It could be the Korean tech giant’s way of redeeming the misgivings of its 2014 flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S5, or it could just be a plain reboot in the hopes of giving users of the smartphone an affordable way to upgrade their phones without shelling a significant amount of money by way of the Galaxy S6 or the upcoming Galaxy S7.
Samsung has just given the Galaxy S5 a rebirth in the UK with the Galaxy S5 Neo. It’s a reborn version of the Galaxy S5 but it is faster, has better battery life, and much cheaper too.
The smartphone has recently made it to retail stores in the UK and the retailers made it clear that it is not an all-new smartphone because it is an iteration of a nearly two-year-old base model, the Galaxy S5, details Alphr.
A closer spec-for-spec comparison of the Galaxy S5 Neo and the Galaxy S5 revealed that they are practically identical phones that one would not be wrong to say that the former is a déjà vu of the latter.
Both smartphones have the same shape, size, and weight. They both have identical plastic design and only the edges have changed.
Both have 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display screens, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of base internal storage, the same rear camera, and the same dust and waterproof rating.
The main difference between the two other than the physical edges is the processor. The Galaxy S5 is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor while the Galaxy S5 Neo has the octa-core Samsung Exynos 7850 chipset running at a clock speed of 1.6GHz.
In terms of features, the Galaxy S5 Neo also does not have the fingerprint reader, the infrared transceiver, and its USB 3 port. However, it maintains the heart rate monitor of its base model.
Surprisingly good
Based on the performance benchmarks that it was subjected to, the Galaxy S5 Neo is surprisingly good. The Exynos 7850 processor has been found to be significantly quicker than the Snapdragon 801 chipset.
Another impressive feature of the Galaxy S5 Neo is its 2,800 mAH battery which enables the smartphone to last 16 hours and 27 minutes, which is actually longer than that of the already superb battery life of the Galaxy S6 Edge and the Motorola Moto X-Force.
Although it has done away with some of the features of the Galaxy S5, it made up for it in terms of quickness and longer battery.
It’s really a superb smartphone and it is cheaper than the Galaxy S5 so it is really a good buy for those looking for a highly-functional and fast-processing handset, without having to shell out a huge amount of money on flagships.
Delayed Marshmallow roll out
Samsung users are getting more anxious as to when they are going to receive the Android 6.0 Marshmallow updates on their devices.
While HTC and LG device users have gotten their updates already as of the end of 2015, Samsung has yet to have the rollout of the OS updates on its devices.
In fact, up until this time, the Korean tech giant has yet to confirm the date when its key devices will receive the Marshmallow treatment. But based on a recently leaked document, the OS update could happen in a few days.
Sometime in October last year, there was also a leaked document that said that the flagship smartphones of Samsung – the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge – shall receive the Android 6.0 Marshmallow updates in January this year.
But that did not happen so the first leaked document was obviously a sham. With that being said, the current leaked document should be taken with a fine grain of salt as well, notes Neurogadget.