iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy S5 – which should you get?
The Samsung Galaxy S6 is still more than six months away. That’s a lifetime in smartphone terms. The Samsung Galaxy S5 and iPhone 6 are two of the hottest phones to get right now but which one should you get? We’ve put this handy guide together for you whether you’re nearing the end of your contract or you want to buy one of these flagship phones outright.VIDEO: Watch our video comparison
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Design
Samsung Galaxy S5 – 8.1mm thick, soft plastic back, water-resistantiPhone 6 – 6.9mm thick, anodised aluminium back
Samsung and Apple have opted for very different designs when it comes to the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5. Where the iPhone is a smooth seamless union of metal and glass the Galaxy S5 is an uneasy merger of soft touch plastic and hard plastic edges painted to look like metal. From a purely design aesthetic there’s no contest – the iPhone 6 looks miles slicker than the S5.
Ergonomically the iPhone 6 trumps the Galaxy S5 too. It’s 2mm thinner and 5mm narrower which makes it a good deal easier to handle. The aluminium back isn’t as grippy as the S5’s removable dimpled rear, though.
That rear has had a mixed reception, but it is an improvement on the cheap plastic of the Galaxy S4. Something that isn’t is the plastic ridge that rises a little above the screen of the Samsung Galaxy S5. In one sense this is good as it offers some protection to the screen. However, it makes the phone uncomfortable to hold for long periods. Add Apple’s leather case to the iPhone 6 and you’ve got the best of both worlds, a grippy yet small and light phone that is well protected from damage.
One thing that the Samsung Galaxy S5’s design allows for is water-resistance. If you’re keen on using your phone in the bath or near water this may be a killer feature for you. Its IP67 certified makes it water resistant in up to 1m of water for 30 minutes.
Samsung has managed to fit the 5.1-inch screen into a tidy size. At 142mm tall by 72.5 wide it’s a bit of a stretch to reach the top of the screen if you’ve not got big hands. The iPhone 6 is a lot easier to use one-handed but still comes with a bigger screen than the iPhone 5S before it.
Winner: iPhone 6 unless water resistance is particularly important to you
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Screen
Samsung Galaxy S5 Screen – 1920 x 1080 AMOLEDiPhone 6 Screen – 1334 x 750 IPS
First of all both the iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5 have fantastic screens. But these phones take a very different approach to screen technology so which you prefer will depend on what you value most.
The Galaxy S5 uses a 5.1-inch AMOLED display with a pin sharp full-HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 and 432 pixels per inch (PPI). Samsung’s AMOLED screens have the benefit of being able to display perfect blacks and have infinite contrast ratios. What does this mean to you? It means that dark scenes in movies look perfect and you won’t notice any light bleeding out and making black scenes greyish.
AMOLED displays don’t quite provide the best levels of colour accuracy. Colours on the S5 look over saturated and a little fake. It’s a lot better than previous Galaxy phones however and the vivid colours can be toned down by setting the S5 to cinema mode.
The iPhone 6 uses an IPS LCD screen instead. These screens excel at brightness, viewing angles and colour accuracy and the iPhone 6 has one of the best of the bunch. It’s resolution of 1334 x 750 and 326PPI is a lot less than the S5 but this is still a very sharp display – you’ll need to get uncomfortably close to both screens to notice the difference in sharpness. Colour accuracy is better on the iPhone 6 than it is on the S5 but it can come close to the Samsung when it comes to dark scenes. The iPhone 6 has a great contrast ratio for and LCD screen but the S5 is streets ahead.
You can see the light bleed in a very dark room - iPhone 6 left, S5 (screen on) right
Finally the Galaxy S5’s screen is 0.4-inch larger than the iPhone’s. That may not sound like much but you do get a bigger area on which to watch movies, play games or browse the net.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S5 but it’s close
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Internal Speaker
Speakers on a phone are important for conference calling and if you want to watch something without headphones. Neither of these phones pack more impressive front-facing stereo speakers than the HTC One M8, but they are both decent.The iPhone 6 is the louder of the two but audio does start to get distorted at the highest levels, which also occurs on the S5. The iPhone 6 has a little more low end but the Galaxy offer a bit more clarity. You won’t want to use the speakers to listen to music on either of these phones much and the iPhone performs a smidge better than the S5 when it comes to listening to TV or films.
The iPhone has the speaker at the bottom of the phone whereas the S5 has it at the back. Neither is optimal – front facing is better – but the S5 speaker faces entirely the wrong way and is a bit easier to cover with your hand as you hold it.
This one is too close to call. Both do a good job with the mono speakers they are supplied with but we would have much preferred stereo front facing speakers.
Winner: It's a draw this time
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Connectivity
Samsung Galaxy S5 – Bluetooth 4.0, 4G/LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC, Infrared, microUSB v3.0 (MHL 2.1), USB on the go, USB hostiPhone 6 – Bluetooth 4.0, 4G/LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, NFC (Apple Pay only), Lightning connector USB 2.0, Airdrop, Continuity
Samsung packs everything but the kitchen sink in their flagship phones and the Galaxy S5 is no different. As well as the usual gamut of Bluetooth, 4G and Wi-Fi the S5 comes with NFC and an Infrared sensor so that you can use it as a remote control for your TV and the rest of your home entertainment kit.
It also one of the first phones to take advantage of the fast speeds that USB offers so you can get data from it to your computer, and vice versa, a lot more quickly than you can on the iPhone 6. If you intend on connecting your phone to your TV via a cable then the Galaxy S5 has MHL which lets you do just that. Unlike the iPhone 6 you can also use the S5 as a portable storage device – you can store documents music and movies and transfer these to any computer using the USB cable.
By comparison iPhones have kept connectivity way leaner but the iPhone 6 comes with a more comprehensive list of 4G/LTE networks compared to the Galaxy S5. iOS 8 also adds some great connectivity features – as long as you’ve bought into the Apple ecosystem that is.
Airdrop has been around since iOS 7 and lets you easily share content with friends and family members using iOS devices like the iPad Air http://www.trustedreviews.com/ipad-air-review or on newer Macs using OS X Yosemite.
Continuity is a clever feature that lets you use your iPad or MacBook (running OS X Yosemite) to make or take calls as long as they are on the same Wi-Fi network. It means you don’t have to dash to the other room to pick up your charging iPhone 6 when you’re lounging in the living room with your iPad.
NFC is limited though and only works with Apple Pay, Apple’s new method of touch payments, which means that you won’t be able to pair your iPhone with speakers just by tapping them together.
The iPhone 6 has more connectivity than any iPhone before it but it still doesn’t match the Galaxy S5.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S5
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Fingerprint scanners
Apple introduced Touch ID with the iPhone 5S and it was a revelation. Keeping your phone secure has never been easier. And it’s even better in the iPhone 6.
The extra processing power of the A8 system on a chip means that your phone unlocks in record time.
Samsung added a fingerprint scanner to the S5 but it doesn’t work anywhere near as well. Rather than resting your finger on the scanner you are forced to wipe it over the button which is tricky when using it one handed. It’s also a lot more sensitive to the direction of your finger or thumb so you’ll often need multiple attempts to unlock.
Winner: iPhone 6 by a landslide
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Storage
The iPhone 6 comes in 16GB, 64GB and 128GB models. While the latter lets you store a huge amount of content it comes at a high price.The Galaxy S5 only has 16GB on-board storage (there is a 32GB mode in some territories) but packs a microSD card slot below its back cover. You can add a 128GB microSD card which you can buy for around £80/$100. That’s half the price the extra storage on a 128GB iPhone 6 costs.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S5
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Performance
Samsung Galaxy S5 Performance: 32bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core 2.5GHz, GPU Adreno 330, 2GB RAMiPhone 6 Performance: 64bit Apple A8 dual-core 1.4GHz, GPU PowerVR GX6450, 1GB RAM
On paper the Samsung Galaxy S5 is a lot more powerful than the iPhone 6. The specs suggest that it’s twice as powerful but when we look at real performance the iPhone 6 is on par and even comes out on top in a few benchmarks.
Both phones score almost exactly the same on Geekbench 3 (around 2800) which tests CPU performance and they’re also very similar in 3D Mark’s Ice Storm unlimited test although the iPhone 6 comes out with a much higher graphics score meaning it can perform better on glossy 3D games.
In real world terms, though, the iPhone 6 is slicker. It responds more quickly than the S5 and just feels faster during normal use. Some of this has nothing to do with processing power but a lot to do with software. The S5 uses Android but has modified it heavily with its own interface layer called TouchWiz. This extra software layer adds a little time to actions being completed which you will notice in day to day use.
Winner: iPhone 6 but it’s close
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Software
The iPhone 6 runs iOS 8 which is dead simple to use. It provides very little in the way of customisation but still has the best app store out there in quality if not quantity. Siri, Apple’s voice enabled assistant, is useful but not as much as Google Now.If you’re like to know everything about iOS 8 read our iOS 8 Review
The Galaxy S5 uses Android 4.4 which has oodles of customisations available to it. It’s not quite as easy to use as iOS but you can do a lot more with it and add widgets that surface the most important information to you on your homepages.
We’ve already mentioned the Galaxy S5’s TouchWiz interface. This added layer bogs the S5 down and doesn’t add too much to the mix. Apps like ChatON, S Health and S Voice are not as good as some of the many Google Play store apps that do the same thing, whereas Air View which lets you control the phone with gestures is just plain annoying.
One good TouchWiz feature is Multi Window that allows you to have more than one app open on the screen. If you like multi-tasking you’ll love this feature.
There are an awful lot of software features on the S5 but few are essential. You probably won’t use half and turn quite a few off. The iPhone 6’s iOS 8 is more restrictive but its slickness added to the quality apps on offer in the App store means it edges ahead here.
Winner: iPhone 6
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Camera
Samsung Galaxy S5 camera: 16 megapixel, phase detection, 1/2.6-inch sensor, 1.12 µm pixel sizeiPhone 6 camera: 8 megapixel, phase detection, 1/3-inch sensor, 1.5 µm pixel size
The bigger sensor and more pixels on the Samsung Galaxy S5 make it the better camera for capturing detail in well-lit conditions, although it does tend to overexpose backgrounds.
The 16-megapixel camera on the S5 (right) offers more detail in good conditions
The iPhone 6 performs well in bright conditions and the bigger pixel size means it can handle dingy situations much better. If you like taking pictures in pubs or dimly lit restaurants you'll prefer this.
Both phones come with HDR mode which stiches a number of photos together for a better final picture. The HDR mode on the iPhone 6 is better again, capturing better colour accuracy and detail in backgrounds like a cloudy sky.
The S5 (right) overexposes backgounds. See the lack of details in the clouds on the top left of the image.
These phones both have very solid cameras but the iPhone 6 just shades it by being a better all-round proposition and an easier point and shoot camera.
Winner: iPhone 6
iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy S5: Battery Life
Samsung Galaxy S5 battery: 2800mAh batteryiPhone 6 battery: 1810 mAh battery
The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a bigger battery and it shows. You’ll get a day and a half of moderate use out of it compared to a day and a bit on the iPhone 6.
In our standard video test the iPhone 6 lasts just under 10 hours, a full hour less than the S5.
They also charge quickly too. Both phones take just two hours to get from 0 to 100%.
The thing that clinches it even more for the S5 is the wide range of power saving features that can be enabled. These ensure that your phone lasts that little bit longer when you need it to most
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