This week saw the hugely anticipated launch of the Samsung Galaxy S5. You could hardly move at the Mobile World Congress S5 event in Barcelona with over 5000 people crammed into witness the unveiling of Samsung’s latest smartphone.
The rumours were correct, Samsung have gone for a bigger screen but not much bigger – the S5 comes with a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen making it a whole 0.1-inches bigger than the S4. There was speculation that Samsung might have included a 2k resolution screen, however the Galaxy S5 features a 1920 x 1080 display which gives it a respectable 432ppi.
Samsung have stuck to their trusty plastic casing for the S5 with a nifty bobbled design on the rear of the phone which makes it fit securely in the palm of your hand. One of the huge advantages of the S5 is that it’s also tough with a Gorilla Glass 3 display as well as being dust and water resistant up to 1 metre for 30 minutes to comply with the IP67 certification. With most of us managing to drop or splash our phones on a fairly regular basis, this is certainly a fantastic feature.
There were also lots of rumours surrounding whether the Galaxy S5 would include some type of fingerprint scanning technology. It does in fact boast a fingerprint sensor on the front of the phone near the home button which unlocks the smartphone as well as offering a few added extras. The S5’s fingerprint scanner works by the user swiping the sensor to unlock the handset. You can store up to 3 different fingerprints which are registered by completing a series of swipe movements and in addition to the security element, the fingerprint technology permits you to pay for items online with your Paypal account. The S5 also boasts a Private Mode which in effect is a secure and private part of the device where you can lock away personal files and images – this too is unlocked via the fingerprint sensor.
With the increasing popularity of fitness wearable’s, Samsung have also incorporated some fitness features into the S5 which are likely to be a hit. On the back of the phone is a heart rate sensor which takes a reading of the user’s pulse when you put your finger onto the sensor. The revamped S-Health 3.0 fitness app also keeps tabs on your health and fitness and now includes a pedometer as well as recording calories and exercise.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 also features a great rear camera, a 16-megapixel version complete with the fastest autofocus currently found on a smartphone. The front-facing camera is 2-megapixels. The S5 also enjoys videoing in 4K Ultra HD, a HDR preview feature for photos and a Shot and More setting for finding the optimum settings to improve the quality of your photos.
There’s also some decent kit powering the Galaxy S5 such as a quad-core 2.5GHz Snapdragon 800 CPU, 2GB of RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of onboard storage expandable with the usual microSD card. The S5 is all set up to run on Android KitKat 4.4.2 and comes with a very respectable 2800mAh battery.
As well as the usual black and white handsets, the S5 will also be available in Gold and Blue and will be hitting stores as soon as April.
