UPDATED 07:41 EDT / JANUARY 09 2014

NEWS

Samsung S5 and Galaxy Gear II coming in April

Samsung fans have something to look forward to this April, as the Korean electronics giant is set to unveil the Galaxy S5, as well as a successor to its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, according to Lee Young Hee, Samsung’s executive vice president for mobile business.

Lee didn’t exactly give out a specific date of when the devices would be unveiled, but he did mention that it coincides with when the company usually reveals its flagship smartphone.

“We’ve been announcing our first flagship model in the first half of each year, around March and April, and we are still targeting for release around that time,” Lee said. “When we release our S5 device, you can also expect a Gear successor with more advanced functions, and the bulky design will also be improved.”

But what new features can we expect to see in the Galaxy S5?

According to Lee, Samsung is considering fitting in an iris scanner into the Galaxy S5 as a security measure, since sales of its Galaxy smartphones were dampened when Apple released the iPhone 5S with its fingerprint sensor. However, with April being just a few months away, there’s a possibility that the Galaxy S5 might come too soon for an iris scanner to be included.

“Many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology,” Lee said at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “We are studying the possibility but can’t really say whether we will have it or not on the S5.”

Another reason why Samsung’s shares and sales have dropped in Q4 2013 is due to the fact that consumers didn’t really see much of a difference between the Galaxy S3 and S4. According to Daewoo Securities Co., Samsung’s smartphone shipments declined from 17 million units down to 13 million units in the last three months of 2013.

So Samsung really does need to deliver a new device, with all-new jaw-dropping features.

Last year, GalaxyS5Info.com released a concept design for the S5.  The first concept design featured a 5.3″ OLED Youm display that extends to the sides, thus eliminating the need for physical buttons for volume control. The concept also featured a renovated home button, a single port for charging and accommodating a SIM card and microSD, 3GB of RAM, a 2GHz Exynos 5 OctaCore Processor running Android 4.4 KitKat, a 3200 mah Li-ion battery, and a 16MP Carl Zeiss camera.

However, this concept was later updated to take into account Samsung’s new Galaxy Round – the device proved to be successful as many consumers liked the idea of a curved phone, which is more comfortable to hold and use.  The redesigned concept S5 now features a 5.2″ flexible curved display with 2K resolution, a 16 MP ISOCELL camera made by Samsung that captures 4K quality pictures as well as full HD videos. The concept design also features a 4MP front camera, an iris scanner, ambient and proximity sensors, and a metal body frame instead of polycarbonate.

GalaxyS5Info.com’s concept design looks really sweet, let’s just hope Samsung listens to consumers and makes something almost as good as this design.

By the way, one final rumor to surface recently is the Galaxy S5 may be equipped with 4GB of RAM., which will give the device a massive 50 percent performance boost, with 40 percent less power required.


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