Samsung Galaxy S5: Full Speed Ahead

The long wait is finally over.  Samsung officially unveils the successor to last year's Galaxy S4, the Samsung Galaxy S5!

First impressions?  It's powerful and it's feature packed but will Samsung's newest prove to be their greatest too?  We'll find that out soon but for the meantime, here are 10 things you need to know about the Samsung Galaxy S5.

1. It's waterproof

Not an entirely new feature since Sony's Xperia flagships already had a couple of waterproof smartphones in their arsenal. It is good to know that the Galaxy S5 is IP67-rated to withstand both water and dust.

2. It'll scan your fingers

Another not-so-new feature, Apple had this covered with their flagship iPhone 5s.  The Galaxy S5's Home button comes with a built-in fingerprint scanner where swiping your digit down unlocks the device, as well as protect sensitive files.

As an added benefit, you'll also be able to authorise all online PayPal transactions with the swish of a finger, perfect for that annoying and repetitive logging in. The Samsung Galaxy S5 definitely gives more power to your fingers.

3. It has a heart-rate detector

The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a heart-rate detector on its rear. Simply place your fingertip over it and it'll display your heart rate and save it in its newly updated S Health app.

4. Imaging - Reimagined

The Galaxy S5 has a 16MP camera with an ultra-fast 0.3 second autofocus. It also has a live HDR mode for both photos and videos, in addition to being able to record 4K video.

The S5 also supports post-shot refocusing with a feature called Selective Focus, much like Nokia's Refocus feature and what it does is to let you blur the background or focus on close objects after you've taken the shot.

5. It's more powerful

The Galaxy S5 is the first phone to arrive with Qualcomm's super-beefy quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor. It's got 2GB of RAM as opposed to the expected 3GB, but it should be enough to run Android 4.4 KitKat with little to no hiccups.

Samsung also bumped the display for easy viewing, the screen now measures 5.1 inches and that's enough to let you watch your favorite movie or play your favorite game with ease. There's no QHD resolution though, as 1080p makes a return.

6. Battery will last longer

The S5's larger 2800mAh battery should hopefully should be enough to last you through the day, of course depending on usage, you may still have to bring around a charger or your trusty powerbank.

7. It's a fitness beast

Samsung's updated S Health app incorporates the new heart-rate readings into an already comprehensive fitness app which measures your steps and tracks what you've eaten with a vast food database and barcode reader. It also plays nice with the new Galaxy Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit.

8. It downloads files fast, as in really fast

Download Booster uses some technological witchcraft to simultaneously utilise both 4G and Wi-Fi and therefore download large files faster than ever.

9. It has an Ultra Power Saving mode

If you're low on battery you can initiate Ultra Power Saving mode, which provides an alternative power-sipping home screen with black and white icons, disables apps but keeps messaging and phonecall features alive.

10. It has space – and lots of it

You can bolster the S5's in-built 32/64GB of storage with a 128GB microSD card if you like, making it the most capacious smartphone on the planet.

So are you ready to throw away last year's model in favor of Samsung's newcomer? Your guess is as good as mine.

Nokia X: Generating New Interest

With Nokia officially announcing its first ever family of Android smartphones - the Nokia X family consisting of the Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL, it looks like the embattled phone manufacturer is back in fighting form, if based on the level of interest their newest candy-colored smartphones generated during its unveiling at the Mobile World Congress 2014.

Before you ge excited though, Nokia's new family is not a Google-certified project and thus the X phones won't run Google Play Services such as the Play Store, Gmail and Chrome. This is by no means something to be dismissed as Nokia and Microsoft have worked hard though to integrate their core services and apps.



The integration means all  X-phones will have the excellent Nokia HERE Maps, as well as the Microsoft OneCloud (former SkyDrive) and Skype. Eager users will be free to sideload any Android app they want and can download new apps easily from the dedicated Nokia store and Yandex Store, which is quite popular in Russia.

The Nokia X+ and XL share the same chipset - a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 with 768MB of RAM. The Nokia X is the only one with just 512MB of RAM.

Nokia X: At a Glance

The Nokia X features a 4" IPS LCD display of WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) resolution. Colors are okay, brightness and contrast are reasonable, but nothing to really get excited about
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Under the hood, the entire Nokia X range shares the same 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset, with only the X somewhat limited at 512MB of RAM. Internal storage is just 4GB, but is expandable up to 32GB.


Nokia X live photos

At the back of the Nokia X there's a 3MP fixed focus camera, but no front-facer. The phone weighs 129 grams and packs a 1500mAh battery. It's good for 10.5 hours of 3G talk time and a maximum standby time of 17 days. It is also capable of up to 26 hours of music playback, while video playback time is quoted at 8.4 hours.


Nokia X live photos

The build quality of the X is superb. The plastic feels nice as with most recent Nokia smartphones and isn't a ferocious fingerprint magnet. It's quite sturdy too.

You will be happy to learn that Nokia's version of the Android OS runs well on the X, lower RAM notwithstanding.

The Nokia X+: Big Brother

The Nokia X+ is technically the big brother of Nokia X, if only for the bump in RAM allocation - 512MB to 768MB.  This increase is pretty significant though because it actually makes a difference in terms of actual experience.

Switching between apps is a bit faster as is navigating around the operating system. You'll also be able to play a bit more demanding games too, which will otherwise be unplayable on the lower RAM on the X


The build quality and feel of the X+ is identical to the X and both have the same color options.


The bump in RAM increases the price of the X+ also adds a bit to the price of the Nokia X so you'll have to decide if reaching deeper into your pockets for the X+ is worth it.





The Nokia XL: Larger and Better than its Siblings

The Nokia XL features a 5" IPS LCD display of WVGA resolution and before you let out that loud sigh,   it's not all that bad. As an entry level smartphone, you shouldn't expect much from the phone, just enough to satisfy your craving for a capable Nokia shell running Android underneath.




The Android experience on the Nokia XL is reasonably smooth. The phone runs a version of Jelly Bean as far as we could tell, but the exact version is not specified. The 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 chipset does a good job of running and switching between two screens and multiple apps.

Nokia has also included a bunch of its Lumia apps on the XL including its Store, Camera, Mix Radio and HERE Maps. Microsoft's presence is also felt with the addition of Skype and OneCloud apps. Speaking of which, XL users will get 10GB of free OneCloud storage as well as 1 month free of Skype Premium. Speaking of goodies, Nokia also includes a 4GB microSD card in the XL's package.

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The Nokia XL is made of plastic with an exclusive paint job that the X and X+ don't get - bright orange. The finish feels very nice to the touch, similar to the Nokia Asha 501 and Lumia 1320.

At the back of the phone, there's a 5MP camera with LED flash. As you can see from the photos, there's a large physical key below the display, which acts like a Home/back button. The user interface is overly simple too, with two main screens - the app list screen and fastlane.

The list of apps is reminiscent of the WP8 home screen with resizable app tiles. The larger the tile, the more information it displays. For example expanding the People's tile will display your favorite contacts, while the Gallery will show the latest photos you've snapped.


The XL measures 141.4 mm x 77.7 mm x 10.9mm with a weight of 190g. The back covers are replaceable.

The Nokia X line is sure to give OEMs running Android a run for their money.  The colorful shell, snappy performance, and the host of Nokia freebies will surely attract a lot of users raring to join the Android bandwagon, after all, Nokia is known for manufacturing high-quality phones, high-end or otherwise.

It would be interesting to note how Nokia can benefit from finally joining the Android platform but as it is, they've actually managed to capture a lot of attention, and that's just with three phones.  From what we see, Nokia is going to change the way people look at Android and we can't wait to see how it goes for them.