Samsung announced it's next iteration of the Galaxy S line in the form of the S5 way back in February at a press event in Barcelona, Spain during the Mobil World Congress convention. Even then, the still plastic body smartphone failed to wow the media present who collectively saw this as the Galaxy S4+ instead of an S5 since the changes from the current S4 were incremental. The changes were very incremental, slightly larger 5.1" screen, (S4 has a 5" Screen) 16Mp rear camera, a fingerprint reader swipe (nothing like the iPhone 5S's fingerprint reader), and a handful of minor updates, including a water-resistant body and hideous band-aid pattern like rear cover that screams tacky. Nothing in the S5, including it's slightly modified form factor wowed the press, and the ever-criticized toy-like plastic-body is still the biggest complaint most have about the flagship Samsung phone. For the past couple weeks most of the tech heavy-weights have been evaluating the final product almost two months after it was announced, and most walk away unimpressed with what is supposed to be Samsung's star smartphone. The Oracle of Tech Walt Mossberg of RE/Code (formerly of WSJ.com) weighs in after two weeks using the S5 to say that S4 users needn't upgrade given the incremental changes. He was most impressed with the water resistance (submerged in liquid for about 15-30 mins) and it came out working just fine. He Achieved 24 hours of battery time in moderate use which is pretty good for a large smartphone. Mossberg was disappointed with new swipe fingerprint reader which he said failed to unlock the phone even once on the first swipe, or even at all after multiple swipes. He also walked away underwhelmed with the heart rate monitor feature which was very fussy and asked you to adjust your finger on a sensor below the rear camera with a screen warning telling you that you're doing it wrong--enough to elevate your heart rate. It failed more than half the time he tried it. All in all, Mossberg's comments about the new S5 are pretty much echoed in other online reviews out today. Friday the S5 is unleashed and goes on sale to the public, and Verizon Wireless has a BOGO offer, Buy One-Get One FREE after two $50 rebates with two year agreements on both handsets, something that will attract many buyers. The S5 comes with 16Gb standard memory for Apps, music, videos, pictures, documents, etc., but user storage available on Samsung devices tends to be under 10Gb after all the factory installed software is considered-- unlike the recently launched HTC One M8 which comes with 32Gb standard at the same price. Both come with SD card expansion, but internal memory tends to be faster and more practical. Whether or not the S5 will be enough to jump-start Galaxy S sales remains to be seen Kids!
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