Hands

BARCELONA, SPAIN - Samsung has finally unveiled the much-anticipated Galaxy S5, the latest smartphone in its Galaxy family of Android devices. The smartphone was announced last night at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow here, and it debuted alongside two smart wearables - one fitness-based, one more watch-like - designed to pair with the device.

But the handset is of course the core product in Samsung's mobile strategy, and this is the new flagship device, following on the heels of last year's massively successful Galaxy S4. The S5 arrives on several U.S. carriers (and in 150 countries around the world) in April. Pricing has not been announced.

Let's take a closer look at the hardware. Like the S4 before it, the Galaxy S5 is not crafted from metal, even though it seems metallic just looking at the edges and the back plate. It's actually made from polycarbonate. The S5 also has an odd perforated pattern on the back cover. The company is quick with the self-praise for it's 'modern glam look,' but in actuality, the perforations just emphasize the plastic construction of the phone, an effect that nobody here in Barcelona seems to enjoy. On the front side, there's a 5.1-inch AMOLED display which is crisp and bright, just as you'd suspect if you've seen other Samsung flagship phones.

While it physically looks a lot like the S4, the Galaxy S5 is just a bit bulkier and heavier. Not by much - we're talking a few millimeters in width and height and 15 grams in weight. But it's enough that you can feel the difference when you hold the old and new devices in your hands.

The biggest difference - and one of the most compelling reasons to upgrade from last year's Galaxy - is the new fingerprint scanner on the S5. It's integrated into the home button below the screen, just like Apple's implementation on the iPhone. You can use it to unlock the phone, to verify a PayPal payment while using a mobile shopping service, and to verify your Samsung account. All of this is done by just pressing a single finger against the home button. Adding your own fingerprints when personalizing the device is easy - you swipe your thumb, or index finger, or any other finger from top to bottom on the home button about eight times. Activating the recognition is quick and neat, and all of the fingerprint recognition attempts I've made since I got a hands-on unit have worked perfectly.

The Galaxy S5′s camera has been upgraded from a 13-megapixel shooter to 16 megapixels. There's a real-time HDR mode, and the super-fast autofocus really is much quicker than the older Galaxies. Overall, the camera is very fast; it takes just 0.3 seconds from launching the app to actually hearing the shutter sound. The front camera has been improved to 2.1 megapixels, confirming that selfies are something everyone is jumping on.

I haven't tested this yet, but the S5 is said to be waterproof and dustproof. Samsung claims the phone would survive bathing in water for up to 30 minutes. And though the back cover is removable, Samsung has added an inner seal to prevent from any wetness from creeping past the seams, and the connecting ports along the phone's bottom edge are protected by a small rubber flap. I'm not a lover of such plastic plugs - you can always almost feel them breaking in your hands. But the waterproofing is a welcome improvement.

Fitness is also a big part of Samsung's script this year, as evidenced by its introduction of a new wrist-worn fitness-tracking band. So to get you into the spirit, the company has added a heart-rate sensor on the backside of the phone. It sits just next to the LED flash, under the rear-facing camera. The sensor measures your pulse at the fingertip. The collected data is synced with the S-Health 3 fitness app that ships on the phone, and it's presented alongside other data captured by the smartphone's motion sensors. So you can count your steps constantly and test your pulse occasionally, giving you a rough snapshot of your fitness activities, including estimated calories burned.