The Samsung Galaxy S5 is loaded with many new features but if you're a Verizon customer you should know the carrier has disabled two of its biggest.
Samsung launched its 2014 flagship Galaxy S5 around the globe on April 11 and in the U.S. the smartphone is available on all four major carriers. In typical Samsung fashion, the handset is packing the latest high-end specs and offers users some new software features that are exclusive to the device. Its display has already been given top honors by being named "best smartphone display ever tested" and its new fingerprint scanner tries to outshine Apple's iPhone 5s by doing more than just unlocking the smartphone or make iTunes purchases.
The Galaxy S5 ships with a fingerprint scanner embedded in its home button just like the iPhone 5s. Unlike Apple, Samsung has opened up the feature to developers and third party applications to make it even more useful and secure. Samsung has partnered with PayPal to let consumers make purchases using their fingerprint and the feature is supposed to work on all Galaxy S5 variants, but it's just been discovered that Verizon has completely disabled the feature.
DroidLife discovered that setting up PayPal authentication on an AT&T Galaxy S5 went off without a hitch but on a Verizon model, the same steps led to an error message of "this application will not work on your device". Verizon hasn't offered any reason on why it has disabled the feature but it shouldn't come as much of a surprise considering it has also removed the Galaxy S5's Download Booster feature as well.
We just reported that AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon have all disabled Download Booster on the Galaxy S5. The feature does what its name implies; it allows the Galaxy S5 to use both its 4G LTE and Wi-Fi connections simultaneously in order to speed up file downloads. AT&T is the only carrier who has acknowledged the removal and is currently "evaluating" the situation.
If you're considering picking up a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S5, you should know that the carrier is disabling some of its most popular features and the irresponsible part is it's not even offering any explanation on why. Hopefully, Samsung gets to the bottom of this. False advertising isn't how you want to begin the launch of such a high profile device.
