Samsung’s Got A Newer Galaxy S5 Coming Out Soon. What Does It Look Like, And What Does It Do?
If you bought Samsung’s Galaxy S5 when it debuted earlier this year, you’re probably a bit happy with yourself for having the latest and greatest, huh? Well, there’s an even newer model of the Galaxy S5 coming out real soon, and pictures of it have just started popping up on the ‘net.
The new unit is called the Galaxy S5 Active, and press photos of the device leaked this week thanks to serial tech news leaker @evleaks. The new photos show a tweaked version of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy device, one with a more rugged design. The Galaxy S5 Active is meant for those with a more – you guessed it! – active lifestyle. Well, either active livers or those more prone to dropping their phones down a flight of stairs.
So what’s the difference between the plain vanilla Galaxy S5 and the rugged Galaxy S5 Active? Well, the GS5 Active has IP58 certification, according to those in the know. This means that the device can stay under water for more than 30 minutes. The regular old Galaxy S5 can only stay submerged for up to 30 minutes before it runs home crying to mama. The new model also boasts physical buttons, so that you can actually use it underwater.
The newest entry in the Galaxy S series is also said to have optical image stabilization in its imaging hardware. That could mean that all those active users are better able to take pictures and video without blurring and shaking from all the… y’know, activity.
The jury is still out on other rumors surrounding the new Galaxy S. Some say that it might have a 5.2-inch screen instead of the 5.1-inch screen present on the current Galaxy S5. (Gasp!) Others say that it might be thinner than a regular GS5… so as to be more aerodynamic during all that activity. We’ll see when Samsung shows the device off later this year.
Okay, so fine. The rugged GS5 Active is all that is man, and it will take your mother out for a nice pasta dinner and grate the parmesan using its own beard, fine. But why is Samsung even coming out with another model just a couple of months after the previous model launched? Answer: Because they can, of course! This is kind of Samsung’s modus operandi: Flood the market with an almost ludicrous number of phone models, hitting every price point and use case that you can, and watch the dollars roll in.
Does it work? In a word: Yes. In more words, we’ll put it like this: There are two tech companies whose smartphone divisions are actually making money. One is Apple with its cash-printing iPhone; the other is Samsung. Plus Samsung has a wide lead in overall smartphone sales, dwarfing everybody in terms of total units moved. With the Galaxy S5 Active, Samsung is just continuing what it has always done in smartphones, the same thing it seeks to do in smartwatches: iterate and make a device for every taste, and watch the dollars roll in.
