To be completely honest with you all, I received this phone as a gift, and that is the only reason why I am using it now. There are obvious advantages to the S5 (like the significantly better battery life, camera, and resistance to water damage to a name a few), but nothing about it wows me or impresses me the way the S3 did when I first got it. This next big thing is disappointing to a former S3 owner and I would advise anyone with an S3 who is thinking of upgrading to strongly reconsider, as there simply isn't enough bang for your buck coming from an S3 and going to an S5.
-Phone is bulkier, heavier, and overall less comfortable to hold and walk around with in your pockets. Also, using the phone with one hand requires a lot more stretching and reaching unless you enable "one handed operation" mode. I'm sure people with large hands and lanky fingers will be fine with the increased size and bulk of the phone, but I'm not one of them. The only advantage to this is obviously the larger display for videos, and multi window is a lot more useful than it was on the S3.
-Holding down home button is no longer used for switching through apps. It loads this built-in Google spyware feature called Google Now which I have absolutely no interest in using. To switch through apps now, you make a quick tap of the lower left button. And when you want to go into the settings/options of whatever screen you are on, you have to hold down the left key. This is backwards in my opinion. Getting into options should be one quick press...just like it was on the S3...and when you want to switch to another app you should have to hold down the key. I want the option of reassigning what the functions of these 2 keys do, because this change sucks after using an S3 for 2 years and I'm not looking forward to getting used to this.
-Can't add words to or modify to the phone's dictionary. So when I'm swyping my words in phone's keyboard, when I type in acronyms or expletives, I have to manually tap each letter of the word, otherwise keyboard replaces it with something else. WTF man?!
-No streaming news ticker available at all on lockscreen. This is something I always used on my S3 which I am very disappointed to see missing as an option. To make matters worse, the phone doesn't even include any decent news app. Yahoo news widget on S3 was far superior to this Flipboard garbage.
-They got rid of quick launching apps from the lockscreen. Opening browser or favorite app right away after unlocking phone...a very time saving and nifty feature...gone for no good reason. Sheer stupidity right there.
-Phone's Internet browser has no way of opening new links in background window. On S3's default browser, a setting could be toggled where all links that force themselves to be open on new pages will be sent to a new window behind the page you are currently browsing. On the S5 this option isn't available, so any links you select that require a new window will automatically open and load in front of the current page you are on. Extremely annoying when you are scrolling through news headlines for or forum posts and want to open a bunch to read later from the main page. I am aware I could use Chrome, but I generally liked the S3's default browser for almost everything.
-App screen has less customization. There's no more changing the way it is displayed...like putting it in list mode or up & down instead of left and right. All they let you change now is the order that the apps appear in.
-Ninety percent of the new gimmick features this phone brings to the table are unimpressive and mostly useless. Finger print security is a pain in the ass and is a much slower method to unlock the phone with compared to the traditional pattern unlock mode from what I have experienced. Heart rate monitor is cool but not very accurate and in real world daily applications is useful to maybe only a select few individuals. Air view and air browse are both waste of time show off features and nothing else. The only two new features that I believe are worthwhile are the smart remote feature to power on and control tvs and cable boxes directly from the phone (which was already available on the S4), and the download booster.
-Oh yeah and opening up the lid on the bottom of the phone to charge/access USB is very annoying, especially when your finger nails are cut low like most dudes' are. Opening the back of the phone is also a pain without finger nails. I'm sure both of these annoyances are related to making the phone water resistant though, so I guess you gotta pay to play.
-Phone is bulkier, heavier, and overall less comfortable to hold and walk around with in your pockets. Also, using the phone with one hand requires a lot more stretching and reaching unless you enable "one handed operation" mode. I'm sure people with large hands and lanky fingers will be fine with the increased size and bulk of the phone, but I'm not one of them. The only advantage to this is obviously the larger display for videos, and multi window is a lot more useful than it was on the S3.
-Holding down home button is no longer used for switching through apps. It loads this built-in Google spyware feature called Google Now which I have absolutely no interest in using. To switch through apps now, you make a quick tap of the lower left button. And when you want to go into the settings/options of whatever screen you are on, you have to hold down the left key. This is backwards in my opinion. Getting into options should be one quick press...just like it was on the S3...and when you want to switch to another app you should have to hold down the key. I want the option of reassigning what the functions of these 2 keys do, because this change sucks after using an S3 for 2 years and I'm not looking forward to getting used to this.
-Can't add words to or modify to the phone's dictionary. So when I'm swyping my words in phone's keyboard, when I type in acronyms or expletives, I have to manually tap each letter of the word, otherwise keyboard replaces it with something else. WTF man?!
-No streaming news ticker available at all on lockscreen. This is something I always used on my S3 which I am very disappointed to see missing as an option. To make matters worse, the phone doesn't even include any decent news app. Yahoo news widget on S3 was far superior to this Flipboard garbage.
-They got rid of quick launching apps from the lockscreen. Opening browser or favorite app right away after unlocking phone...a very time saving and nifty feature...gone for no good reason. Sheer stupidity right there.
-Phone's Internet browser has no way of opening new links in background window. On S3's default browser, a setting could be toggled where all links that force themselves to be open on new pages will be sent to a new window behind the page you are currently browsing. On the S5 this option isn't available, so any links you select that require a new window will automatically open and load in front of the current page you are on. Extremely annoying when you are scrolling through news headlines for or forum posts and want to open a bunch to read later from the main page. I am aware I could use Chrome, but I generally liked the S3's default browser for almost everything.
-App screen has less customization. There's no more changing the way it is displayed...like putting it in list mode or up & down instead of left and right. All they let you change now is the order that the apps appear in.
-Ninety percent of the new gimmick features this phone brings to the table are unimpressive and mostly useless. Finger print security is a pain in the ass and is a much slower method to unlock the phone with compared to the traditional pattern unlock mode from what I have experienced. Heart rate monitor is cool but not very accurate and in real world daily applications is useful to maybe only a select few individuals. Air view and air browse are both waste of time show off features and nothing else. The only two new features that I believe are worthwhile are the smart remote feature to power on and control tvs and cable boxes directly from the phone (which was already available on the S4), and the download booster.
-Oh yeah and opening up the lid on the bottom of the phone to charge/access USB is very annoying, especially when your finger nails are cut low like most dudes' are. Opening the back of the phone is also a pain without finger nails. I'm sure both of these annoyances are related to making the phone water resistant though, so I guess you gotta pay to play.
