Galaxy S5 Mini To Be Unveiled And Released Soon
On February 24th, at the 2014 Mobile World Congress that was held in Barcelona, Spain, during an event named Unpacked 5, Samsung unveiled the fifth Galaxy S smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy S5 will be released worldwide in about a month, on April 11th and at the moment it is the most talked about device in the mobile industry and for good reason; it features improved specs and a slightly modified design and it also features a few innovations such as a fingerprint sensor.
Speaking of the fingerprint sensor, we reported not long ago a rumor that suggested Samsung was having supply issues as the South Korean company ran out of sensor yields. Samsung manufactures the fingerprint sensor itself, even though initially the South Korean company wanted to outsource the fingerprint sensor’s production to another company. Due to the supply issue, Samsung is rumored to be partnering with Crucialtec in order to be able to produce more fingerprint sensors for the Samsung Galaxy S5 flagship and meet the April 11 deadline. You can read more about that rumor here.
Today we have a new rumor related to the recently unveiled Samsung Galaxy S5. While the rumor is not directly about Samsung’s upcoming flagship, it does have something to do with it as it is suggested that a Samsung Galaxy S5 variant, the Samsung Galaxy S5 mini, is already in the works and is going to be released soon after the original Samsung Galaxy S5. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Samsung made a habit of releasing a Mini variant of its Galaxy S flagships. We said the Galaxy S5 Mini is rumored to be released soon; just how soon? According to rumors, Samsung will release the Mini variant of the fifth Galaxy S in August, four months after the April 11 launch of the Samsung Galaxy S5.
The rumor comes from an anonymous source that mentions so take it with a grain of salt However, it is not exactly hard to believe that Samsung is going to eventually launch a Mini variant of its upcoming Galaxy S5 smartphone so we can see this rumor being correct. Even more evidence comes from Zauba, an Indian import website. A new model number appeared on Zauba, the SM-G870 and rumors point to it being the Mini variant of the fifth Galaxy S5 flagship.
Regarding the upcoming specs and features of the Galaxy S5 Mini variant, it will of course be a bit of a downgrade relative to the Galaxy S5. While the fifth Galaxy S features a Full High Definition 5.1 inches Super AMOLED panel, a 2.5 GHz quad core Snapdragon 801 System on Chip with 2 GB of RAM, an Adreno 330 GPU and a 16 MP camera sensor that includes 4K video recording, phase detection auto focus (which can focus in around 0.3 seconds) and real time HDR for photos and videos.
By comparison, the Mini variant of the Galaxy S5 is rumored to feature a lower resolution camera sensor of only 10 MP and it will also feature 2 GB of RAM. Also, the Mini variant of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is rumored to be released with Android 4.2.2 instead of the latest Android 4.4.2 KitKat that will be the mobile Operating System of the fifth Galaxy S flagship. The Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini will also feature wireless charging and a Super AMOLED panel, according to the same source. That is all we know at the moment and even these are just rumored specs and features.
If you think about it, Samsung’s new strategy of releasing a ‘Mini’ version with low specs and less features between two generations of its flagship smartphones is very similar to Apple’s strategy of releasing an ‘S’ version of its iPhones, between the main generations. Even though Apple’s ‘S’ version are actually marginal upgrades over the last generation, from a business point of view, Samsung is doing the same thing with its ‘Mini’ versions of the Galaxy S flagships. Rumors also suggests that Samsung will continue with the same pricing strategy, which means you can expect the price of the Galaxy S5 Mini relative to the Galaxy S5 to be the same as that of the Galaxy S4 Mini relative to the Galaxy S4.
Even though the Samsung Galaxy S5 hasn’t even been released yet, every analyst expects Samsung to unveil and release the Mini variant of the Galaxy S5 at some point in the near future. While the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini was unveiled two months after the Samsung Galaxy S4′s unveiling, the anonymous source that started the Galaxy S5 Mini rumors, suggests that the Mini variant of the latest Galaxy S flagship won’t be announced until June 2014, so we may have to wait a bit more until anything official is released, regarding the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini. However, as time passes we will no doubt get more rumors about its price, specs and features. As soon as we know more we post a new article about the Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini so stay tuned.
