Samsung Galaxy Note 5 To Focus On VR

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Samsung has recently released the Galaxy S6, and comments made by the Korean Corporation already give us clues about the Galaxy Note 5. When interviewed by the Korea Herald, Roh Tae-moon, EVP of Samsung’s product strategy team, has implied that the Galaxy Note 5 may feature and even more revolutionary display than the Galaxy S6 Edge.

The senior executive suggested that this forthcoming phablet might include a dual-edge display. This is something that is very much part of the Samsung portfolio for the future, but Mr. Tae-Moon suggested that it might get its first outing with the release of the Galaxy Note 5 this year. It is still very early days for this concept, and certainly not too much was being given away, so it is not entirely clear whether or not this will be the sole Galaxy Note 5 model, or whether it will instead follow the blueprint laid out by the Galaxy S6 and previous iteration of the Galaxy note series.

Galaxy Note 5 September release date

Typically, Samsung releases The Galaxy Note phablet at an IFA event in September, and it is expected that the Korean corporation will follow this pattern again this year. However, Samsung may give this traditional schedule more serious consideration this time round, as the company knows it will be up against an Apple phablet in that part of the year.

With the iPhone 6 Plus having been extremely successful for Apple in 2014, and to some extent having resurrected an ailing phablet marketplace, there is no doubt that there will be an iPhone 7 Plus in 2015. While Samsung makes various barbs and other remarks about Apple in press conferences and public statements, the company no doubt hugely respects the market-leading consumer electronics giant, and this will have been brought into sharp focus by news which has broken recently.

It has been reported by the technology market analyst Gartner that Apple is now the leading seller of mobile devices on the planet. Apple has already been a market leader in terms of profitability for quite some time, and there is no way that the Cupertino-based company can be considered the poor relation to any other consumer electronics manufacturer. However, Samsung had managed to keep his nose in front in terms of total devices sold, but this trend has now reversed. Apple is evidently performing extremely well in China, while numerous manufacturers of affordable devices such as Lenovo and Huawei are also eating into Samsung’s market share.

So Samsung has officially lost its crown as being the world’s largest smartphone company, and given the ambitions of the corporation to replace Apple has the most prominent mobile manufacturer in the world, this may prompt a change of strategy. Analysts are already predicting that a flexible OLED display could be at the centre of its approach in the near future, and it is possible that Samsung will advance the release date of the Galaxy Note 5 in order to get a head start over the iPhone 7 Plus.

VR central

Another interesting aspect of the release of the Galaxy Note 5 which was mooted this week is the notion that Samsung will heavily focus on virtual reality with this phablet. With other major VR projects nearing completion and possible release, it has been suggested that’s the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 could feature an accompanying Gear VR release alongside the tablets.

This assumption has gained in prominence due to comments made by Oculus Rift’s John Carmack. The CTO of the VR company has stated that the Gear VR will get a full consumer launch with Samsung’s next hardware cycle. Whether or not this was just PR in operation, or whether it will actually come to fruition by the third-quarter of this year remains to be seen. But it is certainly a concept which would make sense for Samsung.

Apple Watch competition

With the Galaxy Note 5 competing directly with the iPhone 7 series, it is clear that Samsung needs to deliver new functionality in order to make it stand out from the Apple handset. By the time that the iPhone 7 Plus hits the market, Apple will have established the Apple Watch as a mainstream device, and although some people are sceptical about the whole concept of smartwatches, it is already predicted by market analysts that Apple will achieve significant market penetration and traction with its forthcoming watch.

Considering that the Apple Watch is very much a companion device for the iPhone, by the time the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus hit the market, compatibility between the Apple Watch and Apple’s flagship smartphone series should be seriously developed. This could be a real boost for the world’s most popular smartphone series, and thus Samsung really needs to deliver something outstanding and unique in response.

There is a lot of expectation surrounding the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus VR projects, and it seems an extremely wise idea for Samsung to attempt to tap into this.

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