Samsung GALAXY S5

The Samsung GALAXY S5 is the latest flagship smartphone that Samsung has released into the market. I'm still an iPhone user, but if I had to purchase an Android smartphone today, I'd get the S5.

It features a unique battery-saving feature (the screen goes into grayscale mode and disables unnecessary functions) which sounds like it's something that every smartphone should have. How many times has your smartphone run out of power? Or, maybe you've been very close: 5% or 10%. Well, the Samsung "Ultra Power Saving Mode" could be something we see in other gadgets like tablets and laptops.

The S5 also includes a heart rate sensor, although I'm not entirely sure that you're going to get more accurate readings from the S5 compared to using a standard Heart Rate app on your iPhone (placing your finger over the camera and the LED flash lights your finger). Samsung is moving aggressively in the personal fitness and health market, so S Health may gain traction quickly since Samsung also has the Gear Fit - a wearable activity tracker / smartwatch that has a nice color display. I'd like to play around with the Gear Fit, but I don't have a compatible Samsung smartphone or tablet that will work with it. Samsung is building a closed ecosystem for their fitness gadgets.

For health care users, perhaps the most promising feature of the S5 is the fact that it is water resistant when you close the micro USB cover. I don't see other smartphone manufacturers trying to add water resistance to their feature list, so it's nice to see Samsung taking the lead on this one.