Samsung Galaxy S5 Roundup: What We Know So Far

Since the beginning of 2014, the hype around the Samsung Galaxy S5 has gained a lot of traction in the tech media. Almost every alternate day, new details of the gadget keep getting leaked, revealing key features and possible launch date. 

We have sifted through numerous reports and have pieced together a list of probable specifications, which are likely to feature in the upcoming Samsung marquee device.

Display and Design:

Just a couple of weeks ago, Samsung Vice President and Head of Design Strategy, Dong-hoon Chang in an informal interview with Korean media house, inews24, reportedly confirmed that the company has adopted a new material for the upcoming phones this year, implying that Galaxy S5 may in fact ship with metal shell or at least a premium carbon-fiber body.

Besides the bump in build quality, Samsung is also said to over haul the Galaxy S5 physical contour design with a little increment in its display footprint and boost the screen quality to 2K (2560x1440p) resolution.

Predecessor, Galaxy S4 had full HD display, and this time, fans can expect the successor to flaunt a 5.25-inch display boasting a pixel density of 560 ppi (pixels per inch).

Processor, RAM and Storage:

In late 2013, Samsung's arch-rival Apple surprised the tech media with its new iPhone 5S boasting of industry's most advanced 64-bit chipset. This year, the South Korean company is leaving no stone unturned to make its marquee phone Galaxy S5 stand out among its competitors.

Rumour has it that upcoming Samsung phone would house a 64-bit architecture based Exynos 6 Octa-core processor paired with a new generation 20 nanometer LPDDR4 RAM (4GB) capable of providing the highest level of performance and battery efficiency compared to the current crop of physical memory chips seen inside any mobile devices.

In terms of storage, one can expect the new Samsung smartphone to come with 32GB inbuilt memory with expandable options via microSD card.

Special Attributes:

Multi-hovering technology:

Korean media house, ETnews has revealed that Samsung Galaxy S5 will boast an innovative multi-hovering technology.

This breakthrough technology has been developed to enhance the 3D gaming, wherein users can operate and play games Galaxy S5 without having to touch the screen. The sensors on the display have the ability to take note of the signals from the multiple hovering fingers movement as far as 30 mm (3 cm).

Head movement tracking feature:

In 2013, we saw Samsung introducing Galaxy S4  a plethora of gimmicky smart gesture control features such smart scroll, smart pause, Air View & Air Gesture, S Voice Drive .This year too, Samsung plans to introduce more advanced head movement tracking feature to browse web pages on the phone.

According to reports, the handset's front camera divides the user's image into various sections, and observes the change in a particular section to carry out a specific function,

Fingerprint Sensor:

For last few months, we been hearing that the Samsung Galaxy S5 would house an advanced Iris Scanner, however this week, a new report surfaced online that Samsung ditched this feature due to its technological limitations.

The Iris scanner required Samsung technicians to plant a second dedicated camera on the front, leading to changes in the Galaxy S5's structural design. This shortcoming forced the company to adopt the finger print scanner.

It is said that the biometric feature will be placed on the Galaxy S5 display, unlike we see in Apple's iPhone 5S (sapphire home button).

Mobile Operating Systems:

During the recently concluded international electronics trade fair, CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2014, Samsung introduced TabPRO and NotePRO tablets with KitKat OS, hence one can be certain that the upcoming Galaxy S5 will also ship with new Android OS out of the box.

Apart from new OS, Samsung is also reported to add a revamped custom UI TouchWiz with simple interface, quick access to applications and visually appealing to the eyes as well.

Key features of the new Android v4.4 KitKat include smarter caller ID, immersive display feature, Japanese Emoji characters, more organized message grouping Hangouts (now all SMSs, audio and video MMS will now found under one roof),  quick access to settings, Quickoffice word document app, wireless printing (select HP printers), Bluetooth MAP (Message Access Profile) and many more.

Camera:

The fifth generation Galaxy S device reportedly boasts of a top-of-the-line 20.0-megapixel main camera (ISOCELL technology) with OIS (Optical image stabilization), loss-less zoom feature and 4K resolution video taking capability.

On the front side, it is expected to flaunt a 2.1-megapixel camera with full HD video recording ability.

Launch details:

Earlier in the week, tech enthusiast Eldar Murtazin, who accurately predicted the Galaxy S4 debut date, said that the new Galaxy S5 might get launched on 23 February, just a day before the MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2014.

But the prediction turned out to be false, as Samsung confirmed that the company would host an event to give a sneak peek on Tizen devices on that very same day.

Many are placing their bets on Samsung to unveil Galaxy S5 within Q1, 2014. Company's executive vice-president (Mobile Business), Lee Young Hee while speaking to Bloomberg said the firm plans to launch the Galaxy S5 by the end of April this year.

"We've (Samsung) been announcing our first flagship model in the first half of each year, around March and April, and we are still targeting for release around that time," he said.

Price details:

If sources of SamMobile are to believed, the upcoming Galaxy S5 in metallic build would cost €800 (around ₹67,000), while the plastic build would hold a price-tag of around €650 (around ₹54,600).

In related news, Samsung, besides Galaxy S5 metal and plastic models, is also expected to release a smaller and camera specific variant - Galaxy S5 Mini and Galaxy S5 Zoom respectively around mid-2014.

Rumoured specifications of Samsung Galaxy S5 include: