Gadgetory

it's the new normal with consumer electronics you buy what's supposed to be the best of the best and the next year there's already something better even if we don't like it we expect it what we don't expect is to buy a smartphone and have it superseded by a superior one just two months later that's the situation with the galaxy s5 LTE a which we've taken to calling the galaxy s5 prime visually it's almost identical to the phone we reviewed in April but inside it packs enhancements many expected of that predecessor so just how I owed you feel if you bought a galaxy s5 before this sucker came out I'm Michael Fisher with pocket now let's find out well to start with don't get too angry if you live in the United States as this phone isn't destined for American shores to get one you'll have to do what we did visit a retailer like 28 mobile they provided the demo device for this comparison and if you want a Galaxy s5 LTE a of your own pay them a visit at the link in the description below if you were expecting something like the rumored Galaxy F with a metal back or chassis well keep waiting from width to height to depth to mass these phones almost couldn't be more similar aside from some new color choices and a slightly more pronounced dot matrix on the faceplate the LTE a variant is physically identical to the Galaxy s5 despite the notable spec differences will cover in a second day-to-day performance is also very similar we're long past the era of app launch times being meaningful measures of performance and while the LTE a does have a slight edge over the stock s5 after a fresh boot in normal use that difference isn't much more than fractions of a second performance within those apps is also comparable which is to say it's usually excellent these are flagship smartphones remember and despite the architecture difference between their processors each is plenty capable of smooth handling even when running two apps side-by-side the 16 megapixel camera on the new device is the same one you'll find on the well the other new device and the software is essentially identical to with the same shooting modes and the dizzying dashboard of toggles the only difference is we've found our small the lte-a version lets you customize which modes are displayed and also offers an intermediate video resolution between 1080p and Ultra HD it also doesn't let you turn off the camera shutter sound as you can on the AT&T version quality of the pictures is as you might expect right on par sometimes our stock s5 produces better contrast and higher saturation than the prime but other times that's reversed shooting is faster on the prime though especially with stabilized photos in low light sometimes the prime comes out on top and other times its bested by its predecessor but in each case results aren't the best trading eyeballs for ears were still neck and neck whether it's being used to blast songs from long dissolved bands or just to catch up with friends on the phone the Galaxy s5 speaker fountain is loud enough if in conveniently located around back that goes for both of these devices which are acoustically identical from speaker to earphone and they seem to have the same reception ability too even though here in the states we can't take advantage of South Korea's advanced LTE network and you can talk on each one about as long to an hour side by side testing the prime and the stock editions have kept within a few percentage points of one another despite performing the exact same operations for the same exact time so it looks like you don't need to be too concerned about that second battery included with the prime you might not need it as often as you'd expect if you're wondering how that can be considering the quad HD display of the lte-a version we're just as surprised as you with a much higher pixel density we expected the primes panel to be a real power hug but that doesn't seem to be the case it does tend to render cooler whites in some display modes but the prime screen can also swing nearly the full range of brightness of the original s5 even if the resolution bump isn't that noticeable we'll take it considering there's no real sacrifice maybe we owe some of the unexpected good news here too the Snapdragon 805 in the prime a more powerful chip than the 801 in our US version welcomed designed the 805 specifically with 4k displays in mind and that plus the new GPU and added RAM gives the prime an edge in some but not all benchmarks more importantly the 805 provides a beefier isp and better video compression which means it's almost definitely responsible for the quicker camera performance mentioned earlier finally there's Samsung's download booster which uses Wi-Fi and LTE together for faster file downloads you can actually get this on the stock s5 as well but US carriers have disabled it for obvious reasons while we couldn't get the UI to show in the drop down shade enabling download booster and then downloading a large video usually resulted in the s5 prime finishing the job much faster it's a handy little tool if you're a big download while the primes special features are pretty cool let's boil it down to the essentials what are you getting if you get the newer phone that you don't get with the stock s5 a slightly quicker camera a sharper display that you probably won't notice unless you watch a lot of ultra high def video a download booster that you can hack on to the original s5 anyway a processor that wins in some benchmarks Network capabilities that probably aren't supported in your country and some extra accessories in the box that you can find for not much money elsewhere are these peripheral benefits worth trading in your Galaxy s5 for a prime does it justify the anguish we're seeing from some should you be outraged that Samsung duped you know the so-called s5 prime is a good device and yes it is better in some ways than its close sibling but it's a difference only spec sticklers will notice if that's you hey by all means pick one up but if you've already bought the stock s5 there's no need for gnashing of teeth wringing of handkerchiefs everybody just chill out if you want one anyway we get that head over to 28 mobile linked below to order your own s5 Prime stay tuned for our full review coming later this week and follow us where we talk text and tweet at the links below till next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow thanks for watching and we'll see you on the next one you