Samsung Reveals Galaxy S5 With Home Button Fingerprint Sensor, Accompanying 'Gear Fit' Band

[daijholt]

I actually asked my colleague this morning whether he thought the S5 would finally upgrade it's casing to something more than toy plastic...he said no a goddamn chance!

Looks like he was right, will Samsung never learn? At this rate I can see the Z1 Compact & Z2 from Sony catching up considerably this year.

There are some interesting things in the S5, but most are features that everyone else has already done and done far more efficiently.

 

[ArcaneDevice]

Old Nokia phones, the ones that were nigh-impossible to destroy, were made out of plastic. So don't think plastic automatically means poor build quality.

Except the times have changed. Back then plastic was the majority of phones. Now premium prices require premium materials to compete with others.

 

[Digital Skunk]

I feel that Samsung do the following timetable these days:

• Watch rumors coming from Apple - Develop & Release a wide range of these hoping they will get a hit
• Watch apple come out with latest tech
• Copy that tech - Fingerprint sensor, gold?

Yeah, because "gold" is a technology unique to Apple. There was no such thing as gold colored tech before Apple.

Or fingerprint readers, or phones, or icons.

Sadly what is true is the exact opposite. Apple will wait for everyone else to pioneer a new market then wait and wait and wait then amalgamate all of the minor features into a new limited device and charge twice as much for it.

 

[rish]

Sammie's hired band of writers is out in force. It's really amusing to see that not a single one will acknowledge that for every Apple rumour Sammie is like the neurotic college kid "me too miss, me too, look I've got one of those or I'm planning to show you one by next week".

I'm enjoying reading this it's hilarious. Let the fun times roll. Let's see more.

 

[Michael Goff]

Except the times have changed. Back then plastic was the majority of phones. Now premium prices require premium materials to compete with others.

Not really.

A premium device requires a reason to pay it. It could be build materials, or it could be the experience. Either one.

 

[Inframan]

I think this should be called The Samsung Galaxy 4S

 

[suprakc]

Wow, they just can't do JACK SQUAT on their own can they...

Always someone else's idea.

 

[Michael Goff]

Wow, they just can't do JACK SQUAT on their own can they...

Always someone else's idea.

Let me guess, you seriously think Samsung stole the fingerprint scanner from Apple.

 

[suprakc]

Apple was built on a rip-off. So don't start throwing around those statements on an Apple forum. They haven't had that many original ideas that were not acquired or modified versions of other devices.

lol. Go hit up Droidrumors or something.

 

[Michael Goff]

lol. Go hit up Droidrumors or something.

I agree.

We only want people who have GOOD things to say about Apple, right? I mean, that way we can continue our cheerleading.

GO APPLE! You invent everything! Jealous Samsung made a product with a feature that is similar but works completely different than yours, shows that they copied! BOO SAMSUNG!

Did I do it right?

 

[mdriftmeyer]

lol. Go hit up Droidrumors or something.

It appears Droid fans seem to think when Steve quoted Picasso he meant stealing great ideas, when he meant seizing upon the germ of a great idea and making it wholly your own.

 

[suprakc]

Let me guess, you seriously think Samsung stole the fingerprint scanner from Apple.

Nope. Their interpretation thereof sucks.

Honestly, however, as a designer... there is so much more potential in Samsung's design. A potential that Apple has already mastered.

It takes a designer, and someone who understands materials science and engineering, as well as manufacturing process engineering... to understand this principle. Can you respect that?

 

[Michael Goff]

Nope. Their interpretation thereof sucks.

Honestly, however, as a designer... there is so much more potential in Samsung's design. A potential that Apple has already mastered.

It takes a designer, and someone who understands materials science and engineering, as well as manufacturing process engineering... to understand this principle. Can you respect that?

Except according to the video I watched, their implementation doesn't suck. I watched a good 8/10 tries succeed. That's hardly a failure.

----------

It appears Droid fans seem to think when Steve quoted Picasso he meant stealing great ideas, when he meant seizing upon the germ of a great idea and making it wholly your own.

Err .... no, Apple has shamelessly copied in the past. Steve Jobs meant what he said.

 

[TheRainKing]

I sincerely hope you're joking.

Nope.

They copied the idea of putting the fingerprint scanner in the home button, and according to the reviews, it doesn't work as well as it does on the iPhone.

 

[apolloa]

Holy crap...is your comeback seriously gonna be "it's never happened to me so it doesn't happen!"?

I guess you won that argument...
/s

Yeah because your argument is soooo well thought out and constructive

And no, I know how Android works and as I already said, by default you have to tell the device to install dodgy software, unless you get it off the Google Play store. But you knew that right?

Oh and also, please, enlighten me as to where I stated 'it doesn't happen' because I'm damned if I can remember ever stating that on here.....

 

[AustinIllini]

I agree.

We only want people who have GOOD things to say about Apple, right? I mean, that way we can continue our cheerleading.

GO APPLE! You invent everything! Jealous Samsung made a product with a feature that is similar but works completely different than yours, shows that they copied! BOO SAMSUNG!

Did I do it right?

Why must we all troll each other?

 

[Michael Goff]

Why must we all troll each other?

I hope that one day, sometime in the future, my sarcasm will make somebody reflect on their post and learn from it. They will grow as a person and the internet will be made just a little better.

 

[kobalap]

am I the only one these days who when he's out and aboot he's not grabbing his phone to use any an all times.

One of the big complaints a lot of you guys are making against 5" phones is that you can't one hand use them (though many can, everyones use is different) and since you can't one hand use them, there's all these inconveniences from not being able to use your phone with some ridiculously long list.

How about.

Maybe in those situations you don't NEED TO USE YOUR PHONE!

I think i'm getting old and cantankerous. Cause I'm starting to get really damn sick of everyone, always having these bloody things in their hands instead of focusing on their task at hand.

Or, Samsung's implementation of the fingerprint scanner just plain sucks and you should stop making excuses for Samsung's poor execution.

 

[Dave532]

Some of the comments here have said the device is only water resistant if there's a cap on the USB port. Are there any reviews that show this? I can only see ones saying what a great feature it is, but if you need to remove a cap to use the charging port then it's not going to stay water resistant for long unless you're ultra careful.

Some reviews say it's using USB 3. The Micro-USB3 connector is downright ugly and certainly more fiddly to use than Lightening.

I've just read a review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which was the first phone with USB support, and it just shows Samsung is all about specs and not implementation:

Surprisingly, there seem to be a few downsides to having USB 3.0 on the Galaxy Note 3. You see, there's a reason why USB 3.0 is not enabled by default on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 – "it may sometimes interfere with calls or data when it is in use", as a notification message informed us when we tried to turn the mode on. This, hopefully, will not be an issue observed on future USB 3.0-enabled handsets.

 

[Statusnone88]

They didn't copy squat from Apple.

Unfortunately, from the videos it doesn't look like you can do it one handed because it has to be swiped straight up and down. I love the fact that I can pick up my 5s and whether its either of my thumbs or pointer fingers, I can click the button and leave it on to unlock my screen.

Do love how they went with the original Nexus 7-style backing.

All in all, I think the SGS5 is a solid release. Just not enough to break me away from my Apple circle.

 

[the8thark]

Why has nobody asked where the fingerprint data is being stored? There was such a huge kerfuffle when Apple announced their fingerprint scanner, people freaking out about privacy and the government having access to it (even though Apple made a very large point in the keynote about it having a secure enclave). Now that there's a fingerprint scanner on the world's most insecure mobile OS nobody seems to mind. It's always so one-sided.

This is a good reason not to buy the s5 till the question is answered. Apple knew the issue is important they spent all that keynote time on it. Has samsung an answer to this?

----------

I think I can already guess the incorrect answer!

Whatever the Judge says.

 

[diegogaja]

That black and white mode. Hope can be turned off as that would really annoy me. A simple notification works. It's a cute little gimmick though.

Exactly (I posted this earlier in this thread) - and also to have a separate photo roll; Exactly; and I forgot to mention this in my post - but this is a great (if it works in implementation) added software solution that should be standard on every phone. Samsung's black and white mode (I'm hoping) could be the de facto standard going forward

 

[hummus]

I have never been a fan of Samsung's industrial design, but this S5 is so unattractive it baffles me.

 

[the8thark]

And that's exactly what they said when rumors of the iPhone 4 and iPad 3 started. And they were wrong.

Yes people claiming they know information from Apple. Just ********ting out their asses. The size issue though, a phone larger than the 5s would be a backward step and a mistake from Apple.

 

[kobalap]

They didn't copy squat from Apple.

Unfortunately, from the videos it doesn't look like you can do it one handed because it has to be swiped straight up and down. I love the fact that I can pick up my 5s and whether its either of my thumbs or pointer fingers, I can click the button and leave it on to unlock my screen.

Do love how they went with the original Nexus 7-style backing.

All in all, I think the SGS5 is a solid release. Just not enough to break me away from my Apple circle.

You are right, they did not copy squat from Apple. Because if they did, the implementation would have been better.

At least they put it on the front where it would be most useful. However, the scanner seems to work in only one direction. So if you have the phone sitting in landscape mode (which mine does on occasion), you have to reorient the phone before using the fingerprint scanner.

I am pretty sure Samsung will re-do their implementation by the time they release the S6. I suspect they did not have enough time between the iPhone 5s release and the S5 release to modify the design of the S5 to work in a similar fashion.