2015 will be a big year for Samsung. The Korean manufacturing giant had a disappointing 2014, having to absorb a significant slump in profits, as its range of phablets failed to live up to expectations. Indeed, Samsung began at the year extremely bullish about its prospects, proclaiming that it expected to challenge Apple for supremacy in the mobile market in the near future. Although its curved television sets continue to garner a great deal of attention, this didn’t really materialize, and the company will be playing catch-up to some extent in 2015.
If that sounds all doom and gloom, then the outlook for Samsung isn’t as bleak as last year’s prognosis might imply. Despite the company’s stock price plummeting in Q3, by the end of the year Samsung shares had bounced back considerably:
… and there is no doubt whatsoever that the company remains a technology powerhouse. The authoritative Interbrand survey rates Samsung as the seventh most potent brand on the planet, while Forbes considers the company to be eighth in its list. Forbes also ranks Samsung as among the top ten corporations on the planet in terms of profit, so despite the fact that there has been some negative media speculation directed at the company in recent months, the long-term future of Samsung still appears pretty rosy.
Galaxy S6 – iPhone rival
Nonetheless, the Korean corporation will want to get 2015 off to a good start, and has the perfect opportunity to do so with the latest release of its flagship Galaxy S series. Its smartphone has been the most obvious competitor to the iconic Apple iPhone in recent years, and although it has its share of foibles, it also attracts a massive following owing to its power and high-spec portfolio.
Samsung will be looking to pull out all the stops with the Galaxy S6, the latest device in the Galaxy S series. The release date for this smartphone has not been confirmed yet, but the overwhelming likelihood is that it will be unveiled during the Mobile World Congress, which once again takes place in March in the Spanish city of Barcelona.
As the local soccer fans tear themselves away from their beloved Barca for a few days, Samsung will be attempting to attract their attention with a truly outstanding smartphone release. And with this in mind, the rumor mill is grinding, and we already have a significant number of leaks and murmurings regarding what we can expect from the Galaxy S6.
New images emerge
New photographs have been leaked online in the last 24 hours by an Iranian tech website. How accurate this source will turn out to be is debatable, but the pictures nevertheless make fascinating viewing for fans of Samsung devices. The photographs in question are blurry and indistinct, but the images give some indication of what is purported to be the Galaxy S6 device.
The first image displays the front and back panel of the device in three color variants, while that second image displays previous iterations of the Galaxy S series laid alongside each other for comparison purposes, with a third device presumed to be the Galaxy S6 also placed next to the S5. What this image reveals, or at least implies, is that the Galaxy S6 will be significantly longer than the previous handset in the series.
It has also been suggested that a prototype of the Galaxy S6 has been sent to India for testing and scrutiny. This is according to leaks emanating from the import/export tracking website Zauba. According to the source, the model number of this next-generation Samsung smartphone will be SM-G920F. This suggests that the device has not quite gone into production, but that the final details have already been finalized by Samsung.
Reddit leaks
Meanwhile Samsung employees have also been reportedly speaking to the press. A user named SamsungRep2015 on Reddit has stated that Samsung is currently working on three separate variants of the Galaxy S6; a gossipy thread which was picked up on by SamMobile. Again, to what extent a Reddit post can be taken seriously is debatable, but what we do know is that seriously accurate information has been leaked by people on this website previously.
According to the employee in question, one of the three Galaxy S6 variants features a standard display, while the other two are being tested with curved edge screens, akin to last year’s Galaxy Note Edge phablet. Samsung has become so associated with its curved screen technology that it seems a certainty that the manufacturing giant will now attempt to incorporate it in a wide variety of mobile devices.
The Reddit poster didn’t really go into spec details, but (s)he revealed some general observations about the Galaxy S6. Firstly, it was noted that the benchmarks related to the device are “noticeably higher” than the previous devices, “but not by earth shattering amounts”. Device responsiveness has been greatly improved and memory consumption has also reportedly been reduced.
Rumored specs
Rumors currently suggest that the Galaxy S6 could feature a larger 5.5-inch QHD display, and this would be consistent with the leaked images that have emerged recently. Certainly it would be an obvious step forward for Samsung to release a Galaxy S device with a larger screen, and tweaking the handset to produce QHD resolution would seem like the sort of innovation which would keep the display quality ahead of Apple; seen as a big selling point of Samsung devices in general.
Other rumored specs include a 20-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front camera. The device could run off a 64-bit octa-core Exynos 7420 processor and 3GB RAM, and the device should make use of the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system.
With only two months to wait in all probability to see this device for the first time, we already have a strong impression of how it will shape up. Samsung will be hoping that the response to this critical smartphone is favorable.
