The much-anticipated smartphone of the year Samsung Galaxy S5, which was long rumoured to boast the advanced Iris scanner biometric technology, has reportedly dropped the plan and will instead come with a finger-print sensor.
The Korean Herald, citing industry sources, claims Samsung has dumped the Iris scanner due to technological limitations and has opted to use the finger-print sensor.
The Iris scanner would have required Samsung technicians to use a second dedicated camera on the front, leading to changes in the Galaxy S5's structural design. This shortcoming has forced the company to use the finger print scanner instead. This feature will be placed on the display, unlike we see on the Apple's iPhone 5S home button.
"Who would want to put their handset up close to their eyes for authentication in places like movie theaters and bed, or even while they are driving?," stated another industry source.
This revelation has certainly let down Samsung fans, who would have been happy to brag about the advanced Iris scanner on their soon- to-be-launched Galaxy S5, since the Iris scanner is more sophisticated than the finger-print sensor, based archrival Apple's iPhone 5S.
On the bright side, Samsung Galaxy S5 will reportedly come with a high-end 20-megapixel camera with 4K video recording feature and also boast an advanced multi-hovering technology, as well as a head-tracking gesture control features.
The multi-hovering feature is expected to enhance 3D gaming on the Galaxy S5 as the new sensor on the display will have the ability to accurately recognize multiple finger movements from as far as 30mm (3cm) from the screen.
On the other hand, the new gesture control feature will enable users to browse webpages by moving their head; an improvement over the video pause/resume feature seen in the Galaxy S4.
In Galaxy S5, the front-camera will be equipped with a software to divide the user's image into multiple sections, and then it observes the change in a particular section to carry out a specific function, reported SamMobile.
Other Rumoured specifications of Samsung Galaxy S5 include:
| Model | Samsung Galaxy S5 |
| Display | 5.25-inch Super AMOLED display with 2K (2560x1440p) resolutions and pixel density of 560 ppi (pixels per inch) |
| OS | Android v4.4 KitKat OS with new TouchWiz interface |
| Processor | 64-bit architecture based Samsung Exynos chipset or Exynos 5420 Octa-core processor |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Storage capacity | expect to come in 32GB , 64GB variants with micro SD card slot |
| Camera | Main: 20.0 - megapixel camera with 4K video recording Front: 2.1 -megapixel camera with full HD video recording |
| Battery | 2900 mAh battery with paid charging technology |
| Network | 3G/4G/LTE-Advanced |
| Add-ons | metal casing, smart camera gesture control feature, finger print based biometric technology |
