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Why all the moaning???

westbros

Android Enthusiast
Aug 8, 2010
293
19
I have been browsing through various web sites since the announcement yesterday evening, and I am stunned by the amount of whining and moaning about the GS5. Most of it is about the hardware, and to my mind I think it's time for a reality check:


  • The display resolution. It's full HD 1080p on a 5.1 inch screen. Why on earth would you need a QHD 4K display on a screen that size? Are you seriously going to notice the difference? And in any case a higher resolution is just going to hit the battery life more. Does anybody moan about the display on the GS4 which is almost identical? From what I've seen, the GS4 display is gorgeous.
  • The onboard RAM. People are moaning that it hasn't got 3 GB like the Note 3. I have a GS3 with a paltry 1 GB RAM, and that is what I call laggy. Please can somebody who has a GS4 tell me whether they experience any lag with the 2 GB RAM that they have on board? The GS5 will come with KitKat which will mean that it will need less RAM than previous Android versions. The GS4 and Note 3 were made for Jelly Bean. The Note 3 probably needs 3 GB to cope with the larger screen and all the S-Pen software on board. My guess is that the GS5 will perform better than the GS4 with the same amount of RAM.
  • It's not metal. So what??!!! Most people put their smartphones in a case, so you can't see what it's made of. Metal cases are heavier, damage more easily, are more difficult and expensive to repair, and prevent you changing the battery. While style is important for some, the more important thing is what the phone can do.
The one moan that I will agree with is that the speaker is still on the back of the phone, but this is a minor issue, and I can always plug in my headset.

From a software point of view there is a suggestion that we will have only 7.8 GB of usable space on board. Remember the phone shown last night was a demo for the launch, and we don't know what software was on board. Let's wait and see what the retail version actually gives us before making a judgement.

Other than that I can't see much to whine about. A fantastic camera, water and dust resistent, fingerprint technology, pulse monitor, etc etc. I certainly will be looking at the GS5 now that it seems that my GS3 will not be getting KitKat after all (which I had hoped would fix the lag issue).
 
I'm a bit surprised by the complaints too, but I'm also a bit surprised by the 2GB of RAM :p

But you know, if 2GB is enough - most the market isn't going to know or care what that means. We are, Android/phone fanatics will - but I'm sure a huge percent of the folks walking into a verizon door and looking for bells and whistles like fancy fingerprint readers, etc, won't have a clue.

Wonder how much Sammy saves per devices 2 vs 3..
 
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Its the rumors flying around before the actual reveal mostly. Curved screen maybe, Metal from Mars unibody etc.

The only thing I am disappointed in really is the Ram they could have tossed in 1 more gig. And I don't see the point in having a 16 gig version anymore when half is taken by bloat. Even with sd cards all apps cant be put on them right now.
 
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Its the rumors flying around before the actual reveal mostly. Curved screen maybe, Metal from Mars unibody etc.

The only thing I am disappointed in really is the Ram they could have tossed in 1 more gig. And I don't see the point in having a 16 gig version anymore when half is taken by bloat. Even with sd cards all apps cant be put on them right now.

As I said before, let's wait and see how much space is left on the retail version. I bought a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition a few months ago, and the initial reports suggested that the available space would be paltry. This turned out not to be the case when the tablet hit the stores. The GS5 has allegedly shed the bloat of the GS4, so the suggestion that the GS5 will have 1 GB less available space than the GS4 doesn't ring true.
 
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The reason why I don't like any phone with any speaker on the back is because ...

I use Waze a lot. I had it cradle on the CD changer right in the middle of my dash. When my friend have the S4, the sound is muff because the phone is lying flat on its back and you cant hear any voice prompt.

Meanwhile, my HTC One has both speakers on the front and I can hear the alert and voice prompt clearly! It is also a enjoy doing Skype with speakers at the front.

Now you tell me how Waze would work with your plug in headphone while you are driving?

Now you tell me how Waze would work thru BT on your car system when you have over the air radio ON.

You see my POV ???
 
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Samsung set the bar high with S2 and S3 with best everything in hardware. So people have come to expect the same with S4, S5, but they seem to have slowed down in spec department obviously and started focusing more on the software features that might or might not be useful. I think that's the main reason for moaning.

Also part of that reason is their own Exynos processor no longer holds significant performance advantage like it did in S2 and now it's on par with latest snapdragon from Qualcomm. Don't know Exynos infinity will regain it this year.
 
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Samsung set the bar high with S2 and S3 with best everything in hardware. So people have come to expect the same with S4, S5, but they seem to have slowed down in spec department obviously and started focusing more on the software features that might or might not be useful. I think that's the main reason for moaning.

Also part of that reason is their own Exynos processor no longer holds significant performance advantage like it did in S2 and now it's on par with latest snapdragon from Qualcomm. Don't know Exynos infinity will regain it this year.

The Galaxy S3 wasn't that great, it wasn't much of a speed boost, camera wasn't much better and the display was awful, the colours were a mess and it's probably the worst ever example of over-saturated colours I've seen on a phone.

The GS4 is a great device, it was a much larger performance boost than the Galaxy GS3 ever was over the GS2.

Exynos 5420/5422 are faster than Snapdragon 800/801, it's a shame more devices don't use them.
 
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I'm a bit surprised by the complaints too, but I'm also a bit surprised by the 2GB of RAM :p

But you know, if 2GB is enough - most the market isn't going to know or care what that means. We are, Android/phone fanatics will - but I'm sure a huge percent of the folks walking into a verizon door and looking for bells and whistles like fancy fingerprint readers, etc, won't have a clue.

Wonder how much Sammy saves per devices 2 vs 3..

Phases,

I think the complaints have a basis in the fact that the rumors painted a picture of this device as being much more than it turned out to be. Aluminum, qhd, etc. It's a nice phone, but it doesn't excite as does the rumored s5 phone. I think, therefore, device rumors and rumor threads are worthless. (inside joke.) :p
 
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when a toyota can take a person from point a to point b perfectly fine, why we get Ferrari, BMW, mustang etc.
for a smartphone a phone of S3 caliber is overkill. but not enough to the eyes of an enthusiast. it is an adult toy. we gotta have the latest and greatest. we are begging samsung to take 700$ every year from our pocket. all we ask in return is that the toy has to surpass any reasonable expectation anyone may have this year and definitely has to be better specwise from last years offering. "the moaning" is users venting the frustration from lack of reasonable excuse to spend that 700$ this year.
the rumor mill also is partially to blame. one more point is that samsung introduced the phone early this year because of lackluster sale of S4 so people expected better this time around. we are always forgetting the law of diminishing return.
 
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I don't understand the complaining either. A mainstream device that is waterproof! I think it will be a great selling point with the average consumer. The camera has also improved which is something a lot of mainstream consumers use very often.

I understand some disappointment over a non-metal body but I hear if you drop a metal phone it will dent. Won't you just cover it up with a case anyway?

Another cool feature is the advanced battery management. I read online that if the S5 is low on power it will tell you how much power will be saved if you turn off certain features.

I'm so excited over the waterproofing and heart rate moniter I wonder how many features this has over the Note 2 other then the S-Pen which I don't use often.
 
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The S5 looks just fine, and I might be picking it up eventually. ALthough I am fairly happy with my S4, the waterproofing and new radios for Sprints network do sound appealing assuming it's a "spark" device. The slight battery bump sounds good too.

Plus, I have an upgrade coming anyway. I'm not holding my breath though.
 
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As I said before, let's wait and see how much space is left on the retail version. I bought a Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition a few months ago, and the initial reports suggested that the available space would be paltry. This turned out not to be the case when the tablet hit the stores. The GS5 has allegedly shed the bloat of the GS4, so the suggestion that the GS5 will have 1 GB less available space than the GS4 doesn't ring true.

SamMobile tweeted this earlier today. Precisely what I was suggesting.

http://www.sammobile.com/2014/03/01/galaxy-s5-offers-10-7-gb-of-usable-storage-space-on-16gb-model/
 
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the "moaning" or, to put more accurately, the lack of interest comes from people just not seeing anything from this phone that makes it worth upgrading to.


This. For people that dwell on tech sites and are savvy, the S4 was a big jump from the S3, but not so to the S5. Folks with older devices though will get the S5 for sure. Just seems it will not be as successful since there will not be as many people probably jumping from the S4 like they did with the S3. Contract folks as others mentioned that are renewing will get it.

That said, if the S5 no longer allows app2sd, more people will be hollering since there is even less free storage on the S5. Did Samsung follow Google's request? I think they have, since are allying with Google as a strategic leveraging front from Apple.

Added:
I buy my phones to keep unlimited data, so will probably keep the S4 one more year. Also, not a fan of metal phones since even less forgiving with drops. Plastic absorbs some energy (when not real cold) but metal passes it to the weak point: glass. Kinetic energy is a beeuch.
 
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One thing I think many overlook with this device is the 4K video. If you guys have seen any of the videos from the Note 3, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Some are stunning and infinitely better than anything you've been accustomed to. For me, that's almost enough to consider the upgrade. 4K in your pocket is a pretty big attraction for me.

I'm battling between the Z2 and the S5. Each has it pluses & minuses, but with the Z2 it's more of a hassle since it doesn't seem likely it will wind up on AT&T. Thus far I've also been more impressed with the S5's 4K videos I've seen than the Z2.
 
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One thing I think many overlook with this device is the 4K video. If you guys have seen any of the videos from the Note 3, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Some are stunning and infinitely better than anything you've been accustomed to. For me, that's almost enough to consider the upgrade. 4K in your pocket is a pretty big attraction for me.

I'm battling between the Z2 and the S5. Each has it pluses & minuses, but with the Z2 it's more of a hassle since it doesn't seem likely it will wind up on AT&T. Thus far I've also been more impressed with the S5's 4K videos I've seen than the Z2.

Unless you have a 4K TV or high resolution monitor it's not that useful, also if it's like the Note 3 it will have no stabilization when using the 4K mode and will look like shakycam footage again.
 
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Unless you have a 4K TV or high resolution monitor it's not that useful, ...

To a point. On the other hand ... You probably should have added "Or unless you PLAN to get a 4K TV one sometime in the future" - which I think is pretty likely for most people.

Someone taking baby videos now in 4K will be very happy they did, even if it is a year or a few years before they can get the "full" benefit of seeing it themselves. I suspect this would be true for many other videos, vacations, etc. So even if they don't have a 4K TV now, I bet most people will in 5 years or so, and these videos will still look great then.
 
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To a point. On the other hand ... You probably should have added "Or unless you PLAN to get a 4K TV one sometime in the future" - which I think is pretty likely for most people.

Someone taking baby videos now in 4K will be very happy they did, even if it is a year or a few years before they can get the "full" benefit of seeing it themselves. I suspect this would be true for many other videos, vacations, etc. So even if they don't have a 4K TV now, I bet most people will in 5 years or so, and these videos will still look great then.

I don't think recording 4K footage on the off chance you might buy a 4K TV in the future is much of an incentive to be honest.

It's certainly possible some people think this way though when buying a new phone, but I doubt the number is very high.
 
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Unless you have a 4K TV or high resolution monitor it's not that useful, also if it's like the Note 3 it will have no stabilization when using the 4K mode and will look like shakycam footage again.

I totally disagree. Look at the 4K videos produced by the Note 3 and then compare them to any HD videos from any cellphone of your choosing. On a regular HD monitor, there is far more detail from the 4K Note.

That's because we weren't getting anything near a true HD resolution from our regular cellphones. So even though we're only watching 4K footage on a 1920X1080 screen, it's very obviously sharper...considerably so. This is true of 4K camcorders. They too look much better on a regular HD monitor than our traditional HD camcorders. Sounds like it shouldn't be, but it most certainly is.

Almost everyone that has seen these on a regular screen is amazed at the difference. Obviously they'll look even better on a 4K screen.

But the point is, even downsampled 4K to 2K looks better than regular 2K. You've got so much more information to downsample. :)
 
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I don't think recording 4K footage on the off chance you might buy a 4K TV in the future is much of an incentive to be honest.

Actually I think there's a very real chance that people might be buying 4K TVs now. Was in the local Suning a few days ago. Seemed that the majority of TVs they have are 4K, certainly the new Samsungs, Sonys, TCLs, Konkas, Changhongs, Haiers, etc. most of them were advertised as 4K. Might not be much 4K content around that the moment, but that could certainly change. BTW I was in a TV drama a few months ago, they were shooting it in 4K with a Red camera. It won't be transmitted in 4K at the moment, but for future reruns and syndication, who knows.

HD was the same when that was first introduced, we had HD TVs but not much content, but now there's plenty of HD.

In the 1960s Gerry Anderson was making his TV shows like Stingray, Thunderbirds, etc. in colour. Even though at the time all programmes were transmitted in black and white, and nobody had a colour TV, this was in the UK.

It's certainly possible some people think this way though when buying a new phone, but I doubt the number is very high.

Probably by the end of the year there'll be plenty of phones capable of 4K video. And that may become the default mode.
 
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The only real "issues" I have is the speaker placement (I really really thought they were going to put it on the bottom like the Note 3) and that they are releasing a 16GB model (which really isn't an issue, unless carriers don't carry the 32GB model). I likely will get the GS5 but not until the 32GB is available. Oh, I guess the size of it might come into play - but I'm not sure until I actually have it in my hand. I thought the same of the GS4 and I like the size. I also have a Note 2 so a big size phone is not foreign to me, but I thought the GS4 was a good size and not sure how I'll react to the bigger size.

I find the reaction to be similar to when Apple released the 4, 4S, 5, 5S... reactions were mixed amongst the public - some thinking the changes weren't much and other lauding the internal tech. I mean, on one hand you'd expect major changes to keep in competition, but on the other hand - how many changes can you really expect every year?

One thing I do find curious is how the press seems to have gotten all over the GS5 not so positively, but then with every iteration of the iPhone, they call it the best phone ever - even if the advancements aren't major.
 
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