I was looking at this phone today. It's a new release. It looks quite nice, though I'm not a big fan of the red stripe.
From what I've seen, the S5 is not thinner than the 7500+. The spec sheets I've seen show them both at 9mm, which is what I measured the 7500+ at.
I wouldn't look at resolution, which is usually a bunch of bull. Hey maybe the Star S5 front camera really is 5mp... But I doubt it. Regardless, to me what's important is the quality of the pictures from the rear camera.
In Star's favor, I owned a Star a5000 and it took some serious punishment. It's still ticking. The LCD was bright and had great viewing angles. The camera was absolute garbage, but keep in mind that was 2 years ago. Things have changed a lot and I'm guessing the camera is at least par.
Also, the Star S5 specs show JB 4.2. Though that's not much of an advantage as the JB 4.2 Beta is already out for 7500+.
The nitty gritty is this - I doubt the Star S5 will be that popular of a phone. Not compared to the 7500+ which has MX56 and zp800 zp810 pushing the 7500+ along as well. So you probably won't see much customizing done with the Star S5. It MIGHT be the case where the phone is compatible with the ROMs and mods from Star's other MTK6589 offerings, in which case there could be a good community of support.
Another important thing is this - unless there's a mod created to modify the EBR on the Star S5, the memory difference is useless. The actual data memory is the same as the Hero h7500+ (1.5GB). It's the internal storage that's a lot bigger on the Star S5 (5GB). And more or less, that's a non-issue because you can have a 32GB external SD. Also, the 2.5GB mod is already out for the 7500+ which actually CURRENTLY gives it the advantage regarding memory.
The biggest thing the Star S5 has going for it vs the 7500+ is it's more square (I like square
). The camera, we don't know about yet, but I can't imagine the Star S5's rear camera putting out better quality than the h7500+. We don't know about the LCD either, but the 7500+ is quite fine and again I'm doubting the Star S5's will be better. That's not to say Gizbeat hasn't been wrong before. Gizbeat is just going on the fact that the camera and LCD of the h7500+ are above par.
The weak points of the S7500+ are the external speaker which is adequate, but not all that loud or crisp and the flashlight which again is adequate, but not particularly bright. Though with these two points, I'm speaking in comparison to my K-Touch W806 which is in a similar price bracket, and my cheapo $30 Wellcomm which has an exceptionally loud speaker for some reason.
In short, Gizbeat thinks you should go with the 7500+, or if for some reason the Star S5 is really pulling at you, wait a couple weeks until some Star S5 reviews start rolling in and take a look at what people are saying regarding quality of LCD/Camera/Flashlight/Speaker.
I guess I could of just written the previous sentence and left the other 95% out, but when I get going I tend to ramble a bit. Hope it's helped!