Samsung sought Monday to frame its new Galaxy S5 smartphone
as a lifestyle product, as it emphasized a built-in heart-rate sensor and
improved camera features over its slightly larger size.
One of the main appeals of Samsung phones has been their
size. The screen has steadily increased since the 4 inches on the original S from 2010, while the iPhone
made that jump to 4 inches only in 2012 and has stayed that way since.
But the S5 pushes the screen to only 5.1 inches measured
diagonally, from 5 inches in last year's
model. Instead of size, Samsung touted the new phone's ability to adapt its
screen to changing external conditions and to dim it to avoid disturbing others
nearby.
The phone has a 16 megapixel camera, sharper than the 13
megapixels in its predecessor. It promises faster auto focus and the ability to
blur the foreground or background of an image to emphasize a subject.
Samsung Electronics Co. made the latest announcement during
the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain.
The new phone will go on sale worldwide on April 11. The
company didn't announce a price; its predecessor sold for about $600 without
phone subsidies or a contract.
The S5 has a fingerprint sensor to use in place of a
passcode to unlock the phone or make payments through PayPal. It's a feature
still rare in phones, though Apple introduced it in last fall's iPhone 5s.
Samsung's Galaxy S series has emerged as one of the
strongest challengers to Apple's iPhones and has helped the Korean company
surpass Apple as the world's largest smartphone maker. According to Gartner,
Samsung's smartphones had a worldwide market share of 31 per cent last year,
compared with 16 per cent for Apple's iPhones.Samsung showed restraint this
time.
"Samsung is betting big on wellness, fingerprint
reading and camera autofocus, while keeping a very similar look and feel for
its hardware and software," said Nick Dillon, a senior analyst at the
research firm Ovum. "The updates are so minor that on first glance most
consumers would be hard pressed to notice that it has changed from the previous
version."
But he said that is to be expected "given the maturity
of the smartphone market and the pressure on the Samsung not to mess with its
winning formula.''
The heart-rate sensor on the S5 can be used before and after
exercise to measure fitness activities. It's not meant for continuous tracking.
Samsung also unveiled a fitness band, Gear Fit, to complement two new
computerized watches announced Sunday. Those will be available April 11 as
well.
