Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, is almost here. Lucky recipents were sent a traditional ‘Unpacked’ event invite last week, and the Internet exploded with rumours and speculation about performance, look and possible features that the S5 will boast.

We’re pretty excited for the arrival on one of this year’s most anticipated smartphones, so we give you this essential list of five things you should know about the S5.

 

Release schedule

It has been confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S5, Samsung’s brand new mobile device and successor to the S4, will be unveiled on February 24 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, most likely preceding a March launch.

Historically, Samsung have kept ‘unpacked’ events exclusively for the S series, and this year’s will come with a live stream and a ‘hands on’ the US. Surely they wouldn’t prepare all this for any other device?

A specific date for market release has still yet to be confirmed. It’s probably to be March or early April. Here’s to hoping we find out in Barcelona.

s5

Aluminium Case

The Galaxy S5 may sport an aluminum chassis, and if so, it would be Samsung’s first smartphone to do so.

Japanese website EMS One was the first to claim the rumours, following information it had received from Taiwanese manufacturer Cather that is supposedly making the cases. The report claims that Catcher would be manufacturing somewhere between 10 and 30 million ‘unibody’ cases.

Catcher has also been the firm behind cases seen on the HTC One and Apple’s iPad Mini 2, claims Phonearena. A further image posted on the RB Men blog also shows a Samsung device’s back panel which feature aluminum rather than plastic.

If the rumours are true, Samsung would be following in Apple’s footsteps of the iPhone 5S, providing a more premium look and feel to the smartphone.

 

Fingerprint Scanner

iTechAddict’s insider for Samsung has claimed the entire screen for the S5 will act as a fingerprint scanner, working much like the iPhone 5S home button…but across the entire screen!

It would obviously allow the user to unlock the device and authorise transactions.

It sounds a little farfetched, but Stuff.tv linked this paper from the University of Houston proving that the technology is indeed feasible and shows how it can be implemented onto touchscreens.

 

16MP camera

A test shot, leaked by trusted leaker @evleaks apparently shows that the S5 will sport a 16MP rear camera.

The shot, which in itself is a blurry mess, was leaked alongside some EXIF data showing other specs of the device.

The data shows that the image has a resolution of 5312 x 2988p, which all adds up to be a 16MP camera.

Seeing as the S4 has a 13MP camera, 16MP would be the next logical step for the S5.

Samsung also hinted at its Analyst Day in South Korea that the S5 will have a 16MP camera, so with all these other rumours flying around, I think it’s a pretty safe bet.

 

Android 4.4 KitKat with Magazine UX

Naturally, the S5 will be running on Android 4.4 KitKat, the latest version of Android’s mobile operating sytem.

This provides excellent cloud integration and matches up with the hardware inside the S5 perfectly. It also offers voice-activated Google Now, which should be the standard now.

@Evleaks has again posted a photo to Twitter showing showing the S5 running on Samsung’s new UI, which is probably what we’re going to see on release.

Samsung’s Galaxy NotePro and TabPro tablets run on the Magazine UX interface, which was shown off at CES 2014 in Las Vegas, so it’s likely that the images shown are of a variant of this.

 

Full (rumoured) specification breakdown

Release date announcement: MWC 2014 Barcelona at Unpacked Event.
Release date:
March/April
RAM:
3GB
Processor:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 at 2.5GHz
Rear Camera:
16MP
Front Camera:
2.1MP
Display:
5.24-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a 2560×1440 pixel resolution (2K) at 560 pixels-per-inch (ppi).
Storage:
32GB
UI:
Perhaps a variant of Samsung’s Magazine UX
Battery:
3,200mAh