Now that Samsung has released its latest flagship devices for 2013, packed with the most high-tech screens and other components, naturally the rumor mill has turned to The Next Big Thing for 2014. At this point we’ve seen some rumors that make plenty of sense, and a few nonsensical ones too. The Galaxy S5 is highly likely to sport a metal body, probably won’t ship with optical image stabilization on its camera, and will likely see the light of day sometime around the new year before Spring officially starts. Then there’s some questionable rumors, like whether or not the Galaxy S5 will sport the same exact chipset inside as every other flagship of Fall 2013, including the Galaxy Note 3. Then of course there’s today’s rumor, which could be taken either way, but seems less than plausible. According to Korean ETNews the Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 could ship with an LCD screen instead of the AMOLED screens that Samsung’s flagship devices have shipped with for years now. If true this would be a huge shakeup in the industry, and one that could be more for cost reasons than anything else.
According to the rumor Samsung is looking to save some cash in its mobile division, which really doesn’t make any sense at all given the astronomical record earnings set last quarter, let alone since Samsung started producing the Galaxy S line 4 years ago. There’s other more plausible ideas that the rumor has though, including shifting production to LCD for its flagship phones due to the fact that they are supposedly switching to AMOLED displays for their upcoming tablet lines.
Of course the other thing we could consider here is the density at which the next lineup of displays are supposed to be coming in at. We heard back at the beginning of November that the Galaxy S5 was supposed to pack a rather insane 2560 x 1440 display, which equates to around 560 pixels-per-inch on a 5-inch display. That’s more than 100 pixels-per-inch more dense than the current lineup of displays, and as we pointed out in our Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 reviews, Samsung has been unable to retain the non-pentile nature of the Galaxy Note II’s display, meaning that a 1080p display isn’t actually 1080p; more like 900p or somewhere around that mark. Other manufacturers who are using LCD like LG and HTC are able to get the full resolution in the panel, and that could be another reason Samsung could switch to LCD the next time around until they perfect their own AMOLED display technology. Rumors abound at any time in the mobile industry, and the waters don’t get any more murky than when we’re approaching the launch of another new flagship device. Stick with us and we’ll help you navigate as always.