Preorder The Galaxy S5 In the UK
Samsung Galaxy S5 was unveiled last month at the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, but it won?t be available until the second month of April, as its release date is set for April 11 2014. However, if you live in South Korea you can already buy the Samsung Galaxy S5 as carriers broke the release date and released Samsung’s upcoming flagship in retail stores; the decision is a direct consequence of restrictions imposed by the South Korean government, that prevent the carriers from signing up new customers form April to May.
However, while you cannot buy it yet, if you live in the United Kingdom, you will be able to preorder it at most carriers. As of this Friday, most UK carriers (O2, Three, Vodafone and EE) plus retailers Amazon, Phones4u and Carphone Warehouse have started accepting preorders for Samsung’s fifth Galaxy S flagship.
You can get the Samsung Galaxy S5 from EE on contract for ?32.99 per month (with 4 GB “double speed” 4G data) with an upfront payment of ?259.99 or for ?47.99 per month (with 20 GB of data per month) with an upfront payment of ?9.99. You cannot buy the 32 GB variant of the Samsung Galaxy S5 from EE, as the carrier only offers the Galaxy S5 variant with 16 GB of internal storage, in black, white and blue. EE also runs a promotion where it offers free return flights from airports across the UK to everyone that preorders the Samsung Galaxy S5.
You can also get the fifth Samsung Galaxy S smartphone from Three; just like EE, Three only offers the Samsung Galaxy S5 variant with 16 GB of internal storage, in black, white and blue. Three offers the Samsung Galaxy S5 on contract for an upfront payment of ?69 regardless of the desired contract plan. The cheapest data plan is available for ?38 and gives you 2 GB of data and 600 minutes per month. There are also two data plans available for ?41 that give you? 600 minutes and unlimited data per month or unlimited minutes and 2 GB of data per month. Finally, the most expensive data plan offered by Three is available for ?44 and it offers unlimited minutes and data per month.
Vodafone offers the Samsung Galaxy S5 on a two year contract. All data plans from Vodafone include unlimited minutes and text per month. The cheapest data plan is available for ?47 per month with an upfront payment of ?19 (with 3 GB of data per month), while the most expensive data plan offered by Vodafone is avaialble for ?62 per month with no upfront payment (with 13 GB of data per month). Just like EE and Three, Vodafone only offers the Samsung Galaxy S5 variant with 16 GB of internal storage; however, besides the black, white and blue color variants, Vodafone also offers the gold Samsung Galaxy S5.
Another carrier that offers the Samsung Galaxy S5 in black, white, blue and gold color variants is O2. The carrier offers the fifth Galaxy S off contract for ?649.99. The cheapest on contract data plan is available for ?38 per month with an upfront payment of ?69.99 (with 2 GB of data per month), while the most expensive data plan offered by O2 is available for ?53 per month with no upfront payment (with 8 GB of data per month). There is another data plan that offers 8 GB of data per month and it is available for ?48 per month with a ?39.99 upfront payment. O2, just like Vodafone, includes unlimited minutes and text per month for all its data plans.
Phones4u offers the Samsung Galaxy S5 on contract from many carriers, including Vodafone, EE, Orange and T-Mobile. Phones4u also offers the fifth Galaxy S off contract for ?569.95 and it comes in all four color variants: black, white, blue and gold; however, keep in mind that on launch day (April 11), the gold and blue color variants won’t be available. Phones4u is also running a promotion for the Samsung Galaxy S5: the first 1000 preorders will receive a free 7 inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 3, and ?50 Google Play credit with any 4G plan.
Carphone Warehouse also offers the fifth Galaxy S smartphone on contract from several carriers, such as EE, Orange, O2, Vodafone, T-Mobile and TalkMobile. If you want to buy the Samsung Galaxy S5 off contract from Carphone Warehouse you will have to pay ?579.95, ?10 more than the off contract price offered by Phones4u. Carphone Warehouse also offers all four color variants: black, white, blue and gold, though, was was the case with Phones4u, on launch day (April 11), the gold and blue color variants won’t be available; they will be available however from April 22 (the blue color variant of the Samsung Galaxy S5) and May 20 (the gold color variant).
Finally, you can get the Samsung Galaxy S5 from Amazon UK off contract for ?559.95 and it comes only in three color variants: black, white and blue. Amazon UK is also offering free delivery in all of the United Kingdom. It is also worth mentioning that Amazon UK has the release date of the Samsung Galaxy S5 as April 18, 2014 and that is when you will receive it if you order it from Amazon UK; so if you can’t wait a week longer (after the initial release date of April 11), it may be best to preorder the fifth Galaxy S smartphone from another retailer or carrier.
About the Samsung Galaxy S5
The Samsung Galaxy S5 keeps the design of the fourth Galaxy S almost intact. The Samsung galaxy S5 features a Super AMOLED panel capable of a Full high Definition resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The fifth Samsung Galaxy S is powered by a 2.5 GHz quad core Snapdragon 801 System on Chip with 2 GB of RAM and an Adreno 330 GPU. It will also be released in a variant with an octo core Exynos 5422 System on Chip that will feature two CPUs (a 2.1 GHz quad core Cortex-A15 and a 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7), 2 GB of RAM and an ARM Mali T628MP6 GPU. It also features a removable Li-ion 2800 mAh battery that is larger than Galaxy S4?s 2600 mAh Li-ion battery and it also offers a low power mode that is enabled when battery life is low.
One of the new additions is a home button that, just as the iPhone 5S, integrates a fingerprint scanner. The swipe based fingerprint sensor is inspired by iPhone 5S? similar sensor, but unfortunately first impressions were not very good: due to the swipe based nature of the fingerprint sensor it is almost impossible to activate it when using the Galaxy S5 with a single hand. The fifth Galaxy S also integrates a heart rate monitor placed on the smartphone?s back, next to the camera?s flash. The heart rate monitor can be used from within the S Health app and after placing your finger on the sensor, it will grab your pulse in about ten seconds, with very good accuracy.
Just like the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, the fifth Galaxy S features an IP67 (Ingress Protection) rating, which makes it dust proof and water proof as it is ?totally protected against dust? and is ?protected against the effect of immersion between 15cm and 1m?. The Samsung Galaxy S5 also comes with Android 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box and Samsung?s own front end touch interface, TouchWiz, over it plus the usual S branded apps and features. All in all, it is a high end smartphone, worthy of the Galaxy S brand.
