good smartphone camera. The iPhone 5S keeps the 8 megapixels sensor but with increased pixel size to 1.15 micron. The reviews showed that this produced really good results.

built-in heart rate sensor

Again total absence of innovation. Samsung is just using the same old tech by forcing the user to put the finger in front of a heart rate sensor. This is just clunky.

that turns the display black-and-white

Wha... this is 2014. Black and white screens to save energy, genius.... And what to say about this design. This fake plastic that is supposed to mimic chrome on the side and the weird "perforated" golf ball pattern ton in plastic in the back that is totally out of place.

like Apple started becoming many years ago.

Oh really? This is just the company that brought last year the first 64 bits mobile chip (which translated into 2x gain in performance), a truly new and advanced fingerprint sensor that works intuitively for the user, a coprocessor that process motion data, an innovative dual LED camera for true tone, innovative software implementation of continuous burst mode and slow-motion video, and the list goes on.

I do like the water resistance and camera upgrade though.

Yes sure the water resistant feature that adds a flappy port cover to the bottom of the device (like Sony). Ohhh, what an incredible advanced technology. I mean, I wonder if some people can realize how in a crappy way some phone makers implement a feature just for the sake of the existence of the feature.

At least it's still a better phone than any iPhone reincarnation.

Oh really? Are we talking about the same Z2 which only brings some minor spec bumps compared to the Z1? The Z2 is just a boring device with no innovation whatsoever. The SoC offers just a minor speed bump, no 64 bits, no motion coprocessor, too big, questionable built quality, no finger print sensors, clunky software.

The rest is a camera with 20.7 mega-pisels for pure marketing reasons and some catch up on the software side with support for slow motion video at 120 frames but nothing else. Plus the Xperia Z1 phones have suffered from various issues that don't seem to be addressed by the Z2: green or yellow hue, bad quality display (poor viewing angles and faded blacks), device overheating, camera issue (the same 20.7 MP camera) caused by overheating, performance drop, touch screen issue, flickering screen.

So please stop your anti Apple trolling, Sony smartphones are just boring and badly built.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Reviews are devastating. I expected that S5 would, at least, have a refined design. Somehow it got uglier.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

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