When the Galaxy S5 was just a rumor waiting for shelf space, there was a lot of talk about a premium device, made out of much better material and something closer to the HTC One. Of course, these were just rumors and when the Galaxy S4 finally launched last month during Mobile World Congress and there was no premium Galaxy S5 in sight, in fact the design and build disappointed a great many people. Of course, Samsung need to stay realistic with a device that they’re going to be shipping millions upon millions of units. Which is presumably why the Galaxy S5 is much the same.
Since then however, rumors of a premium “variant” of the Galaxy S5 have resurfaced and now something strange has happened, with conflicting words coming from Samsung’s executives in Korea. There’s a report coming from one Korean press source that says J.K. Shin himself denying rumors of a premium Galaxy S device, or even the prospect of a new line dubbed the “Galaxy F”. That would be the end of things, but then Samsung’s Vice Chairman, Kwon Oh-hyun, speaking at a shareholders’ meeting said the following: “We will maintain our dominance in key businesses, such as mobile phones, TVs and memory chips, by rolling out premium lineups.” Of course, whether or not Kwon was talking about premium TVs and not smartphones, or both remains to be seen. No matter what though, the plot thickens.
This sort of news is interesting because a lot of Samsung’s fans, and we’re sure their shareholders and investors, felt that the Galaxy S5 wasn’t a step forward far enough and that the device was announced early due to its “lack of innovation“. We have a hard time thinking that Samsung isn’t going to sell tens of millions of the Galaxy S5 this year, but there’s definitely room for improvement when it comes to their design and build. What do you guys think? Is Samsung likely to release a “premium” smartphone? Let us know in the comments below and over on Google+!