Dubai: Samsung’s latest smartphone — the Galaxy S5 — with a fingerprint scanner, similar to iPhone 5S, will be available in the UAE on April 11.
The 5.1-inch device was unveiled on Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
“It is a very good product with good customer-oriented features. The UAE is one of the 110 countries where S5 will be launched simultaneously,” Deepak Babani, CEO of Eros Group and the main distributor fro Samsung phones in the UAE, told Gulf News from Barcelona.
He said the price is expected to be the same as Galaxy S4 at Dh2,700 but has not been finalised.
The device is powered by 2.5GHz quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and runs on the latest version of Android KitKat.
The S5 has a 16MP camera, pedometer, built-in heart rate monitor and a sensor to scan fingerprints on the home key button.
Samsung has added water and dust proofing in S5 and capability of withstanding one metre under water for 30 minutes and that was the differentiator for Sony’s Xperia’s premium smartphones.
According to Daniel Gleeson, senior mobile analyst at IHS Technology, said that if the Galaxy S range has a weakness, it’s the design of the handset. The S3 and S4 both featured cheap feeling plastic finishes, and while the Galaxy S5 improves on this a little, the overall design aesthetic lags far behind the iPhone, the HTC One and the Sony Xperia Z2.
Babani also said that the two smartwatches — Galaxy Gear2 and Gear Fit — are expected to arrive in the UAE around same time as S5.
“Samsung has added new features into the smartwatch. The Fit has a curved screen but no option to make calls. It can notify things like emails and calls and both the smartwatches can monitor heart rates.
“Samsung is underselling the Gear Fit, by not calling it a smart watch. The Gear Fit is really a smartwatch in the form factor of a fitness band; it has the ability to show smartphone notifications. It has an outstanding screen and neat design. It has all the useful smartphone features: media control, smartphone notifications, tells time as well as heart rate. It’s also in a much slimmer package than the Gear 2,” said Ian Fogg, head of mobile and telecoms analysis at IHS Technology.
He said Samsung’s growing range of smart wearables follows its smartphone portfolio strategy: varied features, prices, form factors. Gear Fit is one of the first devices to justify a curved screen and syncs to 20 Galaxy smartphones.
“Rivals better move fast. Samsung is using its smartphone market dominance to try to establish leadership in wearables,” Fogg said.
Samsung shipped just under 300 million smartphones last year and research firm IHS predicts this will grow by 26 per cent in 2014.
