Re: Galaxy S5 Prime to be launched in June
My .02 cents on the whole thing (I posted these in the AC article, but thought I'd do so as well as there seems to be a bigger discussion in this forum):
If this ever does come to fruition, and that's doubtful (a ton of prototype devices get made and tested before a final product is launched), I'd wager a guess it'd be launched as the first "Galaxy Pro" phone rather than a Galaxy S - this aligns it with the more expensive/premium Galaxy Pro tablet series
Secondly, even if this device does get released - why on earth would it end up on American shores, for two reasons:
1) The Galaxy S just was released and is seeing amazing sales results - what sane carrier here is going to want to cannibalize sales of devices they already have in stock?
2) Logistically, you'd have to launch this thing alongside the G3 to make it make sense - otherwise, you're snubbing the GS5 adopters (unless there's an inhouse "upgrade" program, which seems unlikely. That's a lot of work to get done in a very small amount of time for a device that doesn't even have an official announcement. The other option is to release it later - which makes even less sense, as it'd be competing with the Galaxy Note (4?)
But the more important question is "Why the hell would anyway want this?"
Look, I'm all about improving screen tech - but this thing is a half breed the likes of which has "failure" written all over it like we've never seen before. Let me explain what I mean by that:
1) A 2500*1440 device would likely be paired with both a Snapdragon 801/Exynos equivalent (you can go on and on about whatever brand you like better - but they compare pretty closely on specs and power consumption) along with a what? 3000mAh battery? I have a Galaxy Note 2014 running a 2500*1600 display with a comparable to Snapdragon 801 processor and a 9000mAh batter - the average battery life is about 8 hours...a smaller battery is going to last what - 15/20 minutes?
2) Google HATES high resolution displays. Go ahead, sneer and jeer at that remark - I'll point to the Nexus 10 as an example of just how much they hate high resolution displays - nothing is written to take advantage of the screen space, Android itself doesn't like the resolution (as can be seen in native menus/drop downs) and even if you're not counting on support from Google - Support from app developers in the playstore for apps that support higher resolution tablet displays is non-existant (if you have a tablet with higher than 1080p - I'd love to hear of some tablets that support the screen size well), and at the end of the day - even the Google Now launcher handles that resolution terribly.
So now you have a device with terrible battery life that not even Google cares about in terms of support - what a winner?
At the end of the day, if this ever gets released - I can see it being a limited run product to mature the display fabrication process. Think the same thing that was done with the abortion that is the Galaxy Round or (/shudder) GFlex.
Jack