Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo review

Design

What's more, now that Samsung's made a more or less complete transition to metal chassis for its Galaxy smartphones, it's astonishing how badly the S5's plastic frame, and textured plastic rear pane, have aged. The Neo admittedly drops the original S5's grooved design for a plainer, more pleasingly uniform look, but it's a long way short of its S6 cousins in terms of in-hand appeal.

Even Samsung's mid-range Galaxy A3 and A5 phones look smarter than the S5 Neo, but it still feels reasonably well-built, and the removable back cover and microSD card slot will no doubt be a big draw to those who felt snubbed by the S6's fixed storage and sealed-in battery. The microSD card is a particular boon for the S5 Neo, as the phone's default 16GB of storage only provides around 11GB to the user.

However, the S5 Neo isn't simply a re-skinned S5, as it's missing both the original's fingerprint scanner and a fast Micro USB3 port, instead opting for a conventional dedicated home button and Micro USB2 port. The fingerprint scanner isn't that much of a loss in my book, as it never worked particularly well in the first place, while I can't imagine many will bemoan the loss of faster, cabled data transfers either. It still has a heart rate scanner on the back, though, and its front-facing camera has been upgraded from 2 megapixels to 5.