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***Official Galaxy S5 First Impressions Thread***

Steven58

Former Heavyweight Champion of AF-Early Bird Club
Moderator
Feb 19, 2010
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I am very curious to read about your impressions if the Samsung Galaxy 5. It has been somewhat of a tradition that I start these threads for the phones that I have an interest in. I have an interest in this one. Thoughts? Impressions? Love it? Disappointed? Thrilled? Surprised?

I'm genuinely interested and may upgrade the entire family to this phone, if I don't wait for the nextgen tech. Thank you!

Your humble servant,
Steven
 
Got mine today and I'm very impressed. Coming from an LG G2, the speeds are faster, the phone is buttery smooth with zero lag and the camera is crazy sharp to say nothing of the razor sharp 4K video.

It also looks FAR nicer than I ever envisioned (I got black). The screen is gorgeous and the sound quality on the phone is superb. How often do we forget we still that use that silly feature, the phone!!

Thus far paint me very very happy.
 
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Got mine today. I haven't been salivating over this release, only found out about it yesterday. I was in the market for replacing my Motorola Razr Maxx.

My first reaction is, I'm surprised at how light it is, compared to the Razr Maxx! Feels good in the hand and I really like the corporate (MS Exchange) email works.

One thing I haven't looked into yet is the new Verizon Messaging. It's an upgrade from standard SMS and MMS, but haven't explored that yet.

I've only been playing around with it for less than six hours, but most of that was tinkering with it here and there, no complaints. Haven't found anything that would annoy me. Coming from another Android phone, I'm very comfortable with the OS, so no major learning curve, per se. It has a lot more features than my old phone, so I have a lot of reading-up to do.

I like it!
 
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I just got mine a couple of hours ago to replace my S4. I am on Sprint.

It seems much faster than the S4.

I believe it has the same Kit Kat version as the S4 but the interface is much different. I have to learn where everything is.

The camera is way better than the S4's. That long lag time is gone. Many more options.

Once I added my google account all my apps were automatically installed. When I got my S4 last year I had to manually add them all.

With the S4 the white battery cover matches the white front. The S5's battery cover is not a "pure" white like the front but an off white with what looks to me to be a goldish tint to it. It has the dimples in it and is not as smooth as the S4 but I was hoping for a little more aggressive texture.

The display is A LOT better than the S4's.

So far I like the fingerprint reader on the lock screen. It might drive me crazy and I will remove it but I would definitely use it for logins on apps/sites.

I understand why they put it there but I find the charging port cover to be a PIA. I do not really have fingernails so I have to play with it a little bit.
 
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I like it A LOT! I am doing a MAJOR upgrade from Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I have messed around with my friends and family's S4 phones and I just didn't like those...I don't know why. This one feels a lot more "natural" to me. It's nice and light, it doesn't seem to have a TON of pre-loaded stuff on it - I was expecting a whole lot more. It was easy to set up all my screens and and apps. One thing I DO NOT like is that magazine thing when I swipe left. Anyway to get that to go away?
 
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I like it A LOT! I am doing a MAJOR upgrade from Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I have messed around with my friends and family's S4 phones and I just didn't like those...I don't know why. This one feels a lot more "natural" to me. It's nice and light, it doesn't seem to have a TON of pre-loaded stuff on it - I was expecting a whole lot more. It was easy to set up all my screens and and apps. One thing I DO NOT like is that magazine thing when I swipe left. Anyway to get that to go away?


There sure is a way.

Push and hold a blank area on your home page (or any page).
Then select Home Page Settings
Then deselect My Magazine.

Easy done :)
 
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I'm pretty impressed so far. I was pleasantly surprised by the aesthetics of the phone, it looks much nicer in person than in pictures and videos (I got the white version). It feels great in the hand, very light-weight and compact. I think the 5.1 inch display is the perfect sweet spot for me. The display itself looks great. Colors are very vibrant and the brightness level is very high. The camera is awesome. Pictures have a ton of detail and the super-fast auto-focus is phenomenal. The finger-print sensor is underwhelming, to say the least. It only works about 50% of the time and you have to be pretty precise when swiping, which can be tedious and far from intuitive. Maybe it just takes getting used to though. Touchwiz has gotten stale. It causes small but noticeable lag, like when opening the photo gallery for example. Not too mention all the bloatware -_-... It's not completely terrible, but I definitely prefer stock so i'll most likely be rooting. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase. Coming from an S3 this is a huge upgrade and I'm glad I went with the S5 over the M8 or Z2.
 
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So, previously had an HTC magic, then went to iPhone 4s for the past 2.5 yrs... came back to android today with the S5, and at this point, huge learning curve already. I do like the phone, although, find it a little large... Once I put a case on this thing, it won't fit in a pants pocket, etc.
I do like how smooth and fast it is, although, already had a reboot... which was a problem on my older, slow processor phones, this one just locked up, while updating some apps and then rebooted... booooo!
One other annoyance I cant figure out, for no reason, my CONTACT, or rather Phone log, keeps popping up, no one calling, me not hitting anything... thoughts?
 
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My wife left town for a week before her phone got here so I get to play with it (off network) for the next week. I got a One M8 last Monday and we are coming from an S2 and an EVO 4G. Both phones are major upgrades over the old ones.

The S5 feels cheaper than the M8. The M8 takes better looking low-light pictures (think night, at the bar, etc.), however the S5 can zoom in with greater detail more than the M8.

As far as the operation goes I think the M8 is just a fuzz faster than the S5 even though the S5 is clocked faster (especially noticeable in pictures).

Both these phones are HUGE in size. S5's screen is bigger but the M8 is taller.

I said this in the One M8 thread but if there are any specific comparisons you want me to perform between the two flagship phones in the next week let me know and I will try my best to do them for you.
 
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How is the s5 compared to the s4, same phone with just newer features? Or whats the big difference. I just heard about it recenelty too and I was like what already the s5 is coming out and i just got the s4.

In a nutshell, the cpu is up to quad 2.5ghz, camera up to 16mp with new fast focus, very slightly larger screen. Runs kitkat same as s4 - but the s5 touchwiz interface is different, not least because the menu button has now been replaced with app switcher, menu is now accessed from a software button on most apps.

Oh and it's got a photoplethysmography sensor!! ;)
(heart rate monitor)
 
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I am disappointed by the keyboard. I thought it would have even better spacing than the S4 but they did not run it out to the edges of the screen.

Try out a keyboard called SwiftKey, do the month trial then I bet you'll buy it. I use it on all my devices now, haven't looked back. Its corrections are brilliant, it even separates two words if u miss the space between them. Predictions are spot on also. Many tweaks, differently spaced layouts etc, it's great.
 
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I've got mixed emotions so far. I have the G900I (asia) version which seems to have several thins dropped off or not working. I was hoping this jump back in to Android would be the one that kept me. I hope I'm not wrong. The S2, S3 and One couldnt and Android at those times was still a little erattic and buggy.

I think as soon as i can I'll be flashing the international rom as I think I'm getting screwed here in Australia with how TW is set up. I think theres a bit of lag sometimes which I wasn't expecting after listening to a lot of tech reviews. And again they've denied access in our version to change dock icons!! I think Samsung have something against us.

Aside from the bugs/ommissions, the phone itself is nice. It looks and feels good and I like most of everthing else in TouchWiz although I'd like if airbrowse worked with Chrome too.

Hopefully second impressions are better.
 
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I got mine delivered Friday morning, and have to say I'm pleasantly impressed so far. It's very refreshing noting the improvements to each successor, and I've had all the SGS apart from the 3, when I went to the dark side of the green fruit (I'm trying to forget about it, bad times).
But how do you improve on the brilliant S4? Amazingly they have tho, this one is lightning fast, no lag at all so far. Fingerprint sensor works nicely.
The camera though, now that's something else! The clarity of shots is incredible, I've got a 600 quid DSLR that's not world's apart from it! Big improvement on focus speed too, thanks to the phase detection AF. Native res of the sensor is 16:9 now for the first time, which is a change for the better I'd say.
Glad to see they've finally dumped the shiny slippery back too. Battery better than the 4 as well, although I've imposed new toy syndrome upon it so far, So it probably should be lasting longer!
So yes, all in all I'm happy with it. Notice also they've gone for the slightly uprated charger now (EP-TA11UWE), which electrically appears the same as my 2014 10.1 note charger (EP-TA10UWE), both are 5.3V @2A. Only difference I can see is it's got front exit port rather than at the side. Anyway it's handy as I only need to take one charger for the two devices if I'm away.
 
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