Gadgetory

i'm michael fisher with pocket now and i like phones that get dirty after all these things are supposed to be life companions sticking by your side no matter how muddy wet or bumpy your slog through life becomes we got a taste of that with this year's Galaxy s5 and it's water-resistant casing and now Samsung is taking things up a notch with the Galaxy s5 active is this the smartphone you should buy if your life is more a construction site than corporate office find out in our video review let's get the most common objection out of the way first if you wanted a durable phone you'd just buy a durable case right no the whole idea of a phone built from the inside out to be durable is that you don't need to drop the extra 60 bucks on a bulky case and the Galaxy s5 active is indeed built to be durable it carries the same immersion rating as the standard s5 but it also brings milspec durability to boot that means it should hold up to exotic stuff like vibration and altitude temperature humidity extremes but also to the mundane tests of everyday life like impacts but as always it's crucial to read the fine print samsung warns us that the device may not perform as shown in all extreme conditions in real life testing over about 10 days we found that to mean that the Galaxy s5 active is either impact resistant or water resistant but not necessarily both at the same time at first the phone was a great diving companion giving us an opportunity to film some of the more florescent sea life we've seen in a local fountain but dropping the phone onto a hard surface jarred something loose in our test device which then allowed water into the formerly water-resistant casing that wasn't much fun and even after a day of drying out we were still forced to get a replacement unit to complete this review now to be fair the fatal cocktail of impact plus immersion doesn't must affect Samsung phones as we found out with the Xperia z1s a few months back but we were able to trip up the s5 active without water as well a drop on to a hard drive jarred the SIM card loose that was an easy fix all we had to do was reboot it to get it back online but if you're going out of your way to claim that a product is most everything-proof beefing it up with extra plastic and even painting a camouflage pattern on it to show the world how tough it is well you've got a tougher burden of proof - you should make sure that it actually is more durable than it's lighter slimmer compatriots while we're on the subject of other devices some good news this year's active edition Galaxy S doesn't make nearly as many sacrifices as last year's model yes the charging port takes a step down from USB 3.0 to 2.0 and we lose the fingerprint scanner but we don't consider either of these a terribly great loss in more important aspects you're getting everything the s5 offers from the high-speed processor to the 5.1 inch AMOLED display in an automatic mode that screen gets almost unbelievably bright in direct sunlight making it one of the more readable outdoor displays we've seen and say what you will about Samsung's software it makes that AMOLED screen look good it's the same software we covered in depth in our galaxy s5 review Samsung's newest version of TouchWiz riding atop Android 4.4.2 and it's just as fluid and responsive here the only significant difference is the activity zone a pretty bare-bones collection of vaguely outdoorsy features it would be cooler if it integrated more fully into other aspects of the device as it stands now it certainly looks good but it's also very Spartan it just kind of feels hastily thrown together the new blue active key on the side launches the activity zone by default but it can be reassigned to access other apps including the camera sadly Samsung hasn't given that key the ability to wake the device from standby you still need to unlock the phone the conventional way first and then hit the button so we're left wondering why it's even there shooting with a 16 megapixel camera is an awful lot like shooting with the s5s which is to say that the end results can be really really good from the sharp just slightly oversaturated daylight shots to the effective but not overblown HDR mode you can get some nice captures and bright lighting and we especially like the ability to shoot in full resolution using a widescreen format using the active key as a camera shutter makes underwater photos easier to capture though getting focus is still tricky on the whole no matter what you're trying to photograph on your outdoor adventures the active probably won't disappoint unless of course you're shooting at night we already covered this on our galaxy s5 review so we won't belabor the point but this device isn't necessarily the one you want with you when it comes to low-light photography thankfully video output is gorgeous again given the right lighting framerate is a little low in the default mode but you've got options available to smooth that out and you can also shoot in slo-mo or crank the resolution all the way up to 4k if you like the device is sensitive to shakes and shimmies though so make sure you've got a steady hand when you're sneaking up on wildlife in terms of day-to-day performance the galaxy s5 active is say with us a whole lot like the galaxy s5 from phone calls to gaming to s-health to the rear firing but surprisingly loudspeaker the s5 active sticks close to its roots as a solid performer especially on ATT's excellent LTE network here in Boston the phone does have at least one annoying quirk though it often wakes up in our pocket for no good reason something the stock s5 doesn't really do we're not sure why this is but since it happened on both our review devices we thought it worth mentioning keep a close eye on that because while the battery is removable that screen sucks power quickly in super-bright outdoor mode with almost no price difference on ATT between the s5 active and the galaxy s5 which one to buy depends on how much meat you really need on your smartphones bones remember the stock s5 is already water-resistant and while a milspec rating should mean the active is much more durable in our experience that just doesn't seem to be the case at least in every day drops and fumbles for most people the standard Galaxy s5 will offer enough durability to last the length of a two-year contract for you folks who truly need the slight edge that the milspec 810 rating provides the active is probably the better choice just don't test its limits and don't believe it's everything proof be sure to check out our full review of the galaxy s5 active available june 19th at pocketnow.com linked in the description below once it goes up also check out our full review of the stock edition galaxy s5 linked here on youtube and at pocketnow.com and be sure and subscribe and toss us a like if you enjoyed this video leave us a comment down below letting us know what you think of the galaxy s5 active and most importantly thank you for watching we'll see you next time you