Reviewing the Samsung Galaxy S5, part 4: Processor

When Apollo 11 ventured to the moon, none of its various computers had as much memory or processing power as today’s smart watches do. When the space shuttle flew, it carried five computers arrayed in a complex, redundant voting system to translate its pilot’s flight commands, but none of those five cpu’s approached the power of your current PC or even that of a decent, touch-screen tablet.

Sometimes increasing power doesn’t result in a major perceived user experience. The Galaxy S5 has both quad- and octo- variant processor options in different parts of the world, but whether it can best the current flagship phones from Apple or HTC in benchmark testing is probably not the right question for a prospective phone buyer to ask.
That’s because all the top of the line handsets have video chip sets that will please even hard-core gamers, plus processors and OS updates that make their interfaces virtually lag-free and buttery-smooth. Their ability to switch quickly between applications is generally seamless.

In most published reviews, the S5 tests somewhere between the iPhone 5S and the HTC One (M8), but the differences amount to eye blinks—variations in machine scores which don’t impact your hands-on, day to day experience. All get the job done, so the buyer is free to choose the overlays, ecosystem, and extras (replaceable battery, memory expansion, water resistance, open OS, etc.) which really do provide value to them without worrying about which model gets the highest processor score using a particular, and possibly ephemeral, metric.

One notable feature that the S5 will offer some users is the ability to download on cellular LTE (4G) and WiFi simultaneous, as well as trying to access WiFi on two separate, internal antennas. Both are intended to improve video streaming and other data-intensive operations, but most U.S. carriers, including Sprint, AT&T and Verizon have switched off the simultaneous LTE/WiFi access in their branded versions, and smaller carriers often have data caps or throttling which will limit its usefulness even if it is not locked out altogether. Elsewhere in the world, it may be a useful and unique add-on, if your carrier’s billing plan is data-generous.
This wraps up our overview of Samsung’s new Galaxy S5. What other handsets would you like to see in the next Akruto Insight column?