Samsung Galaxy S5: Pricing
The outright Australian price for the Galaxy S5 is $929, which is exactly what Harvey Norman is selling it for at the time of writing.
Dick Smith has it slightly cheaper at $896.
From the import point of view, things are little murkier, and it’s well worth being aware of the potential pitfalls here. There are two processor core possibilities with the Galaxy S5; the quad-core version that’s standard in Australia, and an Octa-core version that isn’t. The Octa-core is technically more powerful, though I’ve not been able to test that, and my gut feel is that you might not notice the difference in real world use if previous Octa-Core S4s are any indication, but the underlying chipset won’t work with Australian 4G frequencies.
Mobicity is charging the same flat $849.95 for either the 4G-enabled quad-core version or the Octa-Core version while Kogan sells the quad-core for $769 and the Octa-core for $799
On the contract side of the fence, Optus is offering the Galaxy S5 on plans starting at $64 per month over 24 months with 200 call minutes per month, 200MB of data and unlimited national SMS/MMS for a minimum total of $1536.
Vodafone’s Galaxy S5 deals start at $69 per month with $500 “worth” of calls, unlimited SMS and 1GB of data for a minimum 24 month cost of $1656.
Telstra’s Galaxy S5 plans start at $81 per month with $550 “worth” of calls and MMS, unlimited SMS and 500MB of data for a minimum 24 month cost of $1944.
Samsung Galaxy S5: Fat Duck verdict
I noted last year that while the Galaxy S4 was a fine phone it was undeniably littered with crapware.
The Galaxy S5 is undeniably better. It’s much tougher, it’s faster, the camera is better and while the crapware is still there, it’s much more subtly hidden. That does make me wonder if, like HTC’s insistence on throwing Blinkfeed into its products, we wouldn’t be better off with optional download apps, but at least you’re not stuck having to deal with all these intermittently working apps all the time right in your face.
So should you buy one? I’ve come to the conclusion — and this, I should note, is before being able to assess the next big smartphone due down the line, the Sony Xperia Z2 — that it depends on your usage model.
I really do like the HTC One M8, and in all honesty if I were buying an Android smartphone right now, that’s the one I’d personally buy.
At the same time, however, I can’t deny that there are things that the Galaxy S5 does better than the HTC One M8. It’s significantly tougher, a touch lighter, and the battery is fully replaceable. You’re less likely to have to swap SIMs if you’re already on a microSIM, rather than the Nano approach of the M8. If you’re rough with your phone, whether as part of the nature of your work or just because you’re clumsy, the Galaxy S5 makes a lot of sense for some specific users.
To my way of thinking, that’s a healthy bit of differentiation. If I did scores (which I don’t), I’d rate the HTC One M8 a little higher than the Galaxy S5, but it’s nice that at the top end of Android town, there’s space for actual product differentiation rather than just a simple specification sheet speed race.