Samsung rumored to follow Apple's lead, split Galaxy S5 lineup into metal, plastic models
The next flagship smartphone from South Korean manufacturer Samsung will reportedly be offered in two versions -- a metal-clad premium edition and a cheaper model sporting a plastic case.
The news comes one week after Samsung mobile executive Lee Young Hee said that the company would be going "back to the basics" with the industrial design of their bellwether device in an effort to excite customers that Samsung believes were disappointed with the similarities between the Galaxy S3 and S4. Normally-reliable Samsung watchers SamMobile were the first to report the split.
If true, the move would mirror Apple's decision to drop its longstanding practice of discounting the previous year's model in favor of a new, bifurcated lineup. With the introduction of the iPhone 5s, Apple discontinued the iPhone 5 in favor of an all-new iPhone 5c featuring a polycarbonate shell in a variety of colors.
Samsung is also considering adding biometric authentication capabilities to the handset in order to counter Apple's popular Touch ID feature. Lee said last week that "many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology" and that Samsung was "studying the possibility" of including it in the Galaxy S5.
As for pricing, the premium version is expected to retail for ?800 ($1,093) while the plastic-backed variant should fetch ?650 ($889) when the devices are unveiled this spring, according to the report. Apple's iPhone 5s, in comparison, starts at ?699 ($955) for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory and the iPhone 5c comes in at ?599 ($819) for the same configuration.
The news comes one week after Samsung mobile executive Lee Young Hee said that the company would be going "back to the basics" with the industrial design of their bellwether device in an effort to excite customers that Samsung believes were disappointed with the similarities between the Galaxy S3 and S4. Normally-reliable Samsung watchers SamMobile were the first to report the split.
If true, the move would mirror Apple's decision to drop its longstanding practice of discounting the previous year's model in favor of a new, bifurcated lineup. With the introduction of the iPhone 5s, Apple discontinued the iPhone 5 in favor of an all-new iPhone 5c featuring a polycarbonate shell in a variety of colors.
Samsung is also considering adding biometric authentication capabilities to the handset in order to counter Apple's popular Touch ID feature. Lee said last week that "many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology" and that Samsung was "studying the possibility" of including it in the Galaxy S5.
As for pricing, the premium version is expected to retail for ?800 ($1,093) while the plastic-backed variant should fetch ?650 ($889) when the devices are unveiled this spring, according to the report. Apple's iPhone 5s, in comparison, starts at ?699 ($955) for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory and the iPhone 5c comes in at ?599 ($819) for the same configuration.
Comments
Don't want to sound too cynical, "but what a surprise!"
Best.
More like shameless. It's mind boggling how this is the only other company that's profitable.
Not do the same exact thing for starters.
***Note***
Do I really need to put S tags around this?
Samsung got it all wrong. People are buying alternatives to Apple's premium brand. Metals do not sell in Android ecosystem. Just look at HTC.
Who would have guessed? L'innovation grande à la copie takes another giant step.
Truly sad and why I will never, ever own a Samsung product in my life. NEVER.
It's more about the company... Samsung will make an paper thin metal casing, and they will never mind to require less than 150€ premium for that. Or just put on a metal backplate instead of plastic.
By the way there will be probably no hardware difference between the two (excluding buttons, minor variation in thickness Etc. Etc. ) that 150€ just for that metal.
I have to give credit to Samsung, they follow Apple's successful marketing ideas, regardless of how much their own diehard fans howl and spew degradation about those ideas when they are first posited by Apple.
Truly sad and why I will never, ever own a Samsung product in my life. NEVER.
AZREO, I've an old SS laser copier that just keeps chugging along, never fails.
Wish I knew who to thank for the great design.
It must be what the people want... The irony is those that take pride in not owning an apple product, buy from the company trying so hard to be apple.
I used to work with a guy who said he wasn't an "Apple person," so he bought one of the first post-iPad Samsung tablets, that looked almost exactly like an iPad. I think it was due to a Samsung allegiance stemming from his Korean origins, but it still seemed pretty weird.
Well, why not? What else are you going to do?
Easy enough... innovate.
That's why it took AAPL many years to come up with the iPhone in the first place. They don't want to make the iPhone "useful" ... they wanted to iPhone to make a statement (one of the 3 things that changed the world over the last 10 years). Does anyone here think AAPL asked itself "So what are we gonna do?" when they looked at the farmland of phones in 2005, 2 years before they announced... Nope... they said "we're going to reinvent the phone" ... Shamedung only asks "what else can we cram into a phone?" ... usually the answer is... "Check what AAPL does..."