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Switching from iPhone5 to Samsung Galaxy SG5

Peanut207

Peanut207

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 2, 2010
498
119
This will be my first Android phone since owning every iPhone since 2007 except the 5s. My question to those who have experience with Android and Touchwiz in particular, what are your thoughts on it? Every review has mixed feelings about it. (Does your S4 or other Samsung devices lag?) Coming from an iPhone I'm hoping to be able to adapt to the Touchwiz os and that it won't be too much of a shock. I played around with the SG5 in my AT&T store and was blown away with the larger screen and the detail and vibrancy. It seemed smooth...but then again it is a store model and not bogged down with apps, music and videos..etc. Thanks for any input on helping my switch over to the Android world go smoother.

Note: I'm doing an upgrade swap with a family member, (giving them my iPhone5) so I'm maintaining my upgrade eligibility. Worst case scenario, if I hate the SG5 and the Touchwiz OS i can wait for the upcoming iPhone 6. But I figured why not give Android a shot.
 
Peanut207 said:
This will be my first Android phone since owning every iPhone since 2007 except the 5s. My question to those who have experience with Android and Touchwiz in particular, what are your thoughts on it? Every review has mixed feelings about it. (Does your S4 or other Samsung devices lag?) Coming from an iPhone I'm hoping to be able to adapt to the Touchwiz os and that it won't be too much of a shock. I played around with the SG5 in my AT&T store and was blown away with the larger screen and the detail and vibrancy. It seemed smooth...but then again it is a store model and not bogged down with apps, music and videos..etc. Thanks for any input on helping my switch over to the Android world go smoother.

Note: I'm doing an upgrade swap with a family member, (giving them my iPhone5) so I'm maintaining my upgrade eligibility. Worst case scenario, if I hate the SG5 and the Touchwiz OS i can wait for the upcoming iPhone 6. But I figured why not give Android a shot.
Click to expand...

I honestly feel that the love/hate thing with Touchwiz is completely overblown. It's not that bad, it works and it works well. The great thing about Android is that if you don't like it you can always use a stock Google launcher a change up your device. I've used every iPhone since the 3GS and I've slowly evolved into a Samsung (not even Android as much) guy. I will be getting the S5 and am looking forward to it.

Good luck with it. My biggest piece of advice is the give it more than a week. The transition from iOS to Android takes time to get used to. Literally I think 3 weeks is about how long it takes for you to completely get used to all of the customizing and all of the features a Samsung phone has to offer. It's not like picking up an iPhone and getting it 2 days later so just be patient and enjoy it!
 
rockitdog said:
I honestly feel that the love/hate thing with Touchwiz is completely overblown. It's not that bad, it works and it works well. The great thing about Android is that if you don't like it you can always use a stock Google launcher a change up your device. I've used every iPhone since the 3GS and I've slowly evolved into a Samsung (not even Android as much) guy. I will be getting the S5 and am looking forward to it.

Good luck with it. My biggest piece of advice is the give it more than a week. The transition from iOS to Android takes time to get used to. Literally I think 3 weeks is about how long it takes for you to completely get used to all of the customizing and all of the features a Samsung phone has to offer. It's not like picking up an iPhone and getting it 2 days later so just be patient and enjoy it!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice.
 
I like TW even thought it is bloated. You for sure need to give it at least a week. if you like it you can always root it and put a custom and more lean rom on it
 
If you are looking for a phone to give Android a shot as a first iPhone user, why not go with a Moto X or a Nexus 5? These run Android the way the maker (Google) meant for Android to run with minimal or no bloatware.
 
Last edited:
appledes7 said:
If you are looking for a phone to give Android a shot as a first iPhone user, why not go with a Moto X or a Nexus 5? These run Android the way the maker (Google) meant for Android to run with minimum or no bloatware.
Click to expand...

Was thinking about that but the SG5's camera is a big improvement over the Moto X and Nexus 5 IMO.
 
Peanut207 said:
Was thinking about that but the SG5's camera is a big improvement over the Moto X and Nexus 5 IMO.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. Just thought it was worth mentioning since it sounded like you are a first time switcher and might want to do something a little cheaper and bloat-free for your first experience with Android.
 
Peanut207 said:
This will be my first Android phone since owning every iPhone since 2007 except the 5s. My question to those who have experience with Android and Touchwiz in particular, what are your thoughts on it? Every review has mixed feelings about it. (Does your S4 or other Samsung devices lag?) Coming from an iPhone I'm hoping to be able to adapt to the Touchwiz os and that it won't be too much of a shock. I played around with the SG5 in my AT&T store and was blown away with the larger screen and the detail and vibrancy. It seemed smooth...but then again it is a store model and not bogged down with apps, music and videos..etc. Thanks for any input on helping my switch over to the Android world go smoother.

Note: I'm doing an upgrade swap with a family member, (giving them my iPhone5) so I'm maintaining my upgrade eligibility. Worst case scenario, if I hate the SG5 and the Touchwiz OS i can wait for the upcoming iPhone 6. But I figured why not give Android a shot.
Click to expand...

One tip is to remember that you can change at least (much of) the outward appearance of Touchwiz, using Nova Launcher and other replacement launchers. These are very easy to install, stable, do not add lag, and allow you to customize your home screen/app drawer looks as well as add some quite nifty gesture functionality. I use Nova Prime for my Note 2 since I wasn't very happy with how TouchWiz looked, I go for a simple "vanilla" Android look with some added gestures that add some very elegant ways to navigate the UI.
 
Oohara said:
One tip is to remember that you can change at least (much of) the outward appearance of Touchwiz, using Nova Launcher and other replacement launchers. These are very easy to install, stable, do not add lag, and allow you to customize your home screen/app drawer looks as well as add some quite nifty gesture functionality. I use Nova Prime for my Note 2 since I wasn't very happy with how TouchWiz looked, I go for a simple "vanilla" Android look with some added gestures that add some very elegant ways to navigate the UI.
Click to expand...

^^^^ this is great advice...... I run Nova on all my phones that support it. Adds more customization.
 
mclld said:
I like TW even thought it is bloated. You for sure need to give it at least a week. if you like it you can always root it and put a custom and more lean rom on it
Click to expand...

Just be aware doing this may trip Knox trigger, voiding your hardware warranty and could make the fingerprint scanner inoperable (as they are embedding it into Knox).
 
True but like others have said, Nova is a great way to change stuff up and you can easily switch back
 
Oohara said:
One tip is to remember that you can change at least (much of) the outward appearance of Touchwiz, using Nova Launcher and other replacement launchers. These are very easy to install, stable, do not add lag, and allow you to customize your home screen/app drawer looks as well as add some quite nifty gesture functionality. I use Nova Prime for my Note 2 since I wasn't very happy with how TouchWiz looked, I go for a simple "vanilla" Android look with some added gestures that add some very elegant ways to navigate the UI.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

Quick question...one of the features i liked about iOS is that there was a gesture where you can swipe the screen to go back or forward web pages. Is that gesture available at all anywhere with Android?
 
Nova lets use create custom gestures

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Peanut207 said:
Thanks!

Quick question...one of the features i liked about iOS is that there was a gesture where you can swipe the screen to go back or forward web pages. Is that gesture available at all anywhere with Android?
Click to expand...

Not precisely, sorry. At least not that I know.

However you do have the back button on all Android phones. This lets you go to the previous web page so intuitively and effortlessly that you might not even miss having the swipe to go forward (given that one generally does that a lot less often). To me (my current phone is my first Android, after using iPhones exclusively since the 3G) using the back button to go back while browsing has become so intuitive that I don't even notice that I do it.

The only solution I can think of for having swipe to go both back and foward would be Boat Browser, where you can set up your own gestures for almost any function. If you like that browser (many prefer it over all other browsers, also because of its true fullscreen mode), I think you can set it up to emulate Safari quite well in terms of the forward and back swipe.

Edit: and yeah, like those above mentioned, if you choose to go down the root path you can set up pretty much any system wide gestures you want. But that takes a bit more of an effort to set up and you warranty may get voided in the process.
 
Last edited:
Fernandez21 said:
Those only work in the home screen, the op is talking about being in the web browser and swiping right to go back a page.

There might be a way to empkement this, but you may have to root.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It's not a deal breaker but I was curious.

----------
Oohara said:
Not precisely, sorry. At least not that I know.

However you do have the back button on all Android phones. This lets you go to the previous web page so intuitively and effortlessly that you might not even miss having the swipe to go forward (given that one generally does that a lot less often). To me (my current phone is my first Android, after using iPhones exclusively since the 3G) using the back button to go back while browsing has become so intuitive that I don't even notice that I do it.

The only solution I can think of for having swipe to go both back and foward would be Boat Browser, where you can set up your own gestures for almost any function. If you like that browser (many prefer it over all other browsers, also because of its true fullscreen mode), I think you can set it up to emulate Safari quite well in terms of the forward and back swipe.

Edit: and yeah, like those above mentioned, if you choose to go down the root path you can set up pretty much any system wide gestures you want. But that takes a bit more of an effort to set up and you warranty may get voided in the process.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. I might look into that however like you said, I might not miss it anyway. I'll see how it goes.
 
Peanut207 said:
This will be my first Android phone since owning every iPhone since 2007 except the 5s. My question to those who have experience with Android and Touchwiz in particular, what are your thoughts on it? Every review has mixed feelings about it. (Does your S4 or other Samsung devices lag?) Coming from an iPhone I'm hoping to be able to adapt to the Touchwiz os and that it won't be too much of a shock. I played around with the SG5 in my AT&T store and was blown away with the larger screen and the detail and vibrancy. It seemed smooth...but then again it is a store model and not bogged down with apps, music and videos..etc. Thanks for any input on helping my switch over to the Android world go smoother.

Note: I'm doing an upgrade swap with a family member, (giving them my iPhone5) so I'm maintaining my upgrade eligibility. Worst case scenario, if I hate the SG5 and the Touchwiz OS i can wait for the upcoming iPhone 6. But I figured why not give Android a shot.
Click to expand...
If security doesn't interest you: go android
If it does: buy the iphone 6
 
grandM said:
If security doesn't interest you: go android
If it does: buy the iphone 6
Click to expand...

Security is important to me yes..why should I be concerned with an Android phone. I understand it's not AS secure as an iPhone but I wasn't aware that Android had security issues. Do explain.
 
If you're swapping from an iphone, do yourself a favor and disable imessage before you swap. Otherwise, your apple account will continue to get all of your text messages (and your Android wont).

Also, get your contacts, music, etc, onto a cross-platform utility (e.g. google contacts, google music, etc). iCloud is, unfortunately, Apple only. Google services tend to be good for this, but I do believe Samsung now provides a (apparently very good) tool to import iCloud information on the Galaxy S5.

And finally, I would personally say don't delve into using launchers straight away. Try the standard Touchwiz interface for at least a week or so, and if it really bugs you, then swap to a launcher.
 
Peanut207 said:
Security is important to me yes..why should I be concerned with an Android phone. I understand it's not AS secure as an iPhone but I wasn't aware that Android had security issues. Do explain.
Click to expand...
There are many concerns but you'll understand the grand picture easily
Whatsapp for instance on http://www.whatsapp.com/download/
If you watch the link you can see android allows you to download an app directly from any external source without any security check The iphone doesn't: you must get it from iTunes And Apple won't allow harmful apps Google doesn't even perform a security check on downloads performed on google play
Whatsapp is safe (or so I think), many other apps aren't
And yes, once they're in they can take control without you even knowing
Btw Apple also checks if an app runs smoothly, isn't a memory pig etc

Bottomline: can you buy an android device Yes IF you check the integrity & security of every app you download or IF security isn't important to you
Otherwise: :apple:
 
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