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Samsung Galaxy S5 (AT&T)

Sascha Segan
 & Sascha Segan Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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Samsung Galaxy S5 (AT&T) - Mobile Phones
4.5 Outstanding

The Bottom Line

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is the most powerful phone AT&T has to offer, but of course AT&T had to interfere a bit.
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Pros & Cons

    • Spectacular screen.
    • Super-fast Wi-Fi and LTE performance.
    • Excellent camera.
    • Waterproof.
    • All-plastic design.
    • Bloatware.
    • No Download Booster.

Samsung Galaxy S5 (AT&T) Specs

Battery Life (As Tested) 19 hours, 38 minutes
CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon
Dimensions 5.6 by 2.85 by .3 inches
Screen Resolution 1920 by 1080 pixels
Screen Size 5.1
All Specs

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is the most powerful smartphone on the market, and we recommend AT&T's model just as highly as we do its sister on T-Mobile. With an unmatched screen, excellent LTE and Wi-Fi performance, stellar call quality, and a solid camera, the Galaxy S5 will make the most of AT&T's network. Still, though, I'm going to gripe a little, because AT&T couldn't help but mess with this excellent phone.

AT&T's Galaxy S5 is physically identical to the T-Mobile and unlocked units except for a small AT&T logo on the back. Inside, there's one hardware difference: the four carriers' Galaxy S5 units have slightly different radio bands. In AT&T's case, you get all of AT&T's bands, of course. You don't get T-Mobile's AWS 3G band, but you do get the band used for super-high-speed LTE networks in Canada, where AT&T has an LTE roaming agreement.

Read my T-Mobile Galaxy S5 review for a full rundown of why this is the most functional (although, alas, not the most attractive) smartphone you can buy right now, and return here to find out how the AT&T model differs.

The slideshow below is of the T-Mobile model.

AT&T's Download Buster
The most disappointing change AT&T made was to remove Download Booster, Samsung's innovative Wi-Fi/LTE hybrid mode. The idea behind Download Booster is to fix shaky public Wi-Fi connections (like those slow Starbucks links) by juicing them up with LTE. AT&T doesn't like that, presumably because it wants subscribers to use as little LTE as possible. So it deleted Download Booster. The option to entirely turn off LTE and revert to 3G in weak-signal areas is also gone from the international model.

As usual, AT&T has also added its stack of bloatware. The apps can be "disabled," making them disappear out of your apps tray, but they can't be deleted. I counted 13 apps, including loss and theft prevention, cloud storage, account management, a data manager, and the subscription Beats Music service. If you don't like bloatware, keep an eye out for a near-future Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition, which will run stock Android (but also, presumably, without Download Booster).

Battery life on the AT&T network was terrific, at 19 hours, 38 minutes of talk time. The S5 does a lot to maximize that battery life, too, with its Ultra Power Saving Mode that squeezed four hours of intermittent use out of the last 2 percent of battery in my test. Long battery life is one reason we really like this phone.

Otherwise, It's Fine

I tested the AT&T Galaxy S5's performance, call quality, LTE performance, and camera, and got the same stellar results I saw on the T-Mobile version. LTE speeds, especially, burned up the charts. AT&T hasn't otherwise compromised the performance of this excellent phone.

On AT&T, like on T-Mobile, your high-end smartphone decision right now comes down to the Galaxy S5 and the HTC One (M8), with Apple's iPhone 5s in the wings for people who want a much smaller screen and iOS-exclusive apps. And just like on T-Mobile, we're giving both the Galaxy S5 and the HTC One our Editors' Choice awards, because the Galaxy S5's far-superior camera balances out the M8's premium design. Both are good choices. They'd be even better if only AT&T could stop messing with them.

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Final Thoughts

Samsung Galaxy S5 (AT&T) - Mobile Phones

Samsung Galaxy S5 (AT&T) Review

4.5 Outstanding

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is the most powerful phone AT&T has to offer, but of course AT&T had to interfere a bit.

Get It Now
Best Deal£275

Buy It Now

£275

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

  • US and Canadian mobile networks
  • Mobile phones released in the US
  • iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
  • Mobile hotspots
  • Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services. 

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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