Design It offers new features and a slightly different approach, but for the most part the Samsung Galaxy S5 looks and feels similar to its predecessor the Galaxy S4. The linking factor is plastic.
Where the Sony Xperia Z2 and HTC One M8 try to use expensive feeling, or looking, materials throughout, the Galaxy S5 is almost entirely plastic. And it is not plastic that's happy to look like what it is. The sides of the phone are trimmed with ridged metallic plastic that an onlooker might mistake for metal. But the feel of plastic is unmistakeable in-hand.
Water Resistance
The Galaxy S5's water resistance works just as it does on other recent water resistant phones. There are rubber seals on the plastic cover and on the flap that sits over the USB port on the bottom. This is one of the few phones to use an oversized micro USB 3.0 socket, also seen in a few other Samsung phones including the Galaxy Note 3, and it makes the bottom flap fairly large.
Fingerprint Scanner
Samsung's new fingerprint scanner is more interesting. We've seen a few different fingerprint scanners in mobiles over the last 12 months. The iPhone 5S's TouchID is a great success, the HTC One Max's rear scanner a flop.
The Galaxy S5 sits in a similar position to the iPhone scanner, but in use feels a little more like the HTC One Max one.
Rather than resting your finger over the button, as with an iPhone 5S, you swipe a finger over it. The sensor sits under the central select button, but you need to swipe over the very bottom of the touchscreen too as there's an element under the screen that activates the scanner.
Heart Rate Sensor
Perhaps the most conspicuous of the new hardware elements is the dedicated heart rate sensor, because it adds new sensors to the LED flash area on the back of the phone. The camera area on the pack looks positively gadget-packed now.
Internal Speaker
We would gladly trade away most of these supposed hardware innovations for a better internal speaker. But this is something that – once more – has been relatively neglected by Samsung.
Sound pipes out of a single grille under the backplate, and uses the limited internal area between the outer parts of the cover and the zone blocked off by the rubber seals to somewhat reinforce the sound (to act as a speaker enclosure of sorts).
The speaker also causes fairly severe vibration in the lower part of the phone's rear. It's the result of essentially using the outer casing as a speaker enclosure, and it is a bit annoying.
Make: Samsung
Model: GALAXY-S5
Processor: 2.3 GHz Quad-Core
Display: 5.1'
Memory: 2GB
Battery: 2800mAh
Operating System: Android 4.4.2 (Kit Kat)
Wireless: 802.11 a/ b/ g/ n/ ac
Camera: Front Camera 2.1-megapixel and Rear Camera 16-megapixel
Colour: White/Black
Other: 24 Month Standard Carry-in Warranty
