The Galaxy S5 was waterproof and still let you swap the battery
Samsung's 2014 flagship could sit under a metre of water for half an hour, yet its plastic back still popped off to swap the battery. It was the last Galaxy S phone to allow that, and one of the first to put a heart rate sensor right beside the camera flash.
Samsung unveiled the S5 in Barcelona on February 24, 2014, at Mobile World Congress, and shipped it on April 11 in 150 countries. Company president JK Shin pitched it as a reaction against flashy gadgetry: buyers, he argued, wanted good design, a simple but strong camera, faster connections and fitness tools rather than eye-catching complexity. The phone evolved the S4 rather than reinventing it.
Its body was polycarbonate with a dimpled soft-touch back and faux metal trim. IP67 certification meant resistance to dust and immersion, with a cover protecting the Micro-USB 3.0 port. Up front sat a 5.1-inch 1080p Super AMOLED screen that could dim lower than usual for dark rooms, and a home button with a swipe fingerprint scanner, which replaced face unlock and could authorise PayPal purchases. The 16-megapixel camera recorded 4K video, used phase detection to focus in about 0.3 seconds by Samsung's claim, and an ISOCELL sensor that cut electrical crosstalk by roughly 30 percent.
Battery life drew praise. The 2800 mAh cell supported an Ultra Power Saving mode that turned the screen grey and shut non-essential processes; Samsung said 10 percent charge could then last another 24 hours on standby. Health was a selling point, with the S Health app linking the rear heart rate sensor to the Gear 2 watch and Gear Fit tracker, though the S4's thermometer and humidity sensors were dropped.
Critics liked the screen, camera and endurance but complained about preinstalled bloatware, an unreliable fingerprint reader and plastic that felt cheap next to metal and glass rivals. Early Verizon units hit a bug that permanently killed the camera, and Samsung replaced affected phones under warranty. The S5 introduced the SM-G9xx model numbering Samsung used until the Galaxy S21, and after it no Galaxy S had a microSD slot until the S7 in 2016.
Source: Samsung Galaxy S5
