19-megapixel phone-camera hybrid on the way later this year?
The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom wasn’t our favorite device of 2013. It was too bulky for a smartphone, and offered lackluster image quality compared to most point-and-shoot cameras. Nevertheless, it seems Samsung might be about to follow up on its phone-camera hybrid in 2014 with a Galaxy S5 Zoom. Benchmark info from GFXBench points to a SM-C115 device (the S4 Zoom was SM-C101) with a 19-megapixel camera and 4.8-inch 720p display.
Hexa-core Exynos CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 4.8-inch display.
Other key specs include an Exynos 5 Hexa (six-core) CPU, around 2GB of RAM and around 5GB of free storage — likely an 8GB allotment with 3GB taken up by system stuff. Camera specs point to a 2MP front-facing camera alongside the 19-megapixel rear shooter, along with 1080p video recording. There’s no information on what kind of optical zoom capabilities, if any, the device might offer. On the software side, it’s running Android 4.4.2 KitKat, and presumably Samsung’s TouchWiz UI in some form or other.
But the real question is whether Samsung has been able to fix any of the design issues that made the Galaxy S4 Zoom such a pain to use. Shooting with the camera one-handed was problematic, and it wasn’t the most pocket-friendly device either, with a bulky zoom lens protruding from the back. If Samsung sticks to a similar release schedule this year, we might learn more about the Galaxy S5 Zoom sometime over the summer.
Source: GFXBench; via: PhoneArena