Samsung Galaxy S5
A new Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone is seen on a display at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona February 23, 2014. Samsung Electronics unveiled a new smart watch and fitness band along with the latest version of its flagship Galaxy smartphone on Monday, demonstrating how the battleground for innovation is shifting from the hand to the wrist.Picture taken on February 23. Reuters/Albert Gea

Square Trade, a gadget warranty outlet, subjected four flagship phones to a torture test. These are the Samsung Galaxy S5, Apple iPhone5S, HTC One M8 and Nexus 5. The results showed that using a plastic case for phones is not necessarily a point against the South Korean giant.

The initial test was dropping and dunking the gadgets, and results showed that the Galaxy S5 beat the three other phones. Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPXJAc70Sd4 to watch the drop test.

However, when Square Trade performed a more thorough review of the largeconstruction and materials, size, weight, friction quotient, water resistance and grip-ability, the iPhone came in first, followed by the Galaxy, HTC and Nexus.

The Galaxy did well when it comes to water resistance and sturdy back panel. The iPhone was noted for its grip-ability since it measured only 4 inches diagonally, making it less likely to slip from the hands of its holder.

But all phones had a major risk of breakage and their difference in the test result was not very large.

While Square Trade was not surprised with Nexus coming in last since it is also the cheapest, it expressed disappointment with HTC which has a metal body that is supposed to be tougher than the Galaxy which has a plastic case.

But in terms of vulnerability to hacks, a separate test made by German researchers found that it took them four days to trick the Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner into accepting a fingerprint mold instead of a real finger.

The researcher used a camera phone image of a latent print from a smartphone screen, according to SRLabs which conducted the trial. Initially, they enrolled a fingerprint from a real finger on the S5 then used the mold to unlock the phone. It was the same technique they used on Apple's TouchID system.

The results yielded a "leaves much to be desired" comment from SRLabs which pointed out that due to the S5's integration with Paypal, would-be attackers have more incentives to hack the Samsung flagship phone not only for the device but also the goods and services it can purchase using the same unit.

However, Paypal played down the result suggestion, saying, "The scan unlocks a secure cryptographic key that serves as a password replacement for the phone. We can simply deactivate the key from a lost or stolen device, and you can create a new one."