I tend to switch phones somewhat often, just to rediscover what made these devices great. Today, I decided to switch to the Samsung Galaxy S5 for one day. The experience was pretty good, as I will write later in this post. I managed to get Android 10 to run on it using a custom ROM called Resurrection Remix.

The Good

The phone experience was pretty good. It was even better than some low budget phones that I have tried in the past. Android 10’s design really helped to modernize the device. I felt like it was a brand new phone, as it uses the stock android design. The phone itself has some pretty cool features such as a headphone jack (yes that’s a feature nowadays), a IR Blaster, a removable battery, a fingerprint sensor (which isn’t that great), a fast charging port, and Micro SD expansion. The phone also has IP67 water and dust resistance, so it can withstand a downpour, which is great where I live. Android also has some apps that iOS doesn’t, such as an official Blogger app.

The Bad

The software was not very fast at all. Apps took a while to load and the animations are slow. There are also some software issues too. When I updated from Android 9 to Android 10, I had to reinstall the Google Apps using OpenGApps because it would keep on saying “Google Play Services keeps on crashing” or something along those lines. After that, the experience was alright. Bluetooth was not great, as it would crash sometimes. YouTube Vanced was a bit laggy on the device, and it is not very fast to reboot. I also had an issue where I would try to put in the Pattern, but it would be stuck on the pattern screen until the phone timed out. Also, the fingerprint sensor is not like a normal fingerprint sensor. Now I will cut it some slack, as it was the first attempt by Samsung at a fingerprint sensor. The sensor makes you swipe your finger down vertically instead of resting it on the sensor. While it sounds good in concept, it is not great in reality.

My Overall Thoughts

The phone is great in 2020, as long as you Custom ROM it. I never tried the original Android 6.0 ROM, but I would think that it was slow because TouchWiz is very bloated. App support is great, as most if not all apps will run on the device. I would even go as far as saying to pick up a Galaxy S5 and Custom ROM it as a budget device. It is a great flagship, even in 2020 with some features that modern phones simply don’t have. I will not be staying on the device, but it was nice to revisit it in 2020 and see what features we miss out on by using modern smartphones.