The Samsung Galaxy S5, as I am sure you all know by now, has hit the shops today. The Galaxy S5 is an awesome bit of kit – boasting WiFi boosting tech for faster web browsing, 4G capability like all high-end handsets in this generation, a 0.3 second autofocus (say what?!) and a 16 mega pixel camera for smashing out quality photos. Not bad huh?
But there’s more… the S5 is water and dust resistant so the handset is not anything like as delicate as the iPhone (or many other competitors) and, as an added bonus, is launching with FREE Deezer and Endomondo subscriptions. Oh, and of course it comes with the other standard Samsung stuff like free 50GB drop box subscription for 2 years and 3 months of free Evernote.
Not bad Samsung, not bad, but what about the pricing? As is expected with any new release you do pay a premium for all this state of the art kit so we’ve taken the time out to save you the hassle of trawling the web to find the best deal.
To buy it now, Sim free, you’re looking at pretty much the same price wherever you hunt, and inevitably the handsets are selling like hotcakes – some stockists sold out already and others says that there will be delays. The cheapest is Clove; priced at £522 including VAT but there is a delay on stock until sometime next week. This is the case across the board, some stores having to wait anything up to the 20th of May for delivery and some stores charging near £650 for the handset!
To get the S5 on contract you need to take into account the extra data you will be using as it is a new phone that has LOADS of features and has the ability to use 4G too. I would recommend a bare minimum of 2GB of monthly data to anyone who purchases this phone – even if you only use Facebook or Twitter and ignore all other features that use data – like Dropbox. Bearing that in mind, that the cheapest deal I can find without trading in your old phone (taking into the total cost of the contract over a 24 month period) is at Carphone Warehouse with a one-off cost of £49 and then a monthly charge of £37.99.
The above is on the EE network so has a good country-wide coverage and access to 4G, so you can really make use of that. Carphone do have the phone in stock so there shouldn’t be any real waiting around (as long as you want it in white or black rather than blue or gold) but it is worth remembering that the deals in store may be different to that shown online.
Unless you have an over powering urge to own the latest and greatest smart phone or are due an upgrade, it may be worth holding fire; we are anticipating the arrival of a new iPhone in September and the arrival of the Sony Xperia Z2 on the 1st of May (unless it’s delayed again) both of which will offer the S5 some heavy competition.
It’s also well worth considering depreciation as this will always hit a new release hard overtime as the tech becomes out dated or comparatively slower even just 6 months down the line. I mean, just look at the how out dated the S4 now seems when compared to this new generation of smart phone.