Samsung Galaxy S5
There was talk of a whole new design language for the Galaxy S5 with some hoping that Samsung would break away from the similar styling of theGalaxy S3 and S4.
This hasn't happened as such. Design-wise, well, you can't call the Samsung Galaxy S5 ugly, because Samsung does know how to put a phone together well.
But at the same time it's the same tired story on the design front: taking some elements from the predecessor, adding in some bits from the current Note and calling it all new.
The 'metal' surround is almost identical to the Note 3, to the point we were looking for an S Pen to start poking out in the hands on review. But the back is the main change and we would go as far to say that it is lovely.
No more shiny plastic or laughable attempts to make it look like a leather notebook – while it is still plastic, it's a lot more grippable and feels a lot, lot nicer in the hand.
The overall construction is again more solid, but the device is markedly bigger compared to the Galaxy S3 and S4. There's a lot more Note DNA in the Galaxy S5 than ever before, that's for sure.
And then there is the little fact that it is waterproof. Last year we saw the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active turn up after the S4, adding a rugged dust and waterproof body to the design, and the Galaxy S5 has come with these features as standard - bringing it inline with the likes of the Sony Xperia Z1.
