I have to disagree, completely. To me the S5 is better than the S4 in every way, without question.
The only problem for the Note 4 is that the Note 3 still is a very good phone.
I agree - the S4 is a very disappointing phone for me. It's passable as my secondary work phone, but I could never use it as my primary phone.
- The battery life is close to bad. It's substantially worse than the Note 3. Above everything else, the S5 fixed this problem.
- The app loading lag and regular stuttering - I setup my S4 and Note 3 (and prior Note 2) the same way. Disable all the bloat you can, turn off all the gestures, and use Nova. The Note 3 is smooth and fast all the time, the S4 locks up for 1/2 a second all the time.
- The hard plastic back of the S4 is a grease/fingerprint magnet. I'm happy with the Note 3 back material. The S5 material isn't the best looking but it's functionally much better than the S4 and I'd take it over the hard plastic.
- The S4 camera in low light is close to useless. The S5 isn't great, but it's useable. Unfortunately the Note 3 camera is closer to the S4 one.
I would have preferred the S5 not gain the larger bezels as IP certification isn't that useful to me, but as a Note user, it still feels pretty small. Other things like the display being brighter and more accurate, IP certification, etc are smaller improvements.
The "problem" I guess is that the Note 3 doesn't have most of these problems. However I do want:
- Better low light camera
- Better battery life - the Note 3 was basically the same as the Note 2 and is just "good enough" now, not great. I'd like the Note 4 to take a step forward and become a true all day phone
- Better build quality. The chrome frame looks and feels cheap and chips incredibly easily. The home button has some play to it which makes it feel a bit cheap - the S5s I've all used had a better home button movement. I'm OK with the plastic back, but the metal frame would be a huge plus to me.
- I think a sharper display would be a benefit as well. A 5.7" 1080p pentile screen is good, but there are differences up close to a 5" 1080p non-pentil screen. A 5.7" 1440p pentile screen would remove this issue. If it's brighter and more accurate like the S5 LTE-A screen is, even better.
- Finding a way to drop weight a bit would be a plus as well (with case + screen protector, you do fee the Note 3 weight after a while)