How many different times do we need to see a rumor before it comes nearly irrefutable? Well of course nothing is irrefutable until it’s final, but we’ve been seeing lots of changes in the Galaxy S5’s display for a while now. Initially the Galaxy S5 was rumored to have a 2K QHD display, which is a resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. This is a full 50%+ more pixels than what is found in the current 1080p displays on most modern flagship smartphones like the Galaxy S4 and Note 3, and amount to an incredibly dense display. We’ve seen this change quite a few times though, going back and forth between the QHD display and just a “plain old” full HD 1080p display. It’s looking more and more though that it’s actually going to be both, with Samsung releasing the “standard” model first with a 5.25-inch 1080p display, and this summer they’ll launch a “premium” model with a 5.25-inch 2K QHD display. The reason for this isn’t because Samsung just wants more models on the market, it actually appears that they’ve been having supply issues with the 2K QHD displays instead. This isn’t really a surprise, as we’ve seen other phones like the Vivo Xplay 3S which was supposed to be the first QHD phone on the market.
Right now according to some sources the T-Mobile model of the premium Galaxy S5 should be on its way to market somewhere in the month of June, and likely that release will be the same date on other US carriers too. Internationally is unknown as of yet, but we’ve only got to wait until Monday when Samsung is having their big event to find out more information. This wouldn’t be the first time Samsung has released a premium model of a flagship phone, so there’s a real precedent for this sort of thing. If you remember last year Samsung launched the Galaxy S4 in April with a Snapdragon 600 chipset and LTE on-board, and later on in the Fall they released a supercharged version that included a Snapdragon 800 CPU as well as an LTE-Advanced modem. It’s possible that Samsung will release the standard Galaxy S5 with a Snapdragon 800 as well, and the premium model could come with that faster Snapdragon 805 since that chipset isn’t going to be available until summer as the phone is rumored to be. Check back this coming Monday for our Mobile World Congress 2014 coverage including Samsung’s big Galaxy S5 event.