Samsung Unveils Water-resistant Galaxy S5 to launch in April '14

Samsung on Tuesday announced the Galaxy S5, its new flagship Android smartphone with an Apple iPhone 5S-like biometric sensor button. The phone is dust and water-resistant, sports a faster camera and offers fitness-related features.

The Galaxy S5, which was unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, will be available in 150 countries, including India, on April 11. However, the company did not announce the price of the new smartphone.

It sports a slightly larger 5.1-inch Super AMOLED (1080 X 1920p) display which looks similar to that of the Galaxy S4.

Powered by a 2.5GHz quad-core processor and 2GB RAM, the Galaxy S5 will come in 16GB and 32GB internal storage variants which will be expandable up to 64GB through microSD card.

"With the Galaxy S5, Samsung is going back to basics to focus on delivering the capabilities that matter most to our consumers," said JK Shin, president and head of IT & mobile communications division at Samsung. "Galaxy S5 represents an iconic design with essential and useful features to focus on delivering the ultimate smartphone in the market today through people inspired innovation."

While acknowledging the market murmur about lesser-than-expected sales of Galaxy S4, Shin revealed that Samsung had so far sold over 200 million Galaxy phones. Galaxy S4 was launched in the summer of 2013. It has faced tough competition from the likes of Apple iPhone 5 and 5S, LG G2, HTC One and Sony Xperia Z1.

Usually, Samsung launches flagship Galaxy phone every year after World Mobile Congress (MWC). But, this year, the company announced Galaxy S5 at the MWC because it wants to replace Galaxy S4 as soon as possible.

In Galaxy S5, Samsung has introduced several unique features aimed at fitness conscious users in a bid to steal Apple's thunder. It is widely rumoured that the iPhone maker will launch the successor of iPhone 5S with a clutch of health and fitness-related features.

"With the enhanced S Health 3.0, the Galaxy S5 offers more tools to help people stay fit and well. It provides a comprehensive personal fitness tracker to help users monitor and manage their behaviour, along with additional tools, including a pedometer, diet and exercise records, and a new, built-in heart rate monitor," said a Samsung spokesperson.

"Galaxy S5 users can further customize their experience with an enriched third party app ecosystem and the ability to pair with next-generation Gear products for real-time fitness coaching,"

Another highlight of the phone is a new iPhone-like fingerprint sensor integrated with the phone's home button. The finger scanner will offer a biometric screen-locking feature and mobile payment experience to consumers.

The Galaxy S5 sports a 16MP rear camera and a 2.1MP front-facing camera. The rear camera is capable of capturing 4K video at 30 frames per second. Samsung claimed the Galaxy S5 offers the world's fastest auto-focus speed up to 0.3 seconds.

The smartphone runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. It is IP67 certified dust and water-resistant. The back panel of the phone sports a dimpled soft-touch cover, similar to the Nexus 7(2012) tablet.

Samsung to unveil bendable tablet

South Korean media is abuzz that Samsung, the biggest maker of smartphones in the world, is set to unveil the first-ever bendable tablet. The device will be showcased behind closed doors to a select group at a private exhibition, according to a report by ET News. 

The report says that the tablet, to be showcased at Mobile World Congress  next week, will bend at 90-degree angle in the middle. The lower half of the bendable Samsung tablet will feature as a keyboard, while the upper half will be used as the screen and show the apps, quite similar to the setup in a laptop. 

While the technology will be demonstrated at the MWC, it is not to hit the mainstream market until next year at least. At the Samsung Analyst Day conference last year, the company revealed its roadmap, showing that it plans to bring bendable displays to the market in 2015. It also said that foldable smartphone displays will be launched in 2016-17. 

Samsung unveiled its first set of professional-grade tablets at Consumer Electronics Show last month. These tablets have bigger screens than other similar products in the market and can run four apps simultaneously, making operating them similar to multitasking on laptops. 

The highlight of Samsung's MWC event will be the unveiling of the Galaxy S5 smartphone. The device is said to have a 5.25-inch screen with 2K resolution, 16MP rear camera, eight-core processor option, 3GB RAM and Android 4.4 (operating system). It is widely expected that Samsung will debut the next version of its TouchWiz user interface with this smartphone. 

The company is also expected to launch the Galaxy Gear 2 smartwatch at the same event.