Is it worth it to upgrade from Galaxy S2 to S5?

[thatsright]

Hello all. I have a T-Mobile Galaxy S2. It was great at first, and is for the most part still good. However what is absolutely killing me is since each O/S upgrade in the last two years, its completely killed the phone-slow as hell. It takes ~20 sec to open Facebook and about the same for my companies email with ActiveSync account back to our exchange.

With that said, do you think me going from S2 to S5 would be an incremental upgrade with a few nice (and not really must have for me) features? Big speed improvement? Not sure if spending ~$700 is worth it for just a minor/unnoticeable speed improvement.

Also, its uses 4G speed. If going to 4G LTE speed things up at all? Not sure what “speed things up” actually means, but you get the idea.

[FONT=&quot]Thoughts?[/FONT]

 

[arch113]

That will be a major upgrade (a good thing). It will be worth it. Speed, memory, OS, camera, screen all improved over the S2.

 

[jacktesterson]

Neon to Viper

 

[Mopetar]

Yes it would likely be worth it. It's a substantial jump in terms of hardware. Try one out in a store to see for yourself. Just load a few web pages to get a good idea of the CPU differences.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Huge upgrade for the screen alone.

 

[gorcorps]

It was worth it from S2 -> S3... so absolutely

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Huge. The S2 is a pretty slow phone IMO. The battery life will be worlds better on an S5.

 

[poofyhairguy]

It was worth it from S2 -> S3... so absolutely

Agreed. The S3 was the first "good enough" phone we saw.

 

[PlanetJosh]

For the 1080 screen it's worth it imo, but I'm more interested in graphics so I'm biased toward that.

 

[Oyeve]

Yes on all fronts.

 

[s44]

Yes, though the slowdown you're having is probably due to not having TRIM. A factory reset should fix a lot of things for you.

If you don't carry around much music or video, the Nexus 5 would also be a big speed upgrade for a lot cheaper, though the camera is so-so compared to the S5.

 

[Bman123]

If you don't want to spend $700 buy a unlocked nexus 5 if your on a gsm network/ att or tmobile

 

[dawheat]

Hard for me not to recommend the G2 these days from a value standpoint. I picked up a brand new AT&T G2, unopened, from a top rated seller on swappa for $410 shipped.

To me, with OS updates being less and less impactfull and with the fact it has 4.4.2, I prefer the much larger battery + disabling all the stuff I don't want + Nova launcher.

 

[Insomniator]

Yeah don't spend 700 on an S5 that is crazy. Spend half that on a nexus 5 or something else. Even an s3 for ~200 ?(150?) makes more sense.

 

[Oyeve]

Yeah don't spend 700 on an S5 that is crazy. Spend half that on a nexus 5 or something else. Even an s3 for ~200 ?(150?) makes more sense.

Those are old boring phones.

 

[black5]

Have you thought about buying an S4? I'm not sure if the jump from the 4 to the 5 is big enough, but from an S2 to an S4 would be huge for you and a bit easier on the wallet than the $700+ you'll spend on the 5. If you don't mind used, a used S4 could be had for less than half of a new S5. Use it for a bit and see if maybe jumping to another phone in a year's time is worth it.

 

[kyrax12]

Is they any noticeable display changes between the S4 and the S5?

 

[gorcorps]

Is they any noticeable display changes between the S4 and the S5?

good question... gotta go hop in my time machine real quick and I'll let ya know

brb

 

[Commodus]

You don't need to jump into the future: the hands-on tests suggest that it's basically the S4's display tech, just on an ever-so-slightly bigger panel (because Samsung would die if it didn't make the screen larger every year, it seems).

 

[dawheat]

Is they any noticeable display changes between the S4 and the S5?

At minimum I think it's safe to say it'll have the same improvements the Note 3 display had over the S4 - brighter across the board, significantly brighter in high ambient light, and a more accurate Movie mode calibration.

Now whether it improves on it further, the same way the Note 3 screen stepped ahead of the S4 screen 6 months later, we'll have to wait and see.

Frankly since the resolution is already known, AMOLEDs already have great blacks and viewing angles, the above areas of brightness and calibration are really the only important areas that can improve.

<edit> I've seen mentioned in several hands-on that the screen was noticeably brighter than the S4 which somewhat confirms the above

 

[rh71]

yes since you can't get Android 4.3 on that phone ever. It has TRIM which is like a passive disk defragmenter.

 

[boomhower]

I'd probably save the cash and go with an S4. People upgrading are going to be dumping them left and right, pick one up on the cheap. It'll still be a massive upgrade over what you have.

 

[shabby]

Not sure if spending ~$700 is worth it for just a minor/unnoticeable speed improvement.

Another vote for Nexus 5 @ half price.

 

[gmaster456]

A Moto G would be a good upgrade. An S5 would be worlds better. Although for me personally I would wait until people start dumping their S4's and grab one of those.

 

[Zaap]

If you still have an S2 it sounds like you may tend to keep phones a long time rather than upgrade.

If so, I would say get a device you'll still be happy with two years from now, rather than a smaller incremental upgrade. For my money that'd be the S5- but you should go get a hands-on with each candidate device.