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Samsung unveils Galaxy S5

Samsung has revealed its next Galaxy flagship phone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but it wasn't quite what had been hoped for.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
Nic Healey

As expected, Samsung has shown off its next Galaxy flagship phone, the S5, at its Unpacked event at MWC.

(Credit: Andrew Hoyle/CNET)

At the jam-packed event hall in Barcelona, Samsung abandoned the Broadway-style skits of the S4 launch, opting for a full orchestra and a more restrained and sombre presentation.

Sadly, the S5 didn't get many of the rumoured features — no metal body, no 2K resolution screen, and a very slightly overhauled interface. Even the design looks mostly like the Galaxy S4.

All that said, there's a lot to like about the specs. The S5 has a fingerprint scanner and a heart-rate sensor, along with a 5.1-inch screen that's full 1080p HD. The phone measures 142mm x 72.5mm x 8.1mm and weighs 145g. And yes, it's got the water and dust proofing we saw on the S4 Active.

Samsung has blessed its S5 with top-of-the-line specs befitting a flagship device. There's the 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset for a start, a 16-megapixel rear-facing camera (up from 13-megapixels), and a 2-megapixel sensor on the front.

TouchWiz has been given a refresh, but seems mostly tweaks and visual touches rather than the ground up rebuild many have wanted.

You can read our full preview here. Samsung has slated the S5 for an 11 April launch in 150 countries. We're waiting for confirmation that Australia will be included in this number.