Smartphone titan Samsung announced the long-awaited Galaxy S5 phone on Monday, along with new versions of wearable tech including an improved smartwatch and the first fitness tracker with a hi-def interface.
As expected, the Galaxy S5 boasts a water and dust resistant body and comes loaded with juiced-up features, which the company says focuses on what its customers are looking for the most in a smartphone.
The new S5 is much lighter than its predecessor, the Galaxy S4, and boasts a much sharper display with a 5.1" inch Super AMOLED display along with fast user connectivity with LTE Category 4 network and fifth generation Wifi and also bells and whistles like fingerprint scanning and the first heart rate monitor on a smartphone.
Announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, top execs say the launch is part of a focus on user experience with particular attention on design, photography, connectivity, user privacy, and life enhancement.
FoxNews.com was able to demo the S5 as well as the Gear2 and the Gear Fit at a event in Samsung's Galaxy Studio pop-up shop in lower Manhattan on Monday after a livestream of the announcement from Spain and found all of the devices simple to use. The new products display an impressive array of fitness tracking options being rolled out by Samsung including the new S Health app and heart rate monitor.
The S5 also has an impressive camera with fast AF and new Selective Focus which can focus your snapshots in 0.3 seconds, making it the fastest of any phone on the market.
Other eye-catching features on the S5 are the Download Booter, which can download 1 GB of data per 30 seconds, enabling the user to download a full-length movie in a matter of minutes.
Samsung has been updating most of the phones on its roster as of late mostly by making their screens larger.
The S4's display measures 5.1 inches diagonally, compared to 4.8 inches on the S III and 4 inches on the original S from 2010. The iPhone's screen has stayed steady at 4 inches since 2012. While the S5 screen stays at 5.1", the display is much more vivid compared to the S4.
Today's announcement of the Galaxy S5 is a stark difference from last year when the company held its announcement event in New York a few weeks after the Barcelona show.
Samsung already released the next line of smart watches late last week. The Samsung Gear 2 was released with much improvement made on the original design of the Galaxy Gear, moving the camera from the strap to the bezel and a physical home button, as well as a slew of standalone features such as a TV and electronic device remote, a native music player, new fitness features and most importantly, a new native OS, called Tizen and can be used with over 20 samsung mobile products.
As expected Samsung has stolen the show at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as the news of a successor to their marquee product has become official, making it hard for other phone makers to get noticed for their products during what has become the world's largest mobile phone trade show.
The previous Galaxy S models, the S III and S4, were both game changers and helped Samsung surpass Apple's iPhone, making them the worlds largest smartphone maker with a 31 percent share of the marketplace.
Despite the top spot, Samsung has increased their spending on advertising revenue spending $4.3 billion in advertising in a 12 month periods through last September compared to $1.1 billion spent by Apple in the same time period.
The Galaxy S5 and the Gear 2 and Gear Fit will be released in 150 countries on April 11.
