We’re just a few weeks away now from the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5, with the latest flagship handset of the Korean corporation to be announced at the Mobile World Congress, which begins on Monday next week. The S5 will be lining up against the iPhone 6, which is more likely to be out in the third quarter of 2014. The rumor mill related to both devices has been running on hyperdrive in recent weeks, so which of the two smartphones looks more exciting?
Apple focusing on build quality
News has come through today that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is buying up all of the sapphire glass in the world seemingly! This may sound like an exaggeration, but The Register is reporting that Apple has snaffled enough to last them three years, leaving the manufacturer of Ubuntu Edge smartphones unable to get hold of any. Clearly Apple is placing a high premium on build quality, but Samsung has already stated that it will concentrate more on the physical appearance of this generation of Galaxy smartphones, and it looks likely that they will utilize higher quality materials than previously. Nonetheless, they will have a tough job on to better Apple in this department, and the iPhone manufacturer looks to be in the lead in this area.
Galaxy S5 Specs
The Galaxy S5 fares better in spec. The Galaxy S5 camera looks set to be of the 16-megapixel variety, giving it a significant advantage over the 8-megapixel snapper which will be included in the Apple smartphone. The Galaxy S5 will boast a 5.25-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, a 2.5GHz quad-core processor, 3GB of RAM, and will be the first mass market smartphone capable of displaying images in so-called 2K resolution. At the time of writing, it still looks likely that the iPhone 6 will feature a screen capable of 1080p; a full-HD resolution, but inferior to the Samsung offering.
Having said that, Apple is rumored to be trumping the Galaxy S5 in display size. Samsung’s device has featured the larger screen in recent years, but Apple will seemingly be increasing the size of the iPhone’s display by around 25 percent in order to produce a premium version of the phone which has been described as an entirely new iPhone concept. Clearly Apple has focused its energy on producing something which really stands out physically; an area where they have traditionally excelled.
Will Samsung head start count?
There will probably be more jockeying for position from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) between now and the time that Samsung releases the Galaxy S5, but the Korean company certainly has a head start in the marketplace, which may turn out to be useful. The early successes of the Xbox 360 console were attributed to the fact that it was simply released before the Playstation 3. However, previous iPhones have never really struggled to find a market despite a Q4 release date.
Conversely, though, the Financial Times reports today that Samsung may have rushed the Galaxy S5 out too quickly, and may not be able to offer enough of an improvement of previous models to make a huge impact. The proof will be in the pudding.
