Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/25/samsung_s5_launch/
Samsung brandishes quad-core Galaxy S5, hopes nobody wants high specs
Fitness, fashion, cases, that's what matters...
Posted in Personal Tech, 25th February 2014 04:32 GMT
MWC 2014 Samsung has announced its new Qualcomm-powered Galaxy S5 smartphone, focussing on how fashionable and fitness-friendly the thing is rather than waste time revealing specifications during its glitzy launch.
Luckily, we got our hands on the device and a spec sheet so we can tell you how the mobe measures up.
In your correspondent's experience, alarm bells should ring when a mobile phone manufacturer tells you how much it has listened to Joe and Josephine Public, and how great the finish of a product is, without backing up the proposition with numbers on the spot.
It was like being given a menu that read “delicious food, lots of vitamins, very well cooked,” without telling you what you're getting.
The Samsung Galaxy S5
There is a reason for this, in your humble hack's opinion: the S5 is not a soaraway market-beating product. Don’t get me wrong, it is very, very nice, but I got the impression Samsung wanted assembled hacks to look beyond facts and figures for this reason. Samsung should be worried.
Speaking at the launch of the handset at Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona on Monday, Sammy marketing exec David Park and JK Shin, head of the chaebol's IT and mobile communication division, talked up the S5's built-in camera, the gadget's fashion sense, how it lets one grab control of one's life, and so on.
This is not a phone for slobs: it has a perforated back and in addition to the mainstay black and white cases, it also comes in blue and copper, no doubt selected by a market research agency. And it comes with lots of fitness stuff. There is a heart-rate monitor built into the back of the phone that you put your finger on to measure your pulse, and there's a fingerprint scanner on the front.
After claiming people don’t buy things for the technology under the hood, Shin revealed the connectivity: it supports LTE Cat-4 mobile broadband and Wi-Fi 802.11ac wireless networking with one really impressive feature: the "download booster." This bonds the Wi-Fi and LTE connection to maximize the downlink bandwidth, which apparently can go as high as 650Mbit/s as a result of the coupling.
Download booster is a spot-on name because while it will provide fabulous download speeds, the latency stinks, as you'd expect from an LTE/Wi-Fi bonded connection, so it’s no good for smooth web browsing nor online gaming, for example.
The impressive camera tech works like a human eye, and (when pushed for an answer) Samsung said the rear-facing sensor is a 16-megapixel part; there's a 2Mp cam on the front. This falls short of Sony’s 20.7Mp and way short of Nokia’s 41Mp top-end mobe cameras. Of course, raw resolution isn’t everything and the super fast – 0.3 second – autofocus in the S5 may be more useful to punters. The special effects that can be applied to pictures are not as rich as those Sony announced 12 hours earlier, but you can apply a fashionable background blur.
Better than splashproof, not actually waterproof. Plunge-proof?
Icons on the screen are Sir-Jony-Ive flat and there is a good feel to the user interface. Judging by a quick hands-on, the Android 4.4.2-powered gadget felt really rather snappy, and that’s down to its 2.5GHz ARM-compatible quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 system-on-a-chip processor. It’s clearly using the Samsung Touchwiz interface, too.
The big emphasis on fitness means that in addition to the supplied exercise encouragement app, the handset is ruggedized to the IP67 spec, which means its casing is better than splash-proof but it's not absolutely waterproof: IP67 means it's dust tight, and can withstand 30 minutes under one metre of water. Thus, it will survive an accidental dunk but don’t go swimming with it. More practically, you can use it as a music player in a steam-filled bathroom or go snowboarding with it.
There is extra security with the latest Knox container technology installed. A "kids mode" can be enabled with one click, which turns the phone into a child-friendly device by only allowing designated apps to run, and locks the device's controls away from prying spry fingers.
The Gear Fit wrist-puter
The fingerprint scanner can be used to unlock files, typically photos and videos kept in a special secure area – ideal for your most intimate snaps. Something everyone will appreciate is the ultra-power-saving mode, which has a time-left-before-power-off countdown, and which will keep the phone alive for 24 hours in standby mode with only 10 per cent of battery life left. The battery itself is a 2,800mAh part.
The Galaxy S5 measures 142.0 x 72.5 x 8.1mm, and weighs 145g, we're told. The HD AMOLED touchscreen's resolution is 1920 x 1080 pixels, it has a pixel density of 432 ppi, and it's 5.1 inches across. There's 2GB of RAM inside, 16GB or 32GB of internal flash storage depending on the model you buy, a microSD slot that will take cards up to 64GB in capacity, NFC radio, a USB 3.0 port, and Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy wireless connectivity. But, essentially, it's taller and heavier than the Galaxy S4.
Alongside the phone, Samsung announced three new watches. The Gear 2, the Gear 2 Neo and the more-like-a-wriststrap Gear Fit. Perhaps the most interesting is the 27g Fit which has the first curved, super AMEOLED touchscreen in a wearable device. The straps come in three colors and there will be designer versions from posh fashion houses.
Samsung is keen to court app makers and will soon release a software development kit for the smartwatches.
5,000 people, all of whom want to be first to try the new Galaxy S-phone
The S5 will ship on April 11 in 150 countries; you have to admit that Samsung’s logistics are impressive. One number which does bear repeating is the size of the audience: 5,000 peeps sat in the auditorium with some people having to stand. ®