[GlenBarrington]

I just got an S5 2 days ago.

I got the S5 because I was tired of carrying around my Kindle Fire. It just wasn't portable enough for me. Right now, in the USA, Verizon is offering it or the HTC M8 for just $99 with a 2 year commitment. (That M8 is pretty sweet as well, it was a much tougher decision between the two than I thought it would be. But the S5 has a user replaceable battery, and since I might go 3 or 4 years before an upgrade to a new phone, I like to know I can cheaply buy a replacement battery. (I hate learning new phones.)

People are making a big deal out of the fingerprint scanner, but it isn't all that great. It's fingerprint scanner is significantly different from Apple's in that it is an active scanner that requires a physical swipe of the finger across the sensor which surrounds the Home button, while Apple's is passive in that you merely place the finger on the screen in area that functions as the fingerprint scanner.

What this means is the Apple version is easier to use; and its simplicity is the reason why that system can be so easily fooled. The Galaxy fp scanner requires that you learn to repeat the specific speed and angle with which you swiped the sensor at registration time. It is MUCH harder to fool, but it is also MUCH harder to use. If you remember the Motorola Atrix from a few years back, it is much like THAT fingerprint sensor and about as reliable.

Neither system will stop a dedicated thief, but both will stop a casual thief cold I should think. After a day of use though, I quit using it. About 2/3s of the time, I had to use the manual over-ride password anyway. I didn't worry about the security so much as I decided the security wasn't worth the hassle.

The Kindle app works great on the S5, as does the Moon+ Reader Pro. The screen is sharp and big ('ish' for a smartphone). Very easy to read with my 64 year old eyes. Probably the best smartphone I've encountered for ebook reading. Page turns and scrolls 'up' are quick and responsive.

Samsung has its own news aggregator built around the Flipbook infrastructure. BUT your current Flipbook account settings won't apply and you will have to create new settings that don't perfectly match what Flipbook itself offers. If you LIKE how you've got Flipbook set up, too bad. You can't uninstall it, but you can turn it off and hide it. Which I did, and then downloaded Flipbook from the app store and I am now happily using that.

As a pretty serious photographer, I can tell you that the 16 mb smartphone camera while nicer than most phone cameras, isn't that big a deal in absolute photographic terms.

Like most smartphones, the highlights tend to wash out and the shadows tend to block up and the digital noise over ISO 800 is pretty awful. BUT for the social network snapshooter, it's a pretty nice camera, I think.

Image quality is about as good as a typical $50 snapshot camera, I think, but with better controls and the ability to quickly upload photos to the internet site of your choice. You can use the volume button as the shutter button for the camera. (Hooray! no more causing blurriness by trying to tap the screen)

On the whole, it's a pretty good smartphone. The best I've had so far.