Liveblog of Samsung Unpacked 5
Feb 24, 2014, 1:00 PM by Rich Brome @richbrome
Samsung's Unpacked events are always big news, usually revealing a new Galaxy S flagship, or a new Galaxy Note. With heavy emphasis on the number five, everyone is expecting to see the Galaxy S 5 revealed. We'll bring you the news as it happens, right here.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:58 PM: That's a wrap!
Feb 24, 2014, 2:57 PM: April 11. That's when they will ship all of these devices, worldwide.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:55 PM: They just announced an Optional Wireless Charging back for the Galaxy S 5.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:54 PM: Ooooh. The Galaxy S 5 has a true heart rate sensor built into the back. That's the thing next to the flash, under the camera.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:53 PM: The Gear Fit is dead sexy. The watch bands can be swapped out easily. That curved color OLED touch screen is just so pretty. The Gear Fit works with 20 different Galaxy phones.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:48 PM: The main screen on stage is literally showing nothing but fine print qualifying what David Park is saying about the Gear 2.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:45 PM: Like the iPhone 5 S, it has a fingerprint reader built into the home button, for mobile payments, and to lock up certain content, such as photos, that you want to keep extra-private... (cough) porn (cough).
Feb 24, 2014, 2:42 PM: "Ultra Power Saving Mode" is for when you really need the S 5 to last all day. It turns the display monochrome and turns off all but essential features (voice and messaging.) It basically turns your smartphone into a dumb feature phone, but you can use it an extra 25 hours in this mode.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:39 PM: It has Wi-Fi with MIMO for extra speed, plus it can download using both LTE and Wi-Fi at the same time, for faster speeds.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:38 PM: It also has "selective focus", a really cheesy feature to fake a blurred background. It doesn't even work well in the demo photo they showed on stage.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:36 PM: Now on to the camera. It has a 16-megapixel camera with a larger sensor than the S 4, and a new, faster camera processing chip. It also has Phase-Detection Auto-Focus, the first time that has been put into a phone. It lets the camera focus in just 0.3 second.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:33 PM: The display is 5.1-inch, Super AMOLED, and full HD. It has some new brightness and color control to adapt the display based on both the ambient light and the content being displayed.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:32 PM: Samsung's user interface has been simplified to be flatter and cleaner.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:29 PM: [ Our photos are a bit behind the text, due to extremely slow connectivity. Sorry about that! We're sharing the network with 10,000 other people here. ]
Feb 24, 2014, 2:28 PM: Jean-Daniel Ayme, VP of European Operations, has taken the stage.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:27 PM: Now they're moving on to a deeper dive into each of these products.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:26 PM: The new Gear Fit is a much smaller fitness watch, closer to LG's Lifeband Touch. It has a heart rate monitor and a curved display.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:24 PM: No they're talking Gear 2 watches, which were already announced yesterday.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:23 PM: Four main colors: black, white, blue, and copper.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:23 PM: It's IP-67 water-resistant. In the standard version, not a special Active version.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:22 PM: The camera has special fast-auto-focus technology. That must be the weird sensors next to the flash.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:21 PM: Here is the Galaxy S 5. It has a dimpled grid pattern on the back. The front looks just like the S 4.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:18 PM: JK Shin says "Thank you" to the 200,000,000 people who have bought a Galaxy S. (I assume he means "Thank you for lining my pockets with gold.")
Feb 24, 2014, 2:16 PM: Now JK Shin, President and CEO.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:15 PM: David Park has taken the stage.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:14 PM: (Generic video about how Samsung customers think.)
Feb 24, 2014, 2:13 PM: Starting. Finally!
Feb 24, 2014, 2:09 PM: The auditorium is huge. It's a packed house. I'd guess the audience is about 12,000 strong. No joke.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:08 PM: The orchestra is playing on, playing on... not clear when this shin dig will actually get started. After the torture chamber that was the 70-minute wait in a crushed crowd at the door, and apparently no drinking water available in the building, they'd better start this thing soon.
Feb 24, 2014, 2:04 PM: Well, the announcement has hit the wire already, even though no one has taken the stage yet. Check our front page in a sec for the news bit.
Feb 24, 2014, 1:54 PM: We're seated up front. The orchestra is starting to play. Five minutes!
About the author, Rich Brome:Editor in Chief Rich became fascinated with cell phones in 1999, creating mobile web sites for phones with tiny black-and-white displays and obsessing over new phone models. Realizing a need for better info about phones, he started Phone Scoop in 2001, and has been helming the site ever since. Rich has spent two decades researching and covering every detail of the phone industry, traveling the world to tour factories, interview CEOs, and get every last spec and photo Phone Scoop readers have come to expect. As an industry veteran, Rich is a respected voice on phone technology of the past, present, and future.
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