Powerful smartphones are becoming a dime a dozen these days. The companies that manufacture these phones have to spend a great deal of time upgrading them every year to make them better and more relevant to the other competition on the market. Samsung and Apple have been pushing the bar higher and higher and opening up the throttle to give consumers bigger and better screens and more and more power under the hood. With the latest announcements from Samsung showing that the Samsung Galaxy S5 is the new flagship, we can expect that the iPhone 5s we’ll see increased pressure from the Android faithful and Samsung faithful communities.
With that in mind, when most people consider a phone, they look at its specifications. More precisely, what can it do now that it couldn’t do before and what features have been improved on? Why buy a smart phone if it is not making every effort to be “smart” right? So with this latest release from Samsung, let’s take a look at what makes this phone just as good, better or worse than Apple’s flagship, the iPhone 5s.
Firstly, let me touch on some of the specifications that will matter to consumers and those that are looking to seriously invest in the new Samsung Galaxy phone. Samsung is coming to the table with a 5.1-inch 1920 by 1080 432 ppi screen. For those that love a large screen this should grab the attention of iPhone users who are stuck at an 1136 by 630 4-inch screen. The FHD Super AMOLED screen should catch even the most discerning eye and make quite a few turn their heads. The Samsung Galaxy S5 comes in 16 gigabyte and 32 gigabyte storage sizes with up to 128 gigabytes through the use of a MicroSD card. The iPhone 5s only comes up to a 64 gigabyte storage. The Samsung Galaxy S5 boasts a 16 megapixel camera while the iPhone 5s only pushes 8 megapixels. Both phones have a 2 megapixel front facing camera. Both phones are also 4G LTE capable. The Samsung Galaxy S5 is in-fact NFC capable while the iPhone 5s is not. I am not sure if this is a deal breaker for some consumers but time will tell. There are a lot more specs to be compared. Take a look over the chart below to see more of what stands out between the two phones.
| Galaxy S5 | iPhone 5S |
| DISPLAY SPECS | 5.1-inch, 1920 x 1080 432 ppi) | 4-inch 1136 x 640 (326 ppi) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DISPLAY TYPE | FHD Super AMOLED | Retina Display | ||
| OPERATING SYSTEM | Android 4.4.2 KitKat (at launch) | iOS 7 | ||
| PROCESSOR | 2.5GHz Quad core application processor | Apple A7 (64-bit), M7 Motion Coprocessor | ||
| RAM | 2GB | – | ||
| STORAGE |
|
| ||
| EXTERNAL STORAGE | Micro SD up to 128GB | No | ||
| MAIN CAMERA (BACK) |
| 8 megapixels with 1.5µ pixels, Æ’/2.2 aperture, Sapphire crystal lens cover, True Tone flash | ||
| SECONDARY CAMERA (FRONT) | 2 MP | 2 MP | ||
| NETWORK | LTE Cat.4 (150/50Mbps) |
| ||
| WI-FI | WiFi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac HT80, MIMO(2—2) | 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz) | ||
| BLUETOOTH | Bluetooth®: 4.0 BLE / ANT+ | Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology | ||
| BATTERY |
|
| ||
| NFC | Yes | No | ||
| CONNECTIVITY |
|
| ||
| SENSORS |
|
| ||
| GPS | Pending Confirmation |
| ||
| HEIGHT | 5.59 inches (142.0 mm) | 4.87 inches (123.8 mm) | ||
| WIDTH | 2.84 inches (72.5 mm) | 2.31 inches (58.6 mm) | ||
| DEPTH | 0.32 inches (8.1 mm) | 0.30 inch (7.6 mm) | ||
| WEIGHT | 5.11 ounces (145 grams) | 3.95 ounces (112 grams) | ||
| COLORS | Black, Blue, Gold, White | Black, White | ||
| SUPPORTED AUDIO FORMATS | Audio Codec : MP3, AMR-NB/WB, AAC/ AAC+/ eAAC+, WMA, Vorbis, FLAC Audio Format: MP3, M4A, 3GA, AAC, OGG, OGA, WAV, WMA, AMR, AWB, FLAC, MID, MIDI, XMF, MXMF, IMY, RTTTL, RTX, OTA | AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV | ||
| SUPPORTED VIDEO FORMATS | Video Codec : H.263, H.264(AVC), MPEG4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark, MP43, WMV7, WMV8, VP8 Video Format: MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, WEBM | H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format |
So after taking a look at all of that good stuff in the comparison and seeing what the new Samsung Galaxy S5 can do, what do you think folks? Ultimately a phone choice is completely up to the consumer, but I’m biased to Android phones and Samsung has definitely come out with a winner this MWC. What are your thoughts? Leave your interesting comments in the section below or on our Facebook, Twitter or Google + pages. Keep it locked to Android Headlines for more news and reviews.