Reviews

Samsung Galaxy S5 review: Hands on

The Galaxy S5 promises a great camera, solid battery life and quick 4G speeds, but is the heart-rate monitor a gimmick too far?

24 Feb 2014

Samsung executives had promised that the firm would go back-to-basics for the Galaxy S5 and they were right. Kind-of.

Not much has changed from a design standpoint. The S5 slightly bigger at 5.1ins but uses the same Super AMOLED display with 1920 x 1080 resolution as its predecessor.

.imgHideOnJavaScriptDisabled_eexbsrkv67e1kq { display: none !important; }

However, Samsung couldn't resist packing in a couple of these features, which can be seen as novelty inclusions. Apple was the first to included a fingerprint scanner onto a smartphone, and Samsung has followed suite.

Guest editor's thoughts"The improvement in the battery life and being water and dust resistant are useful improvements. Although the other changes seem more subtle from previous versions, it's good to see Samsung listening to what its customers want in a device rather than just innovating for the sake of it," Brendon Petsch, IT director, Gritit

.imgHideOnJavaScriptDisabled_eexbsrkv67e1ks { display: none !important; }

To one-up Apple, the Korean firm decided to be the first manufacturer to include a dedicated heart-rate scanner on a handset. This is located on the back and aims to measure the pulse of a user using a beam of light. How often users will measure their heart-rate remains to be seen.

.imgHideOnJavaScriptDisabled_eexbsrkv67e1kt { display: none !important; }

Samsung has subtly redesigned app icons on the S5 and the notification drawer has similar stylings to its Tizen operating system. It appears this could be the first move by Samsung to wean itself off Android.