6 Reasons the Galaxy S5 Beats the iPhone 5s

Comparing Samsung’s Galaxy S5 to Apple’s iPhone 5s is like pitting the Tesla Model S against the Ford Model T. From its more capable camera to its cutting-edge fitness features, Samsung’s new flagship phone has a slew of amenities that Apple, famous for being the last to embrace new technologies (NFC anyone?), will probably add to the iPhone 7s.

I could spill a vat of digital ink, detailing every way in which the Galaxy S5 is the best 2014 has to offer and the iPhone 5s feels like an average Android device from 2012. However, iPhone users would have to scroll a lot to read them on their low-res displays. Here are the six biggest reasons why the Galaxy S5 beats the iPhone 5s.

In an age when most flagship phones have full-HD displays 5 inches or larger, the iPhone 5s' 4-inch, 1136 x 640-pixel display is such a relic that it should come with a cassette adapter. Sure, the iPhone's screen has good color fidelity and a sharp 326 pixels per inch, but it can't hold a candela to Samsung's 5.1-inch, 1920 x 1080p super AMOLED panel.

A larger screen means a better movie-viewing experience, more-legible Web pages and books, and larger keys on the virtual keyboard for accurate typing. With a full-HD resolution, the Galaxy S5 shows the best online videos at an eye-popping 431.9 PPI, with no downscaling required. Better still, the Galaxy S5 has a new technology that adjusts not only the brightness, but also the contrast ratio and color gamut, to provide a superior experience in direct sunlight and other challenging conditions.

More: Samsung Galaxy S5: Top 5 Features

The official Geeks Geek, as his weekly column is titled, Avram Piltch has guided the editorial and production of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's real-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Battery Test. He holds a master’s degree in English from NYU.

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iPhone 5s Early Benchmarks: Beats Most Android Phones

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New Samsung Display Beats Retina MacBook and Chromebook Pixel

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HP Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition: Great Sound and Style at a Reasonable Price

The HP Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition does a lot for a little. The moderately priced laptop boasts sturdy, striking design, powerful speakers, a generous allotment of external ports, good battery life, and an Intel Core i5 processor. It's not perfect in every way, but it's a solid laptop for the busy audiophile on a budget, with an eye for the urbane.

The Beats brand is endorsed by rapper and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre. So it should come as no surprise that style and high-quality sound components come standard.

The aesthetic appeal of the slim profile and matte-black, brushed-aluminum case of our 14-inch review model can't be denied. The dm4, which starts at $900 and peaks out at around $2000 fully loaded, looks and feels great. Typing on the backlit red-on-black keys is a breeze. An inch thick, this 4.5-pound all-purpose laptop slips neatly into any work-sized bag without weighing you down.

Despite its compact frame, the dm4 packs a punch and goes toe-to-toe with the specs of many laptops in its class. It has a generous allotment of three USB ports (one 2.0 and two 3.0), as well as two display ports (VGA and HDMI), an SD/MMC memory card input, and an ethernet port. Beneath its pretty shell, our entry-level test unit boasts 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, WLAN, Bluetooth, an Intel Core i5-2430M processor, 6GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and Intel integrated graphics.

Of the most recent all-purpose laptops reviewed by PCWorld, the Pavilion dm4's battery outlasted all but one — the Asus U46SV, which held a charge for 6 hours, 41 minutes in our lab, more than an hour longer than the dm4's 5 hours, 23 minutes.

The dm4 Beats Edition bested the HP Envy 15, Lenovo IdeaPad U400, and VAIO S Series with a moderate WorldBench 6 score of 120. The Asus U46SV earned a slightly higher WorldBench 6 score of 123.

While the Beats series of headphones are often derided by audio enthusiasts as being of middling quality while posing as high-end (I'm not disputing it), one of this laptop's clearest strengths is the built-in speakers. Aided by the Beats Audio control interface — which is different from the much simpler Windows sound panel — the dm4 Beats Edition really kicks. It can get loud without sounding overdriven, and the Beats Audio control panel is a big improvement over the Windows sound controls (with a nine-band graphic equalizer and special built-in microphone filters). What would a laptop endorsed by a rap legend be without bass? The lower frequencies really hold up coming from the on-board stereo speakers with subwoofer.

It's just a shame that HP decided to position the speakers on the underside of the front of the device. That placement only serves to ensure that you will muffle your tunes when listening with the dm4 on your lap, especially in bed, and especially since the HP Cool Sense feature on our review model lets you enjoy using the laptop on your lap without cooking your thighs. I used the HP Pavilion dm4 Beats Edition to take notes at a recent presentation in a crowded theatre. I typed away with the device on my lap for nearly 40 minutes and my legs never got too hot, nor did the bottom of the computer feel all that warm to the touch when I finished.

This configuration of the dm4 Beats Edition, however, is certainly not for gaming. It shows average performance at low resolutions (48 frames per second when playing Dirt 2 and 40 on Far Cry 2 at 800 by 600 resolution), and much poorer frame rates as the resolution increases (22 fps on Dirt 2, and 15.1 fps on Far Cry 2 at 1024 by 768). Although its LED display (backlighting is optional) is HD-capable and decent for watching DVDs (no Blu-ray option is available) and for streaming videos, the colors are bit flat.

Budget-conscious gamers should look into the Asus U46SV, which scored much higher in this area, or at least spring for the $100 Radeon HD 7470 discrete graphics option. If you can spend a bit more, look into the Asus G53SX — by far the strongest performer of all our recently reviewed all-purpose laptops.

The trackpad can be a bit jumpy, and I often found myself pressing it a bit harder than I thought I should have to in order to engage the cursor, but the ability to double-tap the upper right-hand corner of the trackpad to disable it is nice, especially since the cursor sometimes jumps around due to poor palm detection. Also nice are the unit's multitouch gestures — pinch to zoom, twist to rotate, and up-down/side-to-side scrolling. The fingerprint reader is a cool feature as well, though I'm not sure if I'd ever use it.

The HP dm4 Beats Edition didn't score the highest ratings in our lab tests, and it in some ways it certainly leaves you wanting. But for under $1000 this laptop will do most anything you need it to do (gaming aside) with respectable efficiency — all while keeping your beats bumping.

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Tested: Windows 7 Beats Windows 8 Preview in Battery Life, File Copy, More

Unfortunately, the Windows 8  file transfer speeds on our test systems weren’t as good as the boot times. When we performed the LAPTOP file transfer test, which involves copying 4.97GB of mixed media files, on the Dell Inspiron 15 M5030, the results were about on-par in both operating systems, with Windows 7 producing a rate of 24 MBps to Windows 8's slight-slower 23 MBps.

The difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8 transfer speeds was truly significant on the Samsung Series 7 and ASUS Zenbook UX31. Where, on Windows 7, the tablet and notebook copied the files at rates of 68 and 98 MBps respectively, on Windows 8, the transfer rates dropped to just 27 MBps on the Samsung Series 7 and 34 MBps on the Zenbook.

Synthetic test results were basically flat. On PCMark07, a benchmark that measures overall performance, the Dell Inspiron 15 M5030 and ASUS Zenbook UX31 saw very marginal increases in score, with the M5030 jumping from a low 1,278 to a slightly better 1,442 and the UX31 increasing its scored from 3,606 to 3,964. However, a difference of 100 points or 200 points on PCMark07 can occur between one run of the software and another so these increases were well within the margin of error. The Samsung Series 7 Slate could not run PCMark07.

When we ran the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Test — which matches 20,000 names to addresses — the Samsung Series 7 took 14 minutes and 8 seconds to complete the test in Windows 8, but  just 12 minutes and 45 seconds in Windows 7. On the same test, the ASUS Zenbook UX31 also saw a decrease in performance as it went from 5 minutes and 50 seconds in Windows 7 to 8 minutes and 55 seconds in Windows 8. Unfortunately, we could not perform the OpenOffice Spreadsheet test on the Dell Inspiron 15 M5030.

Running the same applications, graphics performance on our test systems was about the same on both OSes. On 3DMark06, the Inspiron 15 M5030 scored 1,689 in Windows 8, nearly the same as the  1,725 it achieved using Windows 7. The M5030 also achieved comparable frame rates when playing games in Windows 8. When we ran “World of Warcraft” on Good settings, the M5030 averaged 17 frames per second, on par with the game’s performance on Windows 7.

Graphics performance on the Samsung Series 7 was also fairly similar on both with OSes. On 3DMark06, the tablet notched a Windows 8 score of 1,650 nearly identical to the 1,642 scored on Windows 7. In “World of Warcraft,” the Samsung Series 7 achieved an unplayable 11 fps using Windows 8, compared to a slightly better (but also unplayable) 13 fps on Windows 7.

The ASUS Zenbook, by contrast, achieved slightly better graphics performance using Windows 8 than it had with Windows 7. Using Windows 8, the notebook notched a score of 4,360 on 3DMark06, up noticeably from 3,761 on Windows 7. Playing “World of Warcraft” with Good settings, the Zenbook UX31 turned in a frame rate of 28 fps that was imperceptibly better than the 26 fps it achieved with Windows 7. After turning the settings up to Ultra, “World of Warcraft” ran at just 13 fps, on par with its frame rate on Windows 7.

Though it’s supposed to be more power efficient, in our tests, Windows 8 provided noticeably less endurance  than its predecessor on the Dell Inspiron 15 M5030, Samsung Series 7 Slate PC and ASUS Zenbook UX31. On the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous surfing on the Web using Wi-Fi and Firefox), the Inspiron 15 lasted 3 hours and 7 minutes on Windows 7, but only 2 hours and 45 minutes on Windows 8.

The Zenbook UX31 experienced an hour decrease in battery life, dropping from 5 hours and 58 minutes on Windows 7 to 4 hours and 55 minutes on Windows 8. The decrease in battery life was most dramatic on the Samsung Series 7, which lasted a reasonable 5 hours and 49 minutes while using Windows 7, but just 3 hours and 36 minutes on Windows 8.

It’s way too early to say that Windows 8 will offer lower battery life or slower file copies when it launches sometime later this year. It’s also too soon to say spreadsheet performance will suffer under Windows 8. Most likely the differences we saw were due to driver or hardware support issues that should improve over time. 

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10 Ways Windows 8 Beats the iPad

Windows 8 is now available for anyone to download, and it already shows a ton of potential. In fact, Microsoft’s bold new OS, which reminds us a lot of Windows Phone, outshines the iPad in some key areas. Granted, there were things we didn’t like in our Windows 8 Consumer Preview– — and the iPad 3 or iPad HD is just around the corner– — but there’s no question that Apple will soon have a real fight on its hands. Here are the top 10 ways Windows 8 is better than the iPad right now.

While iOS represents photos with a flower icon, Windows 8 lets you choose any photo you want to populate the live tile that lives on the Start screen. And that's just one of many ways you can customize the screen you'll see most. You can move items around, name groups of apps around and name them using the Semantic zoom feature, and pin everything from your favorite people and websites to the Start screen.

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Deal of the Day: Save $350 on HP Pavilion dm4t Beats Edition

Looking for a super-sleek, unique laptop with a fast processor and great speakers (paying homage to its namesake)? Look no further. HP’s Pavilion dm4t Beats Edition, which just came out in December, is $350 off. Normally $1,100, the 14-inch HP Pavilion dm4t Beats Edition is available for $750 today plus free shipping through a deal at LogicBUY.

When we reviewed the black-and-red laptop, we praised its cool all-black aluminum lid highlighted with a red center and the subtle curves of the design. But the exterior wasn’t all we liked. Its soft-touch palm rest, anti-glare treatment and impressive processor earned it 3 and a half stars. Not to mention its Beats audio, which featured two speakers a subwoofer but had hollow sound at times.

Base specs: Core i5-2430M 2.4 GHz, 8GB RAM, 750GB 5400RPM hard drive, Intel HD 3000 graphics, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 14? 1366 x 768 BrightView LED LCD, 8X DVD+/-RW, 720p HD webcam, backlit keyboard, fingerprint reader, Windows 7 Premium 64-bit

HP Pavilion dm4t Beats Edition for $750 plus free shipping through LogicBUY

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