Samsung launches Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini, Russians to get it first, rest of the world to follow

Samsung today launched abridged version of its flagship Samsung Galaxy S5 called S5 Mini.  Samsung has not managed to capture the imagination of the smart phone buyer with its flagship and this is a attempt to bring a cheaper, smaller version of S5 to its buyers and thereby resurrect its flagging fortunes.

S5 Mini has got all the trade mark features from its parent device Samsung Galaxy s5 like the IP67 certification for its display which means completely dust proof and water proof. The S5 Mini too can be submerged in water up to  1 meter for almost 30min in water.  It will also have the heart rate monitor and and S5 trademark fingerprint scanner at its home button.  Apart from typical parental features, it got few downsides to it as well,  go through the chart to get complete specs.

Availability and price has not been officially mentioned by Samsung but our digging up gives an idea that Samsung mini will be available in market may be from mid July globally and it will be rolled out in Russia starting of this month. Our research says that pricing will be approximately $ 750 (Rs.45000.00) which seems pretty expensive given that it will be only a mini version of S5.

Our reading is that at the above price, the success of Samsung S5 Mini is bound to be hampered.  The reason behind this is that there are lot of makes with better specs available in the market for a cheaper price.  

Anyways, for those who are interested in the S5 Mini, it will be availble in 4 colour varients-Charcoal Black, Shimmery White, Electric Blue and Copper Gold

Here is a quick peek on Samsung mini specs

MODEL	SAMSUNG S 5 MINI
OS	Android 4.4 KitKat
DISPLAY	4.5 HD Super AMOLED screen of 720p resolution.   Measures 131.1 x 64.8 x 9.1 and weighs 120g
PROCESSOR	1.4 GHz  quad-core processor 2,100 mAh battery.
RAM	1.5GB
STORAGE CAPACITY	16GB with microSd slot to increase the memory if needed.
CAMERA	8MP Rear Camera and 2.1 MP front camera
OTHER FEATURES	Ultra Power Saving Mode and Kids Mode, fingerprint and heart rate sensors

Samsung Galaxy S5 fingerprint scanner cracked in 4 days and teardowned at a cost of $250.00

The mobile and technology forums around the world were agog with one question after the launch of Samsung's next generation flagship smart phone, Samsung Galaxy S5.  How long it will take for someone to crack the much hyped fingerprint scanner of  Galaxy S5.  Apples flagship iPhone 5s, released last year took just 48 hours to be cracked.  Readers may know that the Touch ID fingerprint scanner on Apple’s iPhone 5S was hacked by Chaos Computer Club just 48 hours after its launch last September. 

Well Samsung Galaxy S5 took a bit longer.  The techies and enthusiasts working on Samsung Galaxy S5 took exactly 4 days to crack its fingerprint scanner.  Researchers at Germany’s Security Research Labs (SRLabs) managed to hack the S5's fingerprint scanner using pretty much  a similar method that was used to crack the iPhone 5s TouchID fingerprint scanner.

SRLabs has published its method on a YouTube clip which I have embedded at the bottom of this post.  Another tech analyst, IHS iSuppli also managed to teardown the S5 but the cost was more than the teardown cost of iPhone 5s.  It cost IHS around $256.62 (£153/Rs.15000.00) to teardown the Galaxy S5 32GB version, significantly more than an iPhone 5S with the same amount of NAND flash memory, which comes in at $207 (£123.80).

The breakup given by IHS for the teardown is as follows :

Qualcomm MSM8974AC processor at an estimated $41 (£24.50) which, when combined with NAND and DRAM, comes to $102.37 (£61). The 1920x1080 OLED display is the next priciest component at $63, followed by the 16MP and 2MP cameras ($18.70, £11) and the 2 x 2800mAh 3.85V Li Ion batteries ($11, £6.60). 

Coming back to the hacking of fingerprint scanner, Samsung will have to make heavy duty changes to counter the hack.  According to the voiceover in the YouTube video  "Despite being the premium phones (S5's) flagship features, Samsung's implementation of fingerprint authentication leaves much to be desired"  It goes on to add that "the spoof was made under lab conditions but is based on nothing more than a camera phone photo of an unprocessed latent print on a smartphone screen."

A PCB mould is then made from the photo, into which wood glue is smeared to make the dummy fingerprint.

The problem is that iPhone 5s fingerscanner is not being used as of now for any payment gateway but Samsung Galaxy S5 is.  The Samsung Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner if hacked can grant the exploiter unrestrained access access to “highly sensitive apps” such as PayPal, giving “a would-be attacker an even greater incentive to learn the simple skill of fingerprint spoofing”, the researchers said. 

SRLabs has said that it has contacted Samsung but is yet to receive any reply.  The video of the hack is given below :

Could this be the new Samsung Galaxy S V (S5), the new flagship to come later this year from Samsung

Samsung has been a bit quite about its next flagship launch though the internet is buzzing with so called image and benchmark leaks. Today @evleaks released a set of images which it has said are of Samsung Galaxy S 5.  @evleaks is a very dependable source and has been right about most of its leaks.  

Photo courtesy @evleaks

This photo leaks reveal a different looking home screen for Samsung Galaxy S 5 which will mean that Samsung has quietly buried its TouchWiz UI.  Interestingly the first image which is of the lock screen shows of a map with distance and estimated time of arrival.  Now this reflects a change in the lock screen UI into a customised one which means that if you want a live map giving you your destination, on your locked screen, you will now be able to get directions to the destinations without unlocking your smart phone. Though it is not known what Apps can be put on the lock screen as live Apps, it is pretty safe to assume that all Google Apps will be available to the user.

The second image shows the home screen which again has the Map, a social networking site widget and a latest news widget.  Here again it is safe to infer that the Map is up there because it is on the lock screen.   The third shot shows of the Samsung and Android Apps short cuts.  The icons of Gmail, Google Play, and Samsung Hub are shown with a smear-effect background in deep bluish, purplish hues.

Earlier a leak had suggested that the new flagship from Samsung stable will have a quad-core Snapdragon 800 CPU clocked at 2.5GHz and running on the very latest version of Android 4.4 KitKat.  Its screen size is said to be 5.5 inches with resolution of 2560 x 1440 which is also known as 2K.  Interestingly some of the sites say that this is incorrect and Samsung Galaxy S 5 will feature a 4K resolution.   Another big debate running on in the Galaxy S 5 forums and on blogs is the chip that Samsung will use.  After the release of A7 powered iPhone 5s which has a 64-bit chip, rumours suggested that the S 5 will also have a 64-bit chip but there is a strong case that the Samsung Galaxy S 5 will actually be powered by a 32-bit chip because of the Snapdragon 800 CPU mentioned above.  Readers may note that while Samsung’s CEO of Mobile Shin Jong-Kyun had recently gone on record by saying "yes, our next smartphones will have 64-bit processing functionality," but reports from the Samsung production lines indicate that they are facing issues with the 64-bit processor and S5 may not carry it aboard.  The Galaxy S5 is also tipped to have an Adreno 330 GPU.

Another thing to note is that Samsung may drop its marquee AMOLED panel for a more cheaper LCD panel to manage price of the S5.  The camera too is going through a major haul on this flagship with rumours of a 16-megapixel ISOCELL camera sensors. The S5 will run on a powerful 4GB of RAM which is not at all surprising as the Note III runs of a wee bit similar architecture with 3GB RAM.

Source : GFXBench