Barcelona to host unveiling of Samsung's latest mobile flagship. Aluminium chassis, fingerprint scanner and 16MP camera all lined up.
It has been confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S5, Samsung's brand new mobile device and successor to the S4, will be unveiled on February 24 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, preceding a March launch.
It was earlier this week that lucky recipients received an invite to an 'Unpacked 5' event, which was indeed an invite to the launch in Barcelona.
According to insider leaks, the S5 could be shipped with a 2560 x 1440 high-resolution screen, an aluminium chassis, and a fingerprint scanner.
A further leak last week which was posted on Hdblog.it shows a screenshot of an apparent S5 benchmark test. If valid, the S5 will boast a 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 1080p display. Specs still could be different at release though, as the benchmark test could be simply testing a 'mule' device, one that is used to refine the phone before launch.
A 16MP rear camera has also been hotly tipped. @Evleaks, a trusted 'leaker' (excuse the oxymoron), has said the the S5 will have a fingerprint scanner, but if this proves to be untrue, a retina scanner is also on the cards.
We're probably not going to see a 64-bit ARM chip inside the S5, as there really isn't any ready to be shipped in mass yet, apart from Apple's A7.
It's highly likely that the Samsung Galaxy S5 will not have a plastic chassis. Aluminium seems to be a good bet, giving the S5 a more premium feel more like that of the iPhone 5S.
Some sources have suggested that the S5 could feature curved screen technology, but as most of the devices that are curved only hit the market at January's CES in Las Vegas, it still could be a little early for the S5.
It will almost defintely run on Android 4.4 KitKat, given that that is the latest version from Android, but no one knows yet whether it will be overlaid with TouchWiz or Samsung's Magazine UI. Following the Google Samsung cross-licensing, we're probably going to see an interface that tries to get much closer to the stock Android user experience like that found on Google's Nexus devices.
In terms of price, we're likely to see an equivlant to the S4 launch price, which was around £550. Saying that, the more primium features and compents might bump this up a little bit. We're going to have to wait just a couple more weeks to figure out this one.