Hello,
I bought a SGS5 exynos about a month ago, after using it for a month I thought I would post my impressions of the phone.
Now, just to be clear, this is my FIRST Samsung smartphone and I never really liked Samsung. I chose other phones even when I had the chance to buy the second and third iterations of the galaxy S series.
However, I was in the market looking for an upgrade to my LG Optimus G and the Galaxy S5 caught my eye. After long sessions of contemplation and "deep thought" I decided to go for it.
So, without further ado here are my impressions of the phone
1. DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY
Out of my two previous phones one had a polycarbonate body( HTC ONE X) and the other had a Glass sandwich construction(LG Optimus G). The S5 feels more substantial and durable than either.I really like the textured back which helps in maintaining a firm grip over the phone and keeps away fingerprints.
I have seen people complain a lot about the build quality but I don't really see where the S5 is lacking, sure it's no HTC One M8 but I like it. S5 also has an IP67 certification which basically means that it is water/dust resistant, basically one less thing to worry about.
The design is utilitarian rather than fancy and I am ok with it.
2. DISPLAY
Gorgeous,rich, superb, grand, brilliant, resplendent, glittering, dazzling.............
I will probably run out of adjectives before I finish describing how brilliant the display is.The display of the S5 makes argument "LCD's produce more natural colors than AMOLED's" really worthless.The display's color saturation can be tuned according to your tastes and it can produce LCD like natural colors without sacrificing the zero black levels which again is a typical feature of AMOLED displays.
I will go so far as to say that this is the best 1080p display currently available in the market.The LCD3 of the HTC One M8 comes a close second.
3. PERFORMANCE
The S5 in India is sold in two versions, one with Samsung's own Exynos 5422 and the other with Qualcoomm's SD 801 chipset.Since I have purchased the Exynos version I will cover it
The Exynos 5422 is a true Octa core chipset with 4 heavy duty Corext A15 cores capable of running at a max speed of 1.9 Ghz and 4 feeble Cortex A7 cores capable of running at 1.3 Ghz. This setup is supported by 2 GB DDR3 RAM and a ARM MALI T628MP6 GPU(Here 6 denotes the number of cores).
Now this chipset has the capablity of running all 8 cores at the same time, this feature theoretically affords it tremendous processing power. I won't go into benchmark scores as they are not a good indication of real world performance however the phone lands right at the top of the charts on every benchmark that I have run on it.
Ironically, it beats its SD801 sibling in Qualcomm's own Vellamo Benchmark
. The Exynos 5422 clearly is one of the most powerful chipsets around and you won't be left yearning for more power in any situation.
Now coming to the real world performance, navigating through the interface feels fast and snappy.The only place where I saw traces of lag was in the My Magazine app, but I believe that was due to Samsung's faulty design.Web browsing was an awsome experience and the phone handled everything I threw at it with equal dexterity.
I ran the heaviest games that anroid can afford like Asphalt 8, GTA San Andreas, Dead Trigger etc and all of them ran flawlessly at the highest settings.
4. CAMERA
I am neither a camera expert nor an enthusiast so I won't be able to comment much on this section.
S5 features a 16 Megapixel camera on the back with a F 2.2 aperture.It can shoot video in 2160p/30 FPS and 1080P/60 FPS.
I took some daylight shots and they were fantastic with nice colors and a ton of detail.Low light photos however weren't that good. I also recorded some 2160P and 1080P videos, both were fantastic.
5. BATTERY LIFE
If was in fact pleasantly surprised by how good the battery life is. I was getting anything between 10-24 Hrs depending on the on screen time
Onscreen-Battery Life
3-24
4-17
5-12
6-9
SPECIAL MENTIONS :
Samsung uses a DAC from Wolfson Microelectronics in the S5, the same company manufactures DAC's for audiophile grade MP3 player's.The sound quality from the heaphones is amazing and is inline with my MP3 player from Cowon which uses a DAC from Wolfson Micro.
The S5 also features a Micro Usb 3.0 port for fast data transfer and expandable memory upto 128 GB(I am using a 64 GB card).
The S5 features a Heart Rate monitor and fingerprint scanner, these work well although I don't use them frequently.
SUMMARY :-
Samsung Galaxy S5 is best anroid smartphone I have used till date....there I said it ! and I mean it !.It has everything I wanted in my phone.A gorgeous display, solid performance and great battery life.
This phone completely changed my view on the Samsung Galaxy S/Note series and I am glad that I chose it over any other phone.
I would be happy to answer any questions that a potential buyer might have.
Cheers!
AbhMkh
I bought a SGS5 exynos about a month ago, after using it for a month I thought I would post my impressions of the phone.
Now, just to be clear, this is my FIRST Samsung smartphone and I never really liked Samsung. I chose other phones even when I had the chance to buy the second and third iterations of the galaxy S series.
However, I was in the market looking for an upgrade to my LG Optimus G and the Galaxy S5 caught my eye. After long sessions of contemplation and "deep thought" I decided to go for it.

So, without further ado here are my impressions of the phone
1. DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY
Out of my two previous phones one had a polycarbonate body( HTC ONE X) and the other had a Glass sandwich construction(LG Optimus G). The S5 feels more substantial and durable than either.I really like the textured back which helps in maintaining a firm grip over the phone and keeps away fingerprints.
I have seen people complain a lot about the build quality but I don't really see where the S5 is lacking, sure it's no HTC One M8 but I like it. S5 also has an IP67 certification which basically means that it is water/dust resistant, basically one less thing to worry about.
The design is utilitarian rather than fancy and I am ok with it.
2. DISPLAY
Gorgeous,rich, superb, grand, brilliant, resplendent, glittering, dazzling.............
I will probably run out of adjectives before I finish describing how brilliant the display is.The display of the S5 makes argument "LCD's produce more natural colors than AMOLED's" really worthless.The display's color saturation can be tuned according to your tastes and it can produce LCD like natural colors without sacrificing the zero black levels which again is a typical feature of AMOLED displays.
I will go so far as to say that this is the best 1080p display currently available in the market.The LCD3 of the HTC One M8 comes a close second.
3. PERFORMANCE
The S5 in India is sold in two versions, one with Samsung's own Exynos 5422 and the other with Qualcoomm's SD 801 chipset.Since I have purchased the Exynos version I will cover it
The Exynos 5422 is a true Octa core chipset with 4 heavy duty Corext A15 cores capable of running at a max speed of 1.9 Ghz and 4 feeble Cortex A7 cores capable of running at 1.3 Ghz. This setup is supported by 2 GB DDR3 RAM and a ARM MALI T628MP6 GPU(Here 6 denotes the number of cores).
Now this chipset has the capablity of running all 8 cores at the same time, this feature theoretically affords it tremendous processing power. I won't go into benchmark scores as they are not a good indication of real world performance however the phone lands right at the top of the charts on every benchmark that I have run on it.
Ironically, it beats its SD801 sibling in Qualcomm's own Vellamo Benchmark
Now coming to the real world performance, navigating through the interface feels fast and snappy.The only place where I saw traces of lag was in the My Magazine app, but I believe that was due to Samsung's faulty design.Web browsing was an awsome experience and the phone handled everything I threw at it with equal dexterity.
I ran the heaviest games that anroid can afford like Asphalt 8, GTA San Andreas, Dead Trigger etc and all of them ran flawlessly at the highest settings.
4. CAMERA
I am neither a camera expert nor an enthusiast so I won't be able to comment much on this section.
S5 features a 16 Megapixel camera on the back with a F 2.2 aperture.It can shoot video in 2160p/30 FPS and 1080P/60 FPS.
I took some daylight shots and they were fantastic with nice colors and a ton of detail.Low light photos however weren't that good. I also recorded some 2160P and 1080P videos, both were fantastic.
5. BATTERY LIFE
If was in fact pleasantly surprised by how good the battery life is. I was getting anything between 10-24 Hrs depending on the on screen time
Onscreen-Battery Life
3-24
4-17
5-12
6-9
SPECIAL MENTIONS :
Samsung uses a DAC from Wolfson Microelectronics in the S5, the same company manufactures DAC's for audiophile grade MP3 player's.The sound quality from the heaphones is amazing and is inline with my MP3 player from Cowon which uses a DAC from Wolfson Micro.
The S5 also features a Micro Usb 3.0 port for fast data transfer and expandable memory upto 128 GB(I am using a 64 GB card).
The S5 features a Heart Rate monitor and fingerprint scanner, these work well although I don't use them frequently.
SUMMARY :-
Samsung Galaxy S5 is best anroid smartphone I have used till date....there I said it ! and I mean it !.It has everything I wanted in my phone.A gorgeous display, solid performance and great battery life.
This phone completely changed my view on the Samsung Galaxy S/Note series and I am glad that I chose it over any other phone.
I would be happy to answer any questions that a potential buyer might have.
Cheers!
AbhMkh