Samsung unveils its slick new Galaxy S5
Samsung has announced that it is to release the next smartphone in the hugely popular ‘Galaxy S’ series.
The Galaxy S5 was unveiled this week at MWC 2014, where the company’s fifth Unpacked conference saw hundreds of journalists present to receive the announcement.
It is currently looking likely that the S5 will be released some time during April. This is quite a substantial wait, especially given competitor Apple’s skill at turning around its handsets within a couple of weeks of the main announcement.
The design of the S5 is not a surprising one; it is immediately recognisable as part of the Galaxy series. The one major change is the back of the handset, which resembles a leather notebook. The handset is far easier to grip than the previous models in the series and is very usable.
The spec is suitably impressive, with a 5.1-inch screen that uses the company’s renowned Super AMOLED technology.
The rear camera on the handset is definitely a step up from previous models in the series, with a resolution of 16MP; the resolution of the front-facing camera is 2MP. The resolution of the rear-facing camera is a step up for Samsung, although it does not rival the 20.7MP camera found on the Xperia Z1.
The Galaxy S5 features a fingerprint scanner, no doubt inspired by the TouchID system of the iPhone 5s. There is no retinal scanning, despite this feature being strongly rumoured.
The handset also includes a supercharged battery designed to help to improve durability, which is a typical flaw in smartphones.