User Review History
zerotsm's review of the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active
original version, submitted Sep 11, 2014, 8:16 AM:
Best Smartphone to Date!
While I was reasonably happy with my HTC One X, I wanted a phone with easy battery access, so I would not be having to hunt for a wall outlet at airports to charge my phone. The Samsung Galaxy X5 Active fills the bill. The RF section is about as good as my previous smartphone under AT&T in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. The phone comes already loaded with a very good flashlight app as part of the "Activity Zone" package.
PROS
Battery can be swapped out for a freshly changed one. But this may not even be necessary, as the battery life seems to be longer than my previous phone, I'll update when I've done more field testing (I've only had this phone for 3 days now).
Rugged enough not to need an external case.
Bright screen. No problem using in bright sunlight.
Large Screen. One can almost touch type on the virtual keyboard if the phone is positioned on a desk horizontally.
Although the speaker is on a back corner the speakerphone works well in all but the noisiest environments.
Good still camera for wide angle outdoor daytime shots. Acceptable for indoor flash shots. Good video camera both indoors and out.
GPS works well. It gets a lock faster than my dedicated hand held GPS
Android ver 4.4 "Kit Kat". Apps that were unstable or buggy on my old phone run perfectly on this phone.
CONS
Cannot control the length of touch tones while in call. They are always 0.5 sec long. However I was able to operate remote control devices and one can rapid fire and get the same effect as a long tone.
Zoom pictures come out grainy. This is to be expected with a digital zoom.
BOTTOM LINE
In my opinion, this is the only smartphone worth considering.
edited Sep 23, 2014, 9:58 PM to the current version:
Best Smartphone to Date!
While I was reasonably happy with my HTC One X, but I wanted a phone with easy battery access, so I would not be having to hunt for a wall outlet at airports to charge my phone. The Samsung Galaxy X5 Active fills the bill. The RF section is about as good as my previous smartphone under AT&T in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. The phone comes already loaded with a very good flashlight app as part of the "Activity Zone" package.
PROS
Battery can be swapped out for a freshly changed one. But this may not even be necessary, as the battery life is very good on this phone. Even on a day where I have used the GPS for an hour, by the time I go to bed I still have 40% charge left without 'topping it off' during the day.
Rugged enough not to need an external case.
Bright screen. No problem using in bright sunlight.
Large Screen. One can almost touch type on the virtual keyboard if the phone is positioned on a desk horizontally.
Although the speaker is on a back corner the speakerphone works well in all but the noisiest environments.
Good still camera for wide angle outdoor daytime shots. Acceptable for indoor flash shots, but still need to steady the phone against a solid object when taking flash shots. Good video camera both indoors and out.
GPS works well. It gets a lock faster than my dedicated hand held GPS
Android ver 4.4 "Kit Kat". Apps that were unstable or buggy on my old phone run perfectly on this phone.
CONS
Cannot control the length of touch tones while in call. They are always 0.5 sec long. However I was able to operate remote control devices and one can rapid fire and get the same effect as a long tone.
Zoom pictures come out grainy. This is to be expected with a digital zoom.
BOTTOM LINE
In my opinion, this is the only smartphone worth considering.
