[Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] abidcastaneda:
SM - G900 Fake

Sorry if you have already read this reply on another post, but I just want to raise awareness / get some answers (if possible):

Hi, I'm not trying to pun on anyone, but I bought a SM - G900 (*no letter after it), it is an international phone, it is factory unlocked, works with a micro SIM, I have a 30 Gb micro SD card in it, rooted, making phone calls and connecting to the internet via my provider's data plan (Ultra Mobile) and through wifi, but here's the truth about this phone!:

* It says that it has 16 Gb of internal storage (BIG FAT LIE!), even though I says that in the settings, you will fill it up with a couple of applications, and it will quickly state that there's not enough space, I connected it to my computer using MKT drivers, and it still shows those 15.something Gb, but the files in it just take about 3, including the ROM, and it says I only have 500 MB left.

* There's supposed to be a 1.27 Gb phone storage (1.27? Really? not 2 Gb, not one, but 1.27), and that fills up pretty fast too. And displays it as an internal SD card in the file browser.

* I added a 30 Gb micro SD card, I actually purchased this card specially for this phone ... Which now it's just a waste of money, it mounts, but, when I installed Link2Sd on the phone, it just keeps transferring the applications from the internal to the phone storage to the phone storage itself, I tried formatting the card as ext4, ext3, ext2, swap and it keeps getting reformatted to fat32 every time the phone detects it, it says that the sd card is damaged and needs to be formatted, so you're pretty much stuck to whatever the real storage amount the phone has. I even tried making a 2nd partition with Mini Partition tool and Aparted, but then, the phone doesn't mount the 2nd partition, only the first one.

* The pictures and videos taken from the camera, can automatically go to the sd card, but they get corrupted after a reboot with no option of recovering them, **ssed me of because I had taken a video of my 2 yr old son saying "I love you daddy".

* It is rooted, but not through a custom rom or anything like it, I mean, IT ALREADY CAME WITH A CUSTOM ROM! So it was already rooted, I tried One Click Root and the application said that the phone was successfully rotted, but Super User had not been installed on it, downloaded SU from play store, only to find out that the phone already had root acces, just had to install SU to give apps permissions.

* The screen mirroring on Samsung smart Tv's doesn't work, it's not even picked up as a media device when connected through USB to it.

* The battery literally dies after only 3 hours of use (as opposed to the battery life on the real S5) without any low battery warning.

* The smart pause and smart scroll doesn't work correctly, the videos pause as you are watching them and the scroll actually makes the screen twitch.

* Cannot download any Samsung apps to it BECAUSE IT'S NOT REALLY SAMSUNG!

* Doesn't come with the Samsung Navigator, you have to download google maps, and, at least to me, Samsung navigator is better.

* Driving mode NEVER enables, even if you enable it manually or put it in a dock.

* IT IS NOT WATERPROOF!

* IT IS NOT A RUGGED PHONE!

* CANNOT flash another custom rom to it (or at least I have been afraid to do it) because there seems to be nothing compatible with it and don't want to turn it into a brick.

* The IMEI on the phone DOESN'T exist on the IMEI check list!

* Even though I had to use the MKT drivers to connected to the computer, I tried the original S5 drivers and it doesn't connect, and the mass storage driver never installs succesfully, so no mass storage device driver for it.

* Custom recovery? Well, it already comes with one ... IN CHINESE! So you really can tell what to click without erasing the phone.

* Stock recovery ... it does have it, so you press the volume up button and the power on button at the same time, and you get the dead android logo, then you press volume up again along with the home key and you get into the stock recovery, but can't partition from there ... lame.

* No gorilla screen on this one.

* It cost me $300.00 usdlls, which is not fair, the phone does exactly the same and works the same as a $50 - $100 usdll phone.

* It is a replica, there's no original Samsung anything in it, even tried Samsung live support (the one that you can see the live representative through google hangouts) and the guy said ... literally ... and I quote: "I'm sorry, I can't give out any support for your phone because that serial number is incorrect (I sent him the picture of the sn from the sticker inside the phone), the IMEI doesn't exist and Samsung doesn't make a SM - G900 model, it has to have a letter at the end of this for identification", and then he just closed the session, without any further explanation, just like that, without noticing me that the support session had to be closed.

End point being: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS!