Galaxy S5 worries before buying

[Gino Guillermo]

Hiya. I'm thinking of getting the Galaxy S5 but have some worries before buying it:

1. The flap on the USB port i feel that it may become loose (like the flap on the Xperia Z1/Z2) and feel it is week in providing waterproofing. True?
2. Speakers - Having a single rear speaker (vs dual speakers with the One M8 or Xperia Z phones) it is not quite strong enough especially on a busy London street or bus. And especially if it is laying flat on a table or if your holding it naturally your hand will cover the back.
3. Camera - confusing 1st-party features and software that are too gimmicky and bloated that hinders the real camera experience. Agree?
4. Performance - very subjective to some like the camera. Have seen dozens of videos on "how to improve performance" on the S5 but first hand i found the Xperia Z2 and the LG G2 seemingly having smoother performance than a Galaxy phone because of bloatware. Agree?

Please help. Thanks.

 

[Rukbat]

1. The flap on the USB port i feel that it may become loose (like the flap on the Xperia Z1/Z2) and feel it is week in providing waterproofing.

Never depend on an electronic device to be water resistant unless it's in a waterproof case of dry nitrogen. Enough salt and humidity can get into a water resistant phone during a humid day at the beach to destroy the phone. (If it might get wet, or even damp, use the double ziplock bag trick. Any phone, even one not the least bit water resistant, is waterproof down to at least a few feet that way. And if you drop a waterproof phone over the side of a boat, you'll probably never see it again. A bag of air floats.)

2. Speakers - Having a single rear speaker (vs dual speakers with the One M8 or Xperia Z phones) it is not quite strong enough especially on a busy London street or bus. And especially if it is laying flat on a table or if your holding it naturally your hand will cover the back.

True. But blasting music on a bus is particularly annoying to just about every other passenger. You should use earbuds or have the volume down and the speaker against your ear. If there aren't noise limits on the buses, there should be. I detest having my car shaken like a rattle at a red light, because the car next to me is putting out 120dbw of sub-sonics. (Sub-sonics, for some reason, don't bother me, but my wife has gotten physically ill if they're strong enough. I've actually [safely] gone through a red light more than once because of that. Only got a ticket once. The judge agreed with me and threw it out. [And chided the officer for not stopping the violation of the city's noise laws that caused me to have to move my car.])

3. Camera - confusing 1st-party features and software that are too gimmicky and bloated that hinders the real camera experience.

I've never found a phone that comes with a decent camera app. The least I'll use is Open Camera. If I need really good photography I'll use a camera. Terrible at running Android apps, but it takes great pictures. Neither one makes great toast. (IOW, use the tool that's appropriate for the job. A phone isn't supposed to be a Hasselblad.)

4. Performance - very subjective to some like the camera. Have seen dozens of videos on "how to improve performance" on the S5 but first hand i found the Xperia Z2 and the LG G2 seemingly having smoother performance than a Galaxy phone because of bloatware.

No. Bloatware that's not running doesn't hinder performance. (And most bloatware just sits there taking up storage, it's not running.) The bad performance claims are almost all due to TouchWiz - which I never see because one of the first things I do on any phone is install Nova Launcher. I never liked TouchWiz and unless they completely redesign it, I never will. Not just because it performs poorly, but because that's not the launcher I want. I want a lot of docks, with a lot of apps on them, changeable icon sizes, and other things that TouchWiz can't do. If I wanted to have to use the phone as it came out of the box I'd probably have an iPhone.

 

[alkezi]

Hiya. I'm thinking of getting the Galaxy S5 but have some worries before buying it:

1. The flap on the USB port i feel that it may become loose (like the flap on the Xperia Z1/Z2) and feel it is week in providing waterproofing. True?
2. Speakers - Having a single rear speaker (vs dual speakers with the One M8 or Xperia Z phones) it is not quite strong enough especially on a busy London street or bus. And especially if it is laying flat on a table or if your holding it naturally your hand will cover the back.
3. Camera - confusing 1st-party features and software that are too gimmicky and bloated that hinders the real camera experience. Agree?
4. Performance - very subjective to some like the camera. Have seen dozens of videos on "how to improve performance" on the S5 but first hand i found the Xperia Z2 and the LG G2 seemingly having smoother performance than a Galaxy phone because of bloatware. Agree?

Please help. Thanks.

3. Naahhh, I love the exposure feature and HDR on the galaxy s5. It makes the picture clearer and better. The camera on s5 is excellent, for me I would give it a 9 out of 10.
4. Here's the thing, the lag you see on the s5 is due to the animation touchwiz gives you. I never see a lag except in my magazine which I turned off. You can also turn off the animation.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[KJ78]

Your only concern should be in getting a unit with kit kat and not lollipoop.

 

[Gino Guillermo]

Got my Galaxy S5 with Lollipop and its much better and faster but funny there are still some aspects that makes a Kitkat-powered Z2 faster than a Lollipop S5. I have turned down the animations (under the Developer Options) to 0.5, turned off sync, turned off lock screen unlock animation, turned off printing, turned off notifications except for news, turned off radios, turned off S-voice, turned off wifi scanning, disabled some of those Touchwiz/Samsung-own apps and it did helped. Not super significant but it did.

I have made the Google Now/Google Experience Launcher my default launcher but do you think Nova Launcher is better in terms of battery/resource hog/performance? For me the GEL is "Ok". For now.

The single stereo speakers are Ok but because of the nature of my work if i'm out on the street on a busy Central London area with cars whizzing through i find it difficult to hear it. I could use my earphones but they can be a distraction rather than a help.

The flap on the S5 seems sturdy and secure. Most of my days are spent on office then home. Not going to a beach or to a warm country soon but my main other concerns is does the 3.5mm headphone jack also water-proof?

Also, is it true that having the brightness to Auto and battery- saving on doesn't help and may actually affecting the battery & performance?