Samsung Galaxy S5 release date, news and rumors


The Samsung Galaxy S4 has landed - and we loved it, as you'll see through our in-depth review. It's light, slim and powerful, and has the best screen we've seen on a smartphone.
But we know what you're like. You're already thinking about the Galaxy S5.
Luckily we're constantly trawling the web for all the latest on Samsung's next flagship phone, and we've pulled together everything we've found to give an overview of what you might be able to expect from the Galaxy S5.
But if you're one of those interneteers that likes to skim read things in the hope someone will go through all the rumors and create a video render with them all thrown in together, well, you're in luck.
In terms of the name we'd be surprised if Samsung was to deviate from the highly lucrative Galaxy S prefix which has seen the Korean firm squeeze every last drop of money out of the brand with numerous handset spin offs of its top products. Expect it to arrive as the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Samsung Galaxy S5 release date and price

All the big smartphone manufacturers are relatively entrenched in annual product cycles now, which means we can usually predict when they will launch their headlining products.
As far as the Samsung Galaxy S5 goes it's likely that we'll see the Korean firm take to the stage sometime in March 2014 with its fifth generation flagship smartphone. If the Galaxy S4 launch event is anything to go by expect it to be big, brash and rather confusing.
That said, there's a rumor doing the rounds which suggests Samsung may actually bring the launch forward to February after the Galaxy S4 failed to sell as many as predicted.
In terms of price there's no point hoping that Samsung might offer the Galaxy S5 at a more competitive rate than its predecessors. It will be crammed full of new tech and thus will carry a price tag which will see it sit right at the top of pricing tree.
If it does bring an aluminium chassis, curved display and more, then we can see the price sky-rocketing. Time to start saving? You betcha.

Samsung Galaxy S5 to finally go all metal?

A lot of the early rumors appear to be focussing on the chassis of the Samsung Galaxy S5, with various sources claiming the S5 will be the handset where the Korean firm finally breaks is polycarbonate relationship in favour of a full metal jacket.
Smartphones such as the iPhone 5S and HTC One have shown up the Galaxy S4 this year, offering a far superior look and feel and it's an area Samsung needs to work on with the Galaxy S5.
An "inside source" apparently confirmed to Android Geeks that the Galaxy S5 will arrive with a fully aluminium chassis and a new look dubbed "Design 3.0".
The aluminium frame rumor was given another hat tip by Korean site ETNews which reported that the Galaxy S5 would have an all-metal chassis.
Further fuel was then added to the all-metal fire when analysts claimed that Catcher Technology Co had taken an order to make the metal chassis for Samsung's Galaxy series.
And here's our first snap! Expect a lot more in the build up to the Galaxy S5 launch, but a photo claiming to show the metal frame of Samsung's next flagship phone gives us more hope that it may pass on plastic at last.
Samsung Galaxy S5 - LEAKCredit: Nowhereelse.fr
If this image is the real deal it rules out a flexible Galaxy S5 though, and the frame could still be covered in polycarbonate.
We may even get the best of both worlds as another report suggests that Samsung is prepping two versions of the Galaxy S5 - one metal, one polycarbonate. We reckon that's pretty unlikely, but could suggest the Korean firm is toying with both materials.
It's worth remembering that similar rumors surrounded the Galaxy S4 which still launched with a polycarbonate body, so we're not getting too excited just yet.

Samsung Galaxy S5 64-bit CPU

There was a lot of buzz around the 64-bit A7 processor which Apple stuffed inside the iPhone 5S and it's been blowing up benchmark tests left right and centre, and it looks like Samsung wants a bit of the action.
There's no question that the Galaxy S5 will be a powerhouse of a phone, but it may struggle to match the likes of the iPhone 5S and even the Note 3 after a benchmark result showed an unnamed Samsung device coming in behind both.
The rumors have been thoroughly shoving back and forth over whether Samsung will be launching the S5 with a 64-bit processor, as an ARM executive spilled the beans on the South Korean brand picking up its fancy new chip for 2014.
It could be kept for the Note 4, but then again Apple would have had a massive lead in the 64-bit market by then. The S5 looks like it could have a whacking 4GB of RAM as well to power all the new technology inside, taking better advantage of that 64-bit chip.
64-bit is certainly not set in stone and another leak has pointed towards Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 quad-core chip clocked at 2.5GHz alongside an Adreno 330 CPU.
Considering the Galaxy Note 3 has launched with a mighty 2.3GHz quad-core processor and 3GB of RAM we'd expect the Galaxy S5 to at least match it, if not beat it.

Samsung Galaxy S5 screen

This is a tricky one - Samsung already has a display that's sharper than the human eye can detect, so why would it go any sharper?
The electronics brand seems to have ignored that question and will be possibly bringing the S5 with a 2K display - that's a dizzying 560ppi for screens as small as five inches.
It's not all about sharpness, as it could also lead to improved colour performance and refresh rate for slicker video and animations.
Given Samsung wants to go 4K for its 2015 smartphones, the halfway resolution makes sense for next year's devices.
In fact a resolution of 2560 x 1440 briefly popped up alongside the SM-G900S model number on a benchmark test, before the details were pulled, fuelling the Galaxy S5 fire further.
In terms of the screen tech for the Galaxy S5, Samsung has always stuck AMOLED panels on its flagship handsets, but there appears to be a little bit of confusion for the fifth generation device.
Rumors suggest that Samsung may move away from the AMOLED technology in favor of LCD panels in the Galaxy S5, with a view to save money on producing the handset.

Samsung Galaxy S5 operating system

All previous headlining Galaxy S handsets have sported the Android operating system and we don't expect that to change with the Galaxy S5.
Google's latest version of its mobile platform, Android 4.4 KitKat, is launched in October 2013, so it's highly likely this will be the version of choice for the Galaxy S5 come March.
There's a rumor that is throwing a spanner in the works though, suggesting that Samsung will offer the Galaxy S5 in both Android and its own-brand Tizen variants.
Now this sounds pretty unlikely so we're taking this with a large pinch of salt, but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Samsung Galaxy S5 design

As we've briefly mentioned already there's talk of a whole new design language for the Galaxy S5 which will hopefully see Samsung break away from the similar styling of the Galaxy S3 and S4.
Obviously a metal chassis would help in changing the design, but we want to know what the Galaxy S5 will actually look like.
A patent application unearthed by Patent Bolt might shed some light on this, with a couple of images cropping up showing a squarer Galaxy S5 design.
If the patents are real then Samsung may be about to finally ditch the physical home button which currently adorns all its handsets.
Samsung Galaxy S5 - LEAKCredit: Patent Bolt

Samsung Galaxy 5S camera

The Galaxy S4 rocked up with a pretty decent 13MP camera on its rear, but rumors surrounding Galaxy S5 suggest it will take things a little further with a 16MP snapper.
That's still not as impressive as the 20MP Sony Xperia Z1 or 41MP Nokia Lumia 1020 - but do we really need cameras that powerful on our phones? You tell us!
The same report from the Electronic Times News also mentioned that the Galaxy S5 would sport the same optical image stabilisation (OIS) tech as the LG G2.
Samsung has announced a new CMOS image sensor dubbed ISOCELL which will almost certainly debut in the Galaxy S5, after the company told analysts the tech would be appearing in phones during 2014 and 2015.
The new sensor isolates individual pixels which minimises electrical crosstalk between them, which in turn leads to higher colour fidelity, for sharper, richer images.

Samsung Galaxy S5 finger print scanner

Anyone hoping that Samsung will follow in the footsteps of Apple and bring a fingerprint scanner to the Galaxy S5 could well be disappointed if certain rumors are to be believed.
That's after a Samsung official apparently told the Korean Times that the company is "not yet developing the technology" for its handsets. Boo.
All hope is not lost however, as the fingerprint rumor has reared its ugly head again, contradicting earlier reports with a fingerprint scanning firm claiming Samsung will be going big on the tech after all in 2014.
There were rumors of both Samsung buying a biometrics firm, which were instantly denied, and more recently it was mooted that the S5 would use retinal scanning to unlock the phone.
Unless someone comes out with a pretty nifty explanation of how this might work, we can't see it appearing next year. We're not holding our phone up to the eye just to open it up. We'd look insane.