Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone and three new Gear watches coming April 11

With the latest version of its Galaxy S smartphone, Samsung has tried to focus less on the technical marvels, and more on the everyday user. The Galaxy S5 becomes available on April 11, and in a press briefing on Tuesday (April 1), Ken Price explained that Samsung wants to “become more about what people are doing with the phone”.

Which is why many of the features he highlighted during his presentation in a suite at the Fairmont Pacific Rim are upgrades to basic mobile traits: better networking and greater resistance to the elements, in particular.

Price, the vice president of sales and marketing for Samsung Canada’s mobile division, explained that “people are using these outside, they’re dropping them”, so the new GS5 has been constructed to withstand a metre of water for 30 minutes and is better at keeping out dirt and dust. But he warned that the GS5 is not a “ruggedized” device. “It is not an underwater camera,” he half-joked. 

The GS5 has two Wi-Fi antennas that allow dual-channel connections in addition to advanced LTE support. “Download Booster” is a new feature that allows the use of both Wi-Fi and LTE bandwidth simultaneously, for faster downloads. 

Other upgrades to the GS5, which costs $229 when purchased with a plan, include a fingerprint scanner built into the home button, a heart rate monitor, and an improved camera with 4K video capability. A “kids mode” is available as a widget that allows parents to control app availability and monitoring. “It will have high meaning to those with a 6- or 8-year-old,” said Price, “but even if it will have no value to those without kids.”

Sporting a 5.1-inch screen—the GS4 was just under five inches—the GS5 is only available in Canada in a 16 GB model, expandable to 64 with SD cards. It comes in black or white, but Price said that other colours are expected (gold and blue were two that were on display in a recent Samsung event in Barcelona). 

Also available on April 11 are three new Samsung Gear watches. There can be made to work with other Android devices, said Price, but they are intended to be used with Samsung products. 

The Gear 2 ($329, available in “charcoal black”, “gold brown”, and “wild orange”), which replaces last year’s version, has moved the camera and speaker onto the device, so the watch band is replaceable. Added to it are a heart rate monitor, an infrared blaster, and capacity to store music. 

Take away the camera and you get the Gear Neo ($229; “charcoal black”, “mocha gray”, and “wild orange”), which comes in orange and black. It’s exclusive to Rogers in Canada for the first 90 days of its availability.

A fitness band, the Gear Fit (available in black for $199) doesn’t have a camera or a microphone, but keeps the heart rate monitor. It can be removed from the rubberized band and can still be used as a pedometer, media controller, and for notifications. 

Samsung is also coming out with a line of headphones this summer, said Price, while showing off a prototype. “We can have an integration of experience with other Samsung devices,” he said. “We’re getting into it because of the ecosystem that’s developed around the phones themselves.”

The over-the-ear prototype was Bluetooth-enabled and had noise-cancelling, and Price said it would be available in white and black. In-ear and on-ear headphones are also expected to be part of the lineup. He had no information on pricing of the headphones.