While reports have suggested that Samsung was supposedly looking to streamline its smartphone portfolio, that doesn’t seem to have happened thus far. A new Samsung smartphone with the model number SM-G903F seems to have received its Wi-Fi certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance, indicating the device will be compatible with dual band (2.4 and 5 GHz) Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n. While the certification in itself doesn’t give us too many clues about the possible hardware specifications of the device, there have been rumors about Samsung prepping a new handset called the Galaxy S5 Neo, which is a 2015 take on the Galaxy S5. The company had introduced the Galaxy S3 Neo last year, two full years after the Galaxy S3 was introduced as the company’s third generation flagship in 2012. Now it looks like the South Korean consumer electronics major is prepping the launch of yet another refreshed version of a previous flagship, to presumably position as a mid-range device.
While most of the hardware specifications of the Galaxy S5 Neo is still in the realms of speculation, earlier leaks have given us some hints as to what the device may actually be like once it’s ready for primetime. The smartphone will reportedly be powered by the Exynos 7580 SoC instead of the Snapdragon 801 chip found in the original Galaxy S5. The chipset comes with an integrated octa-core CPU clocked at a maximum of 1.6 GHz, and a Mali-T720 GPU. This is to be expected of more and more devices with the passage of time as Samsung has been transitioning from Qualcomm’s chips to its in-house Exynos processors in recent times for its high to mid-range smartphones and tablets.
As for the rest of the hardware, the handset is said to feature a 5.1-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, and come with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage. The device is also rumored to carry a 2,800 mAh battery, and is expected to ship with Android 5.1 Lollipop pre-installed with TouchWiz interface on top. As for the cameras, the primary camera will be a 16 megapixel unit, but the front camera interestingly, is slated to see an upgrade from the 2.1 megapixel unit found on the Galaxy S5. The selfie-cam, in keeping with the times, is said to come with a 5 megapixel sensor. As for the pricing, the device will probably cost around $490 dollars in the Czech Republic according to rumors, but we don’t really have any independent way of verifying that. There are also no indications either about when Samsung might eventually decide to bring the device to the market.
