[Verizon Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bagery77:
My apologies for the novel. First of all, I want to explain why I did not get the rootable HTC One. After I got the S5, i made a trip to Verizon to check out everything I'd be passing up. The closest contest was with the HTC One. I was impressed by the G2 but wanted to see if the G3 would have sd card expansion and be comparable size to S5. When I held the One and S5 side by side, the screen size was a significant size difference. Also, the M8 was taller. I'm a tiny person, so the S5 barely fits in my pocket as is. A larger device for me personally, is not realistic. I'm not going to start carrying a bag or bulky belt clip just for a phone. Secondly, I have many years of training in photography. While I understand a smartphone will never be an SLR, the photog in me wanted a device that I felt was still comparable in most ways.

Chrome is fine as a browser, but that's where the desktop in a pocket comes into play. It cannot run flash. Its not highly configurable. No navigation bar and useful shortcuts. No add ons. If I force to zoom a webpage with a large ad, it zooms the ad in as well thereby taking up valuable screen real estate.

I use Player Pro for music which is great. But I can no longer sync using Doubletwist. I drag and dropped my Music folder/Playlists via cable to make sure it went directly to my sd where I wanted it. My favorite video player no longer reads the right aspect ratio of my films. Many apps are playing catch up to Kit Kat and its limitations/changes. So I find myself using various video players occasionally. One has better sound than the other and so on and on.

Oh, and this is just a nitpick, but the Menu button has been replaced with app manager, the same feature you'd get when you long pressed home on S3. The button will still function as a proper Menu button if you long press it while inside an app though. So that's good. Otherwise you access Menu through the Navigation bar or via the 3 onscreen dots.

I miss Cleanrom so much! Both M8 and S5 seem to test well in drop tests. But its all relative. Everyone I knew with S3 had broken screens. I dropped mine so many times, including concrete with no kinda protection and it never cracked other than the plastic corners. Some of the built in gesture controls have been eliminated, so best to inquire about which ones you need. Several off the beaten path "features" are gone as the were deemed too gimmicky, even though people still appreciated them. Firefox has an Adblock add on and Flash works with it too. The force to zoom is not as magnified as Chrome. I can't recall seeing a working text to fit in any browser, but I may be mistaken. RIP Titanium and CPU speed for the time being but I think this thing is fast.

Oddly enough, I just got Root Explorer and my default file explorer to perform tasks it wouldn't do before. So maybe all is not lost there. I'll need to research this one further. I'm pretty sure it wasn't reading my playlists off of micro sd before...

On S3, I kept device on powersaving, but powersaving on this phone causes it to hiccup too much. I still get at least 15 hours or so with several of those, 3-5 hrs screen on. Speaking of which, GPS is different too. I do keep it on Powersaving as having it completely off inhibits certain location functions now. Haven't used long press to skip tracks in years, so unsure how to even set that up anymore (got it to work through Player Pro settings but only with screen on). You are right, the form factor is great. Would have preferred it a little shorter, but my understanding is they made it as small as they could.

Good luck with your decision. I paid full price for the first time ever and have an upgrade coming in November. If we don't have root by then, I may consider my options. Some things are getting easier by the day though. Just have to adjust your expectations a little.