1. Plastic-substrate screen
Having developed its
plastic-substrate OLED technology, one would think that Samsung might
want to use it in its next flagship phone. It's the same tech that
allows Samsung to produce flexible/curved screens such as the one on the
Galaxy Round, but we don't imagine the Galaxy S5 with a curved display.
Rather, It might be beneficial for Samsung to use a plastic-substrate
screen, as those are more difficult to break than glass-based ones, plus
it'd allow the company to make the Galaxy S5 thinner, or fit a larger
battery. Interestingly, recent leaks are suggesting we might get a 5"+
display with a breathtaking resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels.
2. Fingerprint sensor
Sure, we still don't
know if fingerprint sensors are really going to take off, but if there's
even the slightest chance that they are, we're sure Samsung isn't going
to miss this opportunity. Now, putting a useful fingerprint sensor on
an Android phone would be a bit tricky, because you have to take Google
into account, which is where many of the input passwords on an Android
phone go. Most importantly, Google will have to integrate fingerprint
authentication with the Play Store, in order to enable such
functionality on the Galaxy S5, but hey, nothing is impossible. Sooner
or later, Google should add such an option for handset manufacturers to
take advantage of.
3. High-resolution camera with lossless zoom
We're seeing more and
more of this feature lately, and we hope the trend will continue. With
the advent of super high-resolution camera sensors, manufacturers are
able to build 2x-3x lossless zoom capabilities into their phones. The
Galaxy S4's 13MP resolution won't allow for such functionality, but if
Samsung bumps the megapixels to something in the lines of 20MP in the
Galaxy S5, it can easily add a taste of lossless zoom, and that would be
lovely.
4. 1080p video recording at 60 fps and OIS
The GS5 will get a
new, faster chipset, that's a given, and with it, we hope Samsung will
also add 1080p video recording functionality at 60 fps. The LG G2 was
among the first smartphones to show us the goodness of 60 fps video
recording, and we have to say - once you start shooting your video in 60
fps, there's no going back - it's that much better. So, naturally, we'd
expect Samsung to build this into the Galaxy S5. As far as optical
image stabilization (OIS) goes, well, most of its competitors now have
this useful feature, so we hope Samsung will adopt it as well!
5. Premium build quality
We understand this
may be too much to ask from Samsung, but it'd really be wonderful if it
can give the Galaxy S5 a bit of premium design. We've seen well-made
products by Samsung before, so we can't see the reason why it insists on
making its Galaxy phones so ordinary and uninspired, in terms of both
looks and material quality. If not the whole body, then we hope that it
can at least add a few classy elements to the device, like a frame from
real metal, for example.
6. Always-on voice commands
There's no denying
that Google Now is becoming an increasingly useful feature on Android
phones, but right now, there's this inconvenience that requires you to
first initiate Google Now and then say your command. Motorola has found a
solution for this with its dedicated natural language processor in the
X8 chipset, which enables always-on voice command capabilities.
Hopefully, Samsung will go the extra mile and incorporate such a
solution in the next-generation Galaxy flagship smartphone!
7. More accurate color reproduction
The AMOLED display of
the Samsung Galaxy S4 is impressive at first, there's no doubt about
that. However, it'll also appear as highly inaccurate to the trained
eye. Should you happen to put the GS4 next to a phone with a quality LCD
screen, you'll immediately notice that everything is somewhat greenish
and bluish on the S4's display, be it saturated or not. We do enjoy the
perfect black level and vivid visuals, but it'd be more than welcome if
Samsung gives its best to tweak its AMOLED technology and make it appear
truer to life. It seems the company has this in mind, seeing that it's
created the special Professional Photo screen mode, which does bring the
colors much closer to reality, but the overly intensive green color is
still a problem.
8. Better outdoor visibility
Another weak area of
the Galaxy S4's screen was its outdoor visibility. AMOLED displays
typically have a lower brightness output compared to contemporary LCDs,
which causes them to be harder to view under direct sunlight.
Thankfully, we've seen a substantial improvement in this area with
Samsung's Galaxy Note 3, which is much easier to view than the GS4.
Having this in mind, it seems very likely to us that the Galaxy S5 will
also benefit from this improvement, or why not take things even further!
9. 64- bit processor
Word is that Samsung
is almost ready with its own 64-bit chipset. Does this seem like a
likely addition to the upcoming Galaxy S5? Well, absolutely! Of course,
we aren't so concerned with the type of architecture - we're much more
interested in whether or not it's going to SCREAM, but we'll see...
10. Deeper, stereo speakers
Sadly, it's not as
likely for this idea to materialize, since Samsung hasn't traditionally
paid that much attention to the loudspeakers it puts on its phones. That
doesn't mean they are necessarily bad - the speaker of the GS4 is
actually pretty decent (for a smartphone speaker, that is), but won't
complain at all if Samsung decides to step things up by adding an
additional speaker for some stereo effect, and why not even make them
sound a bit deeper, like the BoomSound speakers of the HTC One series?
Samsung probably won't go for such a big effect, seeing that it'll
likely want to retain the slimness and relatively small footprint of the
Galaxy S, but still, we'd definitely appreciate it if it manages to put
a better-sounding speaker (or speakers) in the Galaxy S5, and make it a
bit more competitive with HTC's offerings in that respect.
11. Redesigned TouchWiz UI
The Galaxy S3 brought
us the TouchWiz Nature UX, which was a substantial upgrade to Samsung's
Android UI. Since then, the manufacturer has added slight improvements
here and there, but most of the UI has remained largely the same. There
aren't any indications about this yet, but we sure hope that with the
Galaxy S5, Samsung will once again overhaul its user experience and make
it a bit more modern, intuitive and uniform. Did we mention polished?
Oh, yeah, that too, seeing that it's one of the weaker aspects of
Samsung's software.
No comments:
Post a Comment