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Yet the spotlight Monday was on Samsung, which announced a successor to its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone. The Galaxy S5 will feature a heart-rate monitor, a fingerprint sensor for security and a sharper camera with faster auto focus.
Samsung's glitzy announcement during the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, made it harder for other phone makers to get noticed.
Sony Mobile President Kunimasa Suzuki said that with Apple and Samsung so dominant, the real battle is for No. 3. However, despite all their marketing power, Samsung will still have to give people a reason to upgrade.
Sony Corp. said its new Xperia Z2 smartphone will have noise-cancelling technology that works with an in-ear headset sold separately. It will be able to capture video in the emerging 4K resolution, which offers four times the details as current high-definition video. Sony also announced a companion tablet and a cheaper, mid-range smartphone.
Nokia Corp. is targeting emerging markets with its Nokia X line of phones, starting at 89 euros ($122). It uses Google's Android operating system rather than the Windows Phone software from Microsoft, which is about to buy Nokia's handset business. But Nokia will replace many Google services on Android with Microsoft services and a Windows-like home screen.
Lenovo Group Ltd. announced three new smartphones, including the $269 glass-exterior S850 targeted at "fashion-conscious users." The other two phones promise longer battery life.
Samsung tried to shatter that notion by highlighting features not found in other phones. That includes a heart-rate sensor to complement its upcoming wearable fitness devices. The S5 is also among the first to have a fingerprint sensor for security, though that's already in Apple's iPhone 5s.
Samsung also has been updating phones by making their screens larger. The S5 continues that trend, with a display that measures 5.1 inches (12.95 cm) diagonally. By contrast, the iPhone's screen has stayed steady at 4 inches since 2012.
More on the Samsung S5:
Early rumours of a curved screen turned out to be unfounded, as the new handset sports a ramrod-straight 5.1-inch full HD Super AMOLED display.
It weighs 145g, is 8.1mm thick, runs Android’s latest 4.4 KitKat operating system and comes with a 2.5Ghz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 2 megapixel front-facing camera, and 16 or 32GB of onboard memory expandable with a microSD card slot up to 128GB.
The battery has been enhanced: At 2800mAh, it is expected to give 10 hours of web browsing or 12 hours of video playback.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 comes in black, white, blue and gold. Rumours of an special edition with an all-metal casing has also turned out to be untrue, as all the phones sport matte, textured polycarbonate backs.
One function correctly predicted was the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner. This layer of security can be used to lock and unlock the phone as well as individual data folders. More interestingly, it can be used to authenticate PayPal transactions as well, turning online shopping into an easy, one-swipe-to-buy experience.
The S5 supports the latest WiFi standards (802.11ac and 2x2 MIMO) — which is expected to double WiFi speeds and is also a first for mobile phone — and supports 21 bands of LTE Category 4 frequencies.
A feature called Download Booster allows the S5 to simultaneously send data via mobile data and WiFi at the same time, cutting down the time needed to send large files, for example.
The S5’s 16-megapixel front-facing camera has several enhancements. The 0.3s autofocus is that fastest in a mobile phone. The S5 can also shoot in real-time HDR, another first for mobile phones. A function called selective focus uses software to let users choose a DSLR-like narrow focus after the photo has been taken.
Fitness is one of the key pillars of the S5 experience — a decision based in part from consumer feedback. The S5 comes with S Health 3, a suite of applications to manage every aspect of a person’s health and fitness, from a fitness tracker to a calorie counter. It even has a heart rate sensor, just under the camera, which can read a person’s heart rate from their finger.
Samsung has also tweaked a few things to enhance the phone’s usability. The phone is dustproof and waterproof up to 1m. Battery life has been boosted 20 per cent from the S4. There’s also an ultra-power saving mode in which the home screen is simplified to a few basic applications and everything runs in black-and-white, so that the phone can stay on with its most essential functions (calling, texting, etc) for a much longer period of time.
It will hit the shelves on April 11 this year. Price is yet to be determined.
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