The Samsung Galaxy S5 is a flagship Android-based smartphone manufactured, developed, produced, designed and marketed by Samsung Electronics, as part of the Galaxy S series. It was announced on February 24, 2014 at the Samsung Unpacked for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, alongside the Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo and the Gear Fit, and released on April 11, 2014 in 150 countries as the immediate successor to the Galaxy S4.
As with the S4, the S5 is an evolution of the prior year's model, placing a particular emphasis on an improved build with a textured rear cover, IP67 certification for dust and water resistance, a more refined user experience, new security features such as a fingerprint reader and private mode, expanded health-related features including a built-in heart rate monitor, a USB 3.0 port, and an updated camera featuring speedy auto-focus through phase-detection. The video resolution has been upgraded to 2160p (4K) and the frame rate at 1080p has been doubled to 60 for a smooth appearance.
The Galaxy S5 received mostly positive reviews; the phone was praised for its display, hardware, camera, long battery life, and incorporating water resistance while retaining a removable battery and MicroSD card slot, making it the final in its series with the former. However, the S5 was criticized for bloatware, its unresponsive fingerprint scanner, and its ostensibly non-"premium" polycarbonate in light of rival smartphones' metal or glass bodies. It was also the last in the Galaxy S series to have a microSD card slot until the arrival of the Galaxy S7 in 2016.
In August 2015, following the release of its then-latest flagship, the Galaxy S6, Samsung released an updated version called the "Galaxy S5 Neo" which has an Exynos 7 Octa (7580) processor clocked at 1.6 GHz. It has 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, USB 2.0 port, comes with Android 5.1.1 "Lollipop", and lacks fingerprint unlocking and 4K (2160p) video recording.
The Galaxy S5 is the last Galaxy S series phone with a plastic frame and a user-replaceable battery and it introduced the "SM-G9xx" model number format where it is classified on its successors such as the Galaxy S6. This would be used up until the Galaxy S21 series as Samsung would then adopt the "SM-S123X" format as a model classification format for future phones, starting with the Galaxy S22 series released on February 25, 2022.
Release date The Galaxy S5 was unveiled on February 24, 2014 as part of the company's presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Samsung Electronics president JK Shin explained that consumers did not want a phone dependent on "eye-popping" or "complex" technology, but one with "beautiful design and performance", a "simple, yet powerful camera", "faster and seamless connectivity", and fitness-oriented features.
Samsung announced that it would release the S5 on April 11, 2014 in 150 countries—including the United Kingdom and United States. On 18 June 2014, Samsung unveiled an LTE-Advanced version of the S5, exclusively released in South Korea. Unlike other models, the LTE-A version also upgrades the display to a quad HD, 1440p panel.
Shortly after the release of the S5, it was discovered that some Samsung Galaxy S5 devices—particularly those on Verizon Wireless—were suffering from a major bug that caused the device's camera hardware to permanently cease functioning, and display a "Camera failed" error on-screen whenever users attempt to use the camera. Both Samsung and Verizon confirmed the issue, which affected a limited number of Galaxy S5 devices; Samsung instructed users affected by the bug to contact the company or their carrier to have their phone replaced under warranty.
Specifications Hardware and design Changes
The design of the S5 evolves upon the design of the S4. It features a rounded, polycarbonate chassis carrying a "modern glam" look with a dot pattern similar to that on the 2012 Google Nexus 7 tablet computer, faux metal trim and a removable rear cover. Unlike past models, the S5's rear cover uses a higher quality soft plastic and is dimpled to improve grip.
The S5 is IP67 certified for dust and water resistance. As such, the phone is able to be submerged in water up to for up to 30 minutes. The S5's Micro-USB 3.0 port uses a removable cover. The S5 is available in Charcoal Black, Electric Blue, Copper Gold, and Shimmery White color finishes. The S5's screen is a 1080p Super AMOLED panel, which is slightly larger than that of the S4, and allows for automatic brightness and gamut adjustments. Its minimum dimmable brightness level has been lowered to facilitate vision in dark environments without the need for third-party screen filter overlay apps which would interfere with screen captures.
Front panel Below the screen are three buttons. The physical "Home" button in the center contains a swipe-based fingerprint scanner. There is a "Recent apps" key (also known as "task key") on the left side and a "Back" key on the right side of the home button. As with all main models from the Galaxy S series, the navigation buttons to the left and right of the home button are capacitive. However, in accordance with Android 4.0 human interface guidelines, the S5 no longer uses a "Menu" key like its predecessors (left side of home button), although its button layout is still reversed in comparison to other Android devices with the S5's button layout (such as the HTC One X and Galaxy Nexus, whose "Back" buttons are to the left of "Home"). However, holding the new task key for one second simulates pressing the menu key.
The S5 comes with an LED light just by the top left of the bezel, which can be set to notify the user with a blue light when calls and texts are received when the device isn't being used and the screen is turned off. It also notifies users with a red light when the phone is charging, and a blinking red light when the battery is low. This red light turns green when charged to 100% of battery capacity.
Camera The S5 includes a 16 megapixel (5312×2988) rear-facing camera, which offers 4K (2160p) video recording at 30 fps, phase detection autofocus (which Samsung claims to be able to focus in around 0.3 seconds), real-time HDR photos and video (of which the latter is available for the first time in a Samsung flagship mobile device), a BSI CMOS image sensor with Samsung's "ISOCELL" technology, which isolates the individual pixels inside the sensor to improve its ability to capture light and reduce crosstalk. The model number of the image sensor is S5K2P2XX. Compared to conventional BSI sensors, this reduces electrical crosstalk by about 30 percent. The camera is also able to record 1080p@60fps for smoother real-time playback. It can also record slow-motion videos with 720p at 120fps, but only encoded using the menial method.
The front camera uses a Samsung CMOS S5K8B1YX03 image sensor, an aperture of 2.4 and captures both photos and videos at 1080p; the latter at 30 frames per second.Gems Hidden in Samsung Galaxy S5 In-House ISOCELL Sensor – WCCF Tech – 5 April 2014
Related section: Camera and gallery software.
Miscellaneous Next to the camera's flash on the rear of the device is a new heart rate sensor, which can be used as part of the S Health software.
The top of the device has an IR blaster and headphone jack. The IR blaster is a transmitter only and it has a built-in database of devices that can be controlled by Samsung's Smart Remote application.
The Galaxy S5 lacks the thermometer (temperature) and hygrometer (humidity) sensors that both of Samsung's 2013 flagships, the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 were equipped with.
Internal specifications The S5 LTE is powered by a 2.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 system-on-chip with 2 GB of RAM. Although not mentioned during the keynote presentation, a 3G variant (SM-G900H) with an octa-core Exynos 5422 system-on-chip was also released in multiple markets. Like the previous model, it uses two clusters of four cores; four Cortex-A15 cores at 2.1 GHz, and four Cortex-A7 cores at 1.5 GHz. Depending on resource usage, the SoC can use the power-efficient A7 cores for lighter processing loads, and switch to the A15 cores for more demanding loads. Unlike previous iterations, however, the Exynos 5422 can run both sets of cores at the same time instead of only one at a time.
Battery The S5 contains a 2800 mAh lithium ion battery, which is user-replaceable despite IP67 water resistance. It is Qi compatible (requires an optional Wireless Charging Cover) and also contains an "Ultra Power Saving" mode to further extend battery life; when enabled, all non-essential processes are disabled, and the screen switches to grey scale rendering. Samsung claims that with Ultra Power Saving on, an S5 with 10% charge remaining can last for an additional 24 hours in standby mode. Another improvement in power efficiency comes from the use of Qualcomm's envelope tracker, which reduces the power used in connectivity.
Software
The S5 shipped with Android 4.4.2 KitKat but has received updates, the most recent being 6.0.1 Marshmallow. It has Samsung's TouchWiz software, which for the S5 has a flatter, more geometric look than that found on the S4. Certain aspects of the changes were influenced by a recent patent licensing deal with Google, which requires that Samsung's TouchWiz interface follow the design of "stock" Android more closely. The S5 adds the Galaxy Note 3's "My Magazine" feature to the leftmost page on the home screen, the Settings menu was updated with a new grid-based layout with options for a "list" view and the "tabbed" view similar to that of the S4.How to change the Settings view on Galaxy S5 - fonguide
A "Kids' Mode" was added, and the S Health app was given expanded functionality, integrating with the new heart rate sensor on the device, alongside the new Gear 2 smartwatch and Gear Fit activity tracker. The "Download Booster" tool allows internet usage to be split across LTE and Wi-Fi to improve download speed. It is not available on the 3G model. Due to carrier policies, Download Booster was not available on Galaxy S5 models released in the United States running KitKat 4.4.2, excluding T-Mobile US and U.S. Cellular. The precluded telephone application is equipped with additional options for noise cancellation, call holding, volume boosting and the ability to personalize the call sound. A disk space analyzer tool is included.
The Galaxy S5 inherits the interaction functionality of the Galaxy S4, such as finger Air View, air gesture and motion gesture controls, and Samsung SmartScreen. For Air View, a self-capacitive touch screen layer is used to detect the floating finger. The "Quick Glance" feature from the Galaxy S4 was succeeded by "Air wake-up", where hovering above the front proximity sensor next to the "Samsung" wordmark wakes the phone up from stand-by mode rather than just showing the clock and status.
Security The S5 contains a number of new security features. The fingerprint reader can be used to unlock the phone, while an SDK is available so third-party developers may offer fingerprint-oriented functionality in their apps; for example, PayPal integrated support for the fingerprint sensor to authenticate online purchases. The S5 also adds "Private Mode", which allows users to maintain hidden apps and file folders that cannot be accessed without additional authentication.
The face unlock feature, introduced with the Galaxy S III and backported to the S II in Android 4.0 has been removed as the S5's fingerprint scanner is more secure.
Camera and gallery software