059 Daabaa Surprise 03 by sivakiku
Rumours that Samsung will opt for a premium metal build for the Galaxy S5 looked a smidgeon more nailed-on today, with the news that the company’s Vice President has been spilling the beans about its plans at what sounds like a boozy soiree.
A report in the Korean press claims that Dong-hoon Chang, Samsung’s Vice President and Head of Design Strategy, revealed (almost) all at a New Year’s Eve party at Seoul’s Shilla Hotel.
According to the site, Dong-hoon told the great and good assembled that the Galaxy S5 will indeed be made out of “new material”. That chimes with long-standing rumours that the next-gen Galaxy S smartphone will ditch the range’s plastic construction for a metal frame.
Most recent reports indicate this could be diamond-coated metal to make it extra tough and bring Samsung’s flagship smartphone more in line with the much-praised aluminium unibody shell of HTC’s One.
But Dong-hoon wasn’t done there. He also disclosed that chatter of a launch date for the Galaxy S5 at some time around Mobile World Congress (MWC) is “about right”.
So what to make of this?
Well, while we think it’s Samsung would ditch its habit of holding special one-off press events for Galaxy S handset launches to unveil its handset amid all the rival devices at MWC, his comments suggest to us that a February/March release certainly isn’t out of the question.
This tallies with speculation that Samsung is moving the phone’s release forward, presumably to give it the largest sales window possible ahead of the release of a new iPhone in September.
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