I'm in market for Samsung smartphone for my father. Currently comparing between Samsung S5 Australian Stock & Warranty from reputed retailer at $435 and Samsung S6 from Shopping Square at $495.
Given the cost difference between S5 and S6 is only $60, wondering if i should buy S6 grey import or go ahead with S5 Australian stock?
Samsung Galaxy S5 Australian Stock or S6 Grey Import?
googdi on 13/12/2016 - 21:55
Comments
the s6 is SO much more smoother experience than the lagfest that is a galaxy s5.
That's why i completely skipped the s5 it was an overall a terrible experience.The S4 was so much better then the s5
I have to majorly disagree with that. The s5 was/ is a great phone. The s6 is a good experience but no SD card or water resistance ruined it.
Hence why it was so unpopular. I love the s5 and would skip straight to the s7 if I were youyour talking about popularity which as you can see with the iphone isn't much to go by.
despite the missing sd card slot etc. it was a great phone whatever Samsung did the Operation of the mobile phone was very smooth no little lags like th s5 which i experienced on every single s5 ive used
the Galaxy s7 is basically the same phone as the s6 but an upgraded version.
also don't forget how great the screen is and camera is on the s6 while not the best now days they both leave the s5 long behind it.Please don't mention the s7 the OP is about the s5 and s6 (i own an s7)
But QHD on 5 inch screen is borderline stupid and the only reason Samsung puts it out is because of VR. For VR, I do think more resolution is required. That said, FHD for normal usage is almost indistinguishable to QHD I think. That said, what would be very noticible is the trade off between battery life + performance and QHD screen.
@Oversimplified: The resolution might not be much better but the screen looks million times better imo
@Axelstrife: I honestly can't tell the difference much. I did hear S6 has much brighter screen (which I guess is important under direct sun and it might be why I don't see much difference, since I put the brightness to low most of the time) and it did improve upon colour accuracy (though, I think that's from one of the screen modes being off).
Even in a detailed review like the ones that DisplayMate do i.e. S6 vs S5, S5 did reasonably well. I guess if you use adept mode (which is the default setting), they do mention the colour on S5 in adept mode was off, but that's easily fixable by changing the mode to others.
All that said I kinda don't/didn't see much difference. To be honest, I don't think I've heard much talks (outside ones who compare displays in extreme details) about the screen on S6 other than about QHD screen. I've already mentioned how I think QHD is costly for performance and battery and how I don't see much difference between FHD and QHD in 5 inch screen.
Though ymmv I guess.
QHD has not affected performance on my s6 edge or my now s7 at all.
battery seems good enough for me though i do think 1080p would be plenty till you get to 5.5" screen sizes.
Sony with there 4k screen in a mobile is purely a waste of battery.
though if you really wants to see a difference watch a 1080p video on the s5 then was a 2k video on the s6 you will see a difference.
even watching youtube 1080p vs 1440p you see a difference.@Axelstrife: If it doesn't have influences on the battery life and performance, why would Samsung provide a method of reducing resolution? To quote them:
Control your games' resolution, frame rate, and texture quality.
- Enhance gaming performance, play longer by reducing battery consumption, and minimize app-refresh by decreasing memory usage.The only reason that you are not noticing it (at least as much), is because it's eating into the performance increase and increased power efficiency from previous years.
I simply can't think of any cases where 1080p resolution actually had an impact on my usage, I am sorry, I really can't. I used to own a S4 Active, which has a 1080p screen, my girlfriend used to own a LG G2. I simply couldn't think of any cases where I thought, blimy, I can see the pixels. When I was comparing S5 to S6, other than this device looks hideous, I didn't think the screen was worse.
I tried to replicate the situation you were saying with my S4 Active (which uses LCD so it might be just LCD that's better at 1080p, but still I could at least check whether 1440p looks better than 1080p with LCD). I simply thought they both look gorgeous and couldn't find any difference between two.
This is coming from someone who uses Korean every day. Korean letters are more complex than alphabets. If it had any impact on usage, I would've been much more sensitive to it than Westerners. Simliarly, my girlfriend uses Chinese every day, which in my opinion is more complex than Korean in terms details of each letters. We didn't feel difference in our usage. Maybe if I took time and focused on it enough, maybe I will be see fine differences from pixel density difference.
@Oversimplified:Guess it's one of those things a regular users doesn't notice kind like how some people swear they don't notice a difference with higher FPS in games.
I don't think you understood that i was agreeing with you i know 1440p screens are not a must it's more of cool feature that provides a very small increase in viewing pleasure (to me at least).
I know that if the s7 for example didn't have a 1440p screen the battery would last longer. but the performance of the device is at a point that i honestly didn't notice any increase from the s6 edge and the s7 which both had 1440p screens. sure benchmarks would show higher performance but gaming and normal things done with smartphones.
http://www.phonearena.com/phones/OnePlus-3_id10017/benchmark…
check it out one plus 3 1080p vs s7 1440p not a huge gap caused by the extra resolution.
Personally if the Oneplus 3 has Australian Warrenty i'd buy that which has a 1080p screen not cause it has a 1080p screen but cause it looks so damn good lol.@Axelstrife: Eh maybe I've ended up whinging, since my S6's battery life is awful at best (and I do know that S5 has been known for its battery life).
@Oversimplified: Yeah i noticed a decent improvement in battery life when coming from my s6 edge to s7.
@Axelstrife: Yeah, if you asked me, the only thing that makes me jealous of my girlfriend's phone is the battery life and water resistance. Ah, and the fact that it's easier to grip (from the back being curved).
@Oversimplified: The curve in the back is awesome. i have a Spigen case which is also curved on the back. so comfortable to hold.
@Axelstrife: I think that's something they should've considered with S6. Ironic thing is, my phone has no scratches whatsoever (at 1 year+ mark, though I did crack the screen). My girlfriend dropped hers so much that the metal frame has a small dent on it.
My view on S7 is that it's an upgrade to S6 (other than the thickness and weight, which in my opinion was a good choice as it reduces camera pertruding out, adds battery and adds back curvature). If I were considering getting an S6, I'd probably go with S7 just for the battery life alone (SD card doesn't really affect me, because I got a 128GB model, second hand).
The thing I think goes well for S6 is that a lot of features for newer devices is applicable for S6 as well. Game Tool got released for S6, the "condensed" view for Note 5 (that increases DPI setting) can be used with bit of tweaking involving Nova Launcher. Probably because it was part of Samsung's Project Zero, where they started focussing on software a little more. Hope Samsung keeps doing that, I kinda want Nougat with Grace UI.
On the basis your dad is unlikely to be concerned about the lack of SD card or water-proofing, I would go with the S6 (and did for my nephew).
I think S5 would be better for your father, better battery life and it'd be harder to damage compared to S6.
That said, I think S6 is better with performance which your dad wouldn't really care about I assume? Also, I think Marshmallow update would've solved a lot of problems with S5. Samsung's lollipop was atrociously bad.
Another plus with S5 would be, you can do the back up on mSD card (with third party apps like helium or titanium backup). If your dad's phone breaks for some reason, as long as you salvage the mSD card, you can recover a lot of what's lost.
Though you are basically buying an EOL device that will not receive an update to nougat (not sure about security patches, since that's different). That's something to think about. CM ROM would fix part of that, but custom ROMs, I kinda think they can cause issues with someone without any knowledge.
I have the S5 on Marshmallow and the overall experience is so-so. It still has a weird Wifi bug where it would constantly switch on and off rapidly. I think this is actually an Android bug and not a samsung specific one though, as apparently the Pixel had the same issue
Isn't Pixel on Nougat though? Eh, judging from what happened with lollipop, I shouldn't be too surprised.
I would go with the S6.
In the future at least the S6 will have a slightly longer support lifecycle.
Thanks for all your suggestions, guys.
To add that because my dad is not tech savvy he is only going to use phone for call, SMS, Facebook, Whatsapp and may be camera, this will be his first ever smart phone. So the most important thing is which phone S5 or S6 will be easier to use.
The reason i'm going with Samsung is that it has native Easy Mode feature to make it convenient for old people.I'd recommend S5 still. Rehashing what I've said before, longer battery life, sturdier phone (glass vs replacable plastic back cover) and mSD support would be better for your dad imo. I kinda think all those add up to more things to worry about.
Shorter battery life is an annoyance and something that you can't easily "fix". Plus, shorter battery life means you have to always keep the battery level in your mind.
Studier phone would mean your dad wouldn't need to worry about damaging the phone as much. Water resistance I think is a cherry on top, though you absolutely must tell him what it actually means and requires since IP rating with flaps and back cover is finnicky.
mSD is a neat feature especially if you don't know anything about back ups. If the phone breaks down, things saved on mSD can be salvaged easily. Photos automatically save to mSD (If my memory serves correctly, if not, you can change the directory). It means your dad wouldn't need to plug the phone to PC all the time to back up the photos.
All those in my opinion would mean less "maintanence" required from your dad. If I were you, I'd probably set the phone up for your dad and might even consider getting the S Cover (which allow you to use wireless charging) and wireless charging pad. Eh, wireless charging can be finnicky with positioning and such, might be a bad idea.
S6 does have better performance and more features, plus one last major update left. Those in my opinion wouldn't be appreciated much by your dad.
I was in the same boat and purchased an s5 for the following reasons:
removable battery
IR blaster
HD 5.1 inch screen
IP rating
SD card slotat first I was looking at the s6 but got turned off by the lack of everything and assuch the s5 is it, it is a fantastic bit of kit and I'm sure he will not be disappointed and the battery life is pretty good too.
I now know why the s5 is still costing that much and its worth it I guess.
I purchased mine months ago when jb had them for $399 local stock and with warranty.S6 has a IR blaster, it's from note 5 onward that they've gotten rid of IR blaster.
The Galaxy S6 is samsung's least popular S series of their phones because it lacks the removable battery and SD card slot.
Something to consider when you are comparing the two phones.