Happy 9th Birthday!

[ironass]

Launched on the 11th of April, 2014, the Samsung Galaxy S5 is now 9 years old today!

It speaks well of the Galaxy S5 that it is still in use by some people to this day.

Sadly, with only 2GB of RAM, the old girl will struggle these days.

 

[nickdalzell]

I loved mine until it went to thermal runaway, and turned its third battey into a Beyblade. The SD reader is no longer working, and with 2% free storage and dropping, I was sadly forced to give it up.

It still looks alright, and is the only S5 I know of that still has the USB door intact (I guess I know how to care for stuff). It remains the oldest phone capable of VoLTE and has the most features ever packed into a smartphone, and the only one with IP67 water and dust resistance while maintaining a removable battery. Sadly, all replacement batteries are as dated as the phone and barely make a day of use. Mine also has something corrupt about the EMMC or Nand since it no longer works with Ultra Power Saving mode, you tap the icon, say 'turn on' and nothing happens. The free storage is also bugged out, since I removed all but two games and it still thinks I have only 200MB left and that kept getting lower and lower, making phone run super hot, battery went from a day to 4 hours, and software kept crashing.

I still have it. It's a time capsule of memories since the day I bought it used off Amazon in 2016. If not for the above issues, since all I use a phone for today is calls, texts, and music, the 2GB RAM isn't a limiting factor. I have removed and no longer use 90% of the apps and games I have once considered essential.

 

[dave907]

Late last year I bought a G900F on Ebay from a Israeli seller and proceeded to downgrade to Kitkat and root using Towelroot. Much better than the G900T as I don't need to do any modifications to the system apps and the weather widget was updated to be the same style as on the Tab S and Note 4 while the US carrier versions are stuck with the old style widget.

 

[ironass]

For more information on the Galaxy S5 models, see...

42 Galaxy S5 models - Dummies Guide​

 

[nickdalzell]

If you downgrade to 4.4 doesn't that remove VoLTE capability? IIRC they added Advanced Calling in either 5.1 or 6.0.1?

That said even if yours has 6.x you won't notice any real UI redesigns other than the icons of some system apps. The overall UI of the S5 was always flat.

 

[dave907]

If you downgrade to 4.4 doesn't that remove VoLTE capability? IIRC they added Advanced Calling in either 5.1 or 6.0.1?

That said even if yours has 6.x you won't notice any real UI redesigns other than the icons of some system apps. The overall UI of the S5 was always flat.

I bought it as a collectors item due to one that only really works on my carrier being Verizon is basically a cloneware model. And I wanted to experience Kitkat as I already have some familiarity with Lollipop on the S4 being basically the same as the S5 and having used 6.0.1 from September 2016 which was when I bought the phone till it started having green screen issues after Verizon pushed out a final update to patch the Blueborne issue in early 2018.

 

[nickdalzell]

The only differences I'd notice on Kitkat would be the dialog has the Holo-white buttons instead of coloured text, there's no FAB in any of the Phone, Contacts or Messages apps, and Peel Remote app has the skeuo UI from Jelly Bean (and won't work without updating to the modern version anyway), and the icons don't have frames.

Back when the S5 was new, this was when Samsung didn't change TouchWiz much across Android versions. I wish they kept that up myself. I don't adjust well to even the most minor change. I'm still upset they removed the splash screen and various whimsical animations from Samsung Health in Android 12. If you try sideloading the older version, it forces an update shortly after. Keeping it offline via NetGuard just breaks the whole Together feature.

I am currently using an A14 5G, hoping that having 5G will get me more than a decade before that network shuts down (I'm sure network shutdowns are always going to be a thing now) and that means I finally have a phone I can keep for some time, but sadly it's an adjustment since modern Samsungs truly don't appeal to me at all, and it takes a ton of effort to "touchwiz-ify" One UI enough to safisfy me. Mainly getting rid of TONS of unnecessary notifications, many which don't allow you to turn them off, that are added to a modern device, and requiring third-party apps like BuzzKill to do the job. Three weeks later and I'm still struggling navigating the blasted thing.

 

[dave907]

The only differences I'd notice on Kitkat would be the dialog has the Holo-white buttons instead of coloured text, there's no FAB in any of the Phone, Contacts or Messages apps, and Peel Remote app has the skeuo UI from Jelly Bean (and won't work without updating to the modern version anyway), and the icons don't have frames.

Back when the S5 was new, this was when Samsung didn't change TouchWiz much across Android versions. I wish they kept that up myself. I don't adjust well to even the most minor change. I'm still upset they removed the splash screen and various whimsical animations from Samsung Health in Android 12. If you try sideloading the older version, it forces an update shortly after. Keeping it offline via NetGuard just breaks the whole Together feature.

I am currently using an A14 5G, hoping that having 5G will get me more than a decade before that network shuts down (I'm sure network shutdowns are always going to be a thing now) and that means I finally have a phone I can keep for some time, but sadly it's an adjustment since modern Samsungs truly don't appeal to me at all, and it takes a ton of effort to "touchwiz-ify" One UI enough to safisfy me. Mainly getting rid of TONS of unnecessary notifications, many which don't allow you to turn them off, that are added to a modern device, and requiring third-party apps like BuzzKill to do the job. Three weeks later and I'm still struggling navigating the blasted thing.

I upgraded to a Note 9 after multiple repair attempts by Samsung failed to cure the screen flickering issue. The 2nd and final attempt which was fixed under their extended warranty after I sent in the phone the first time they replaced the entire display and ribbon cable. Also I noticed on Kitkat the US models have some system apps that are white like on the Note 4 and not dark like on the G900F like dialer and contacts, music player app and Soundalive, Messages app and the video player app.

 

[nickdalzell]

Not just Kitkat, in Marshmallow those apps are also white. The settings menu is also white, and the Verizon variant has no Samsung Internet browser (just Chrome). Now some AT&T variants have a dark settings menu, and some different UI designs for the phone dialer, but that is on both Kitkat and Marshmallow. The only things they added or changed in Marshmallow are the icon frames, floating action buttons, and the Material dialog boxes. Everything else was pretty much untouched. I think the S4 got more changes when it got Lollipop.