Before the new Samsung Galaxy S5 made its appearance at the MWC on February 24, there were so many unanswered questions about the device – Samsung was able to keep us guessing all the way until the official announcement. The problem is, now that the Galaxy S5 is ‘outed,’ there appear to be as many questions, or maybe even more, about this new flagship of Samsung’s. We will try to answer many of those lingering questions – we cannot guarantee that you will be satisfied with all of the answers, but we will do our best to take some of the mystery out of the Galaxy S5.
Where and When and Pricing – Samsung tells our source that the Samsung Galaxy S5 will go on sale on April 11 in over 150 countries, and that includes the U.S. It will be on all of the major carriers – Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile, as well as U.S. Cellular, and MetroPCS and available at Best Buy, Amazon, Radio Shack, Target, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Costco. In other words, any place you set foot you should run into the Galaxy S5. Samsung claims that the new S5 will cost the same as the Galaxy S4 – meaning about $200 on a two-year contract and around $600 – $700 unlocked.
What no Metal, What’s With a Finger Scanner, and Why the Heart Rate Sensor – These round out the big three questions of the Galaxy S5 design. There were hopeful rumors that the S5 would contain a metal body and we even saw PICTURES of the metal shell for heaven sake…what happened? Samsung continues its stand on durability, weight considerations, and pricing as its defense. Probably out of pressure from Apple and HTC, although it could be Samsung’s plot to keep their beloved physical home button around, we now have a finger scanner (up to three fingers can be registered) – that is optional to use – that serves two functions, one to let you unlock your device and secondly to make payments through PayPal. You start with your finger above the home button and drag it slowly over. Samsung believes there are people out there that want to stay fit – I am beyond being saved – and with the demand for fitness bands, Samsung upgraded its S Health App and integrated a Heart Rate Sensor by the LED flash. You press your finger on that area; your device will record your heart rate as it works with the S Health App to keep a history, graphs, etc.
Why did Samsung Make the Galaxy S5 Water and Dust Resistant – This is a fairly easy question to answer. With customer’s active lifestyle of going to the beach or the pool or even dropping your device in a puddle of water or spilling a drink on it…Samsung decided to make all S5’s ‘Active,’ rather than coming out with a separate model. Fewer models means less inventory and happier customers – it’s a win-win for everybody. The Galaxy S5 is Military Spec IP67 certified which means it can stay underwater for up to 30 minutes at 3 meters (about 3 feet)…just make sure that the exterior “plugs” such as the USB 3.0 are closed properly.
Does it Have Wireless Charging Built-in – No, but you can purchase an accessory to accomplish that feat.
Is There Anything New in TouchWiz – Yes, we are happy to report that Samsung has tried to ‘lighten’ their hold on pure Android by incorporating many changes in TouchWiz that should make for a faster and smoother experience. The Camera App, Notifications Tray, and the Settings Menu are where you will notice the most changes. The virtual keyboard gets tweaked a bit and the Samsung Hub is completely removed. You may be wondering if the Samsung Hub is gone forever – it is no longer preloaded on the S5, but you can still access it to download Samsung Apps. The idea was to remove some of the bloat ware and free up that memory to handle other S5 features that were added.
Is the Camera as Fast as Samsung Claims – They claim it will autofocus in 0.3 seconds and our sources tell us that they did not notice much lag in focusing, but did not think of it as lighting fast, so we will have to wait until further testing is done.
Does the Ultra Power Saving Mode Work – Samsung claims that this new mode can keep your S5 running for 24 hours on only 10-percent battery! This will be great if it is true and only testing will tell – this works by changing the display to grayscale, limiting the processor, does away with GPS, turns off the Wi-Fi when your screen goes dark, and stops most of your extraneous Apps that normally would be running in the background.
Will Ultra Power Savings Mode Make its Way to Other Samsung Devices – Samsung is considering sending this software update to other devices, as well as the S Health 3.0.
Will There be Other Galaxy S5 Variants – Samsung has not announced anything at this time, but if history is any indication, that answer would be, yes…most likely a scaled-back Galaxy S5 Mini. There is no need for the Active model since all S5’s would already have those features.
Please let us know on our Google+ Page if all of your questions have been answered or if you might have others that we can look into for you.