Samsung Galaxy S5, 10 Years On: 2014-2024 🤓

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Is the Galaxy S5 Samsung's worst smartphone ever?

Of course Samsung has shipped objectively poorer products than the Galaxy S5 in the ten years since this phone's launch. But I'm hard pressed to think of any big-name high-end phone of this era that looks *as bad* in hindsight as Samsung's 2014 flagship does today.

Let's take a look at why that is, and what it's actually like to revisit the Galaxy S5 a decade on!

0:00 Intro
0:29 The End of an Era
2:06 High Tech + Chintzy Plastic
4:48 Specs, Internals + Camera
6:57 TouchWiz UI + Features
9:11 Android 14 on Galaxy S5
10:03 Galaxy S5 variants
10:45 Closing Thoughts

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Euhm, so basically you say 10 different ways that you don't like the looks of this phone, and that's about it. Otherwise you ironically point out how good a phone it was for its time : removable battery, great screen, great processor, great camera, ...

Betsybetsybetsy-wfxv
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This phone was sick, removable battery, water resistant, headphone jack, amazing display, everything about this phone was amazing, but YouTubers loved to hate this phone, why because it was mainly plastic that you didn't need a case 24\7, thanks to this phone failing is that we have the stupid many aiphones wanna be that every Android is nowadays

andrescarrasco
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Horrifing that samsung made one of their last good phones that was super repairable and expandable i know right they should have just put as much glue in it as possible

MrRocketFX
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That is the best phone samsung ever made!!! Removable battery with water resistance.... this is why reviewers are a part of the fault for the unfixable garbage we have today

Stef.Cata
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I loved the plastic phone that had REMOVABLE BATTERIES!!!!

Techier
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I had s5 for 5+ years
The CPU (snapdragon version) is great but the bottleneck was the 2gb RAM which always filled up quickly and made the phone chug
However, custom roms (aosp based) were very stable and gave it whole new lives to live, with considerable speed boost while losing some of samsung features (especially the camera being worse in aosp-base roms... like most phones with unofficial camera apps)

nhkvortex
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It's crazy how I still don't record in 4k today or know anyone who does

sydguitar
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I loved my S5, saw nothing wrong with it and STILL better than the iPhone at the time...

CristianZamora
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Sure it looks a bit crap by todays standards, but i loved my S5.

In 2014 and coming from an S3, I was made up to have a 1080p display, 4k video recording, finger print scanner (as clunky as the operation was), oh and lets not forget the IR blaster 👌 Not a TV was safe, from doctors waiting rooms, receptions, museums 😂

nmeister
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It's the reviewers that ruined the image of samsung. S5 was truly a generational phone. It just needed a better software. I blame MKBHD and all the other suck ups at the time praising Closed battery phones.

xiondFirst
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I loved my Galaxy S5. I wouldn't have replaced it in 2019 if it didn't fall screen down directly on a concrete corner and tear a hole in the display. The battery was swapped in 2017 for an extended battery and a corresponding larger case, which is something you can't do with today's phones. Instead now you buy the phone with the longest possible battery life you can and hope that you get good luck on the battery lottery before it does goofy stuff like shut off at 30% and only last through 4 hours of screen on time which causes you to need to deal with a difficult and expensive battery replacement which usually leads to a phone swap.

GuruMN
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The Galaxy S5 era was great! The GS5 was great. I loved the age of phones with every possible feature. I miss IR blasters, replaceable batteries, and SD card support on premium devices. Yes, Touchwiz was gross. Yes, the plastic build was too practical, but the "band-aid" back plate was easily replaceable. The camera was the first ISO cell tech camera, I believe. It is a solid snapper. The low resolution selfie camera even takes solid day time pics. I did a picture walk with one recently. The snaps are overly saturated, but they shine in spite of (or b/c) of that!

johnathanblade
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I'm still using S5 LTE as main phone on LineageOS 18.1 (Android 11). Everything still works: 3.5mm jack, microphone, USB port, SD-card reader, screen without scratches (never used screen protector). USB flap cover was lost during 1st year. Shining silver paint flew off mid life. Plastic back cover chipped on some contact points, but still hooks strong. 3 times changed the battery.
The main downside is only 550MB of 2GB memory are available for apps (the rest is being used by OS and swap). Watching how the same apps grew in requirements over the years, it's hard to multitask without ram swap to eMMC penalties. Everything else is solvable. Low internal storage can be extended with microSD. Replaceable batteries are hard to find - Chinese knock offs don't last as long as original cells made in Korea. Phone cameras got huge leap over the years (but I don't care about photography on smartphones).
Finally it's probably the time to upgrade after faithful 10 years of service. Can't decide for new compact phone between: Samsung Galaxy S24 (hard to get Snapdragon variant with eSIM), Google Pixel 9 Pro (weak power efficiency due to Samsung's fabrication of Tensor 4 SoC), upcoming Sony Xperia 5 VI (uncomfortable 21:9 aspect ratio and only 3 years of software updates. but heck this phone still has headphone jack and card reader), Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 (afraid of nail scratching screens feature :)
I bet my new phone wouldn't last for next 10 years. They don't build with longevity in mind these days.
Thanks team XDA for honest review of my beloved phone. Signing on every word, except click-bate title "Samsung's Worst Flagship💀" XD

vior
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Mate you have no idea how wrong you are. The build quality, aesthetics, and a few clunky features worked against it, but the S5 overall is by far probably the last best phone Samsung ever made. It had a lot going for it too.

And just to clarify, I'm not a Samsung fanboy, I currently own a Huawei. I just go with whats best for the money at the time.

TartarSauceIsNotDead
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I had blue s5 then traded for iphone 5s ---> sony z2 ---> s5 black good old times

Mewtolosky
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I have the best memories with this phone. I had the black version and it looked way better than the white version, it made the front sensors disappear to the eye and the back had a more premium texture feel as well. The screen was amazing, and I remember being blown away by the difference HDR made in the camera. I was disappointed I didn’t get the S6 TouchWiz, though :(

clear
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I remember when I got this phone for my 18th birthday as a gift from my dad, still the best phone I ever had (until I totaled it), ahead of it's time and ahead of some popular phones now. The smart screen (sensor tracking your eye movement while reading so you don't have to use hands or just swiping your hand to left/right across the screen to take a screenshot) as well as S Voice (where I would yell "Volume Up" while I'm showering so my music would blast more xd). I also loved little customizable light indicators for each app (blue for facebook, red for instagram and so on), not to mention that sensor at the back for tracking my pulse, and that mighty tv scanner... Titan of the phone!
I often think about this phone, after that I had other phones but nothing satisfied me more than that one. Currently on Honor 200 Pro after using Samsung phones my whole life (nothing wrong with them, just wanted to try different brand! And Huawei "HONOR" series have Google Play so it doesn't feel like some major change, except that it costed less and I got 12/512GB)
*I love how everyone who actually had S5 can confirm how great the phone was and how much we all loved it. <3

JKm
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The camera is better than my current phone

asepsetiawan
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I had imported the LTE-A version of the Galaxy S5 from South Korea back in the day and lemme tell you, it was a great phone. It had an updated processor and 3 GB of RAM instead of the 2 GB of the international version. The only thing that was a bit of a hassle was having a few apps that used different and less accurate positioning services like the weather widget. I don't get the hate for plastic phones tbh, they're way more durable than the glass thingies we have today.

gmg
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I thought the Note 7 was their worst phone, must have cost them a billion or two in recall costs after the exploding batteries

parshakamarsh