Samsung has been loosing market share and consumer interest from the past one year, especially in the low-end segment after the entry of Chinese smartphone brands like Xiaomi and value for money devices from brands like Motorola and Asus. The South Korean smartphone giant was once comfortably positioned as a premium smartphone manufacturer in the phablet arena, but Apple invaded its town last year and the issues further mounted for Samsung. This resulted into Samsung's new struggle to shed some of its shortcomings by releasing new phones. It released an all new series of smartphones with metal unibodies, slim profiles, 64-bit processors, and high-resolution front-facing cameras, the Galaxy A3, the Galaxy A5, and the Galaxy A7.
Now, the MWC 2015 is around the corner, and Samsung is expected to turn around its fortunes as it will most probably announce it's next-generation flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6 along with a round smartwatch, which will compete with the likes of the Motorola Moto 360, the Apple Watch, and the LG G Watch R. There might be some more releases in the mid-range category, along with some accessories for smartphones and tablets. Here's what we are expecting Samsung to showcase at the event to help gain back some of the lost ground.
Samsung Galaxy S6
It has been quite some time since Samsung saw a smartphone which became as popular as the Galaxy S3. The Galaxy S6 has a lot of burden on its shoulders and Samsung wouldn't like to make a single mistake with the Galaxy S6. There have been quite a few rumours about it till now, and we have a fair of idea about the specifications sheet of the upcoming flagship from Samsung.
The most important and interesting bit about the Galaxy S6 is its outer appearance. According to the reliable sources of SamMobile, Samsung started afresh with the Galaxy S6, and it is codenamed as the 'Project Zero', as it being developed from scratch. It might feature a metallic frame, just like the Galaxy Note 4, and glass material on the front and the back. If this comes out to be true, it will be Samsung's most beautiful Android smartphone ever. It will also feature a touch-based fingerprint sensor, similar to that of the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 6, which doesn't need a swipe to unlock the device.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 is expected to come feature a 5.1-inch or a 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display with QHD (2,560 x 1,600 pixels) resolution. There might also be a curved-edge screen variant of the device (the Galaxy S6 Edge). Under the hood, it expected to feature a 64-bit octa-core Exynos 7420 chipset, 3GB of RAM, 32GB/64GB/128GB of internal storage space, and a microSD card slot. It is expected to be equipped with a 20-megapixel primary camera with 4K video recording and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. On the connectivity front, it will be equipped with LTE Cat. 10 along with Wi-Fi ac/b/g/n, and Bluetooth v4.1. Unfortunately, it is being rumoured that, unlike the Galaxy S5, the Galaxy S6 won't be waterproof.
On the software front, the device will surely come with Android 5.0 Lollipop pre-installed out of the box, along with a new version of TouchWiz. Apparently, Samsung is trying hard to achieve Nexus 6's level of software smoothness for the Galaxy S6.
Samsung's Round Smartwatch, the 'Orbis'
Samsung is expected to announce a round smartwatch at the event as the square-ish smartwatches aren't really popular among the consumers. The smartwatch is codenamed as the 'Orbis', and is expected to feature a rotating bezel ring for navigating and other features like zoom in and out. It will come with a slew of gesture controls. The smartwatch will be based on Samsung's Tizen platform so it will be compatible only with Samsung smartphones.
Gestures such as swiping down will show you the recent applications and swiping upwards will show you the settings arena such as Bluetooth, screen brightness and so on. You’d be able to control music, widgets, taking a call, rejecting a call or ending a call through the rotating bezel ring of the smatwatch. It will also be able to lock or unlock your smartphone. It will feature wireless charging and various connectivity features. So we think that it won’t be priced cheaply as it is expected to be a perfect companion for the Galaxy S6.
Other smartphone and tablets
Samsung has been trying to reduce its dependance on Google's Android for a long while now. It tried to break away from Android using Bada operating system, but it failed. Now, it is developing a new open-source smartphone platform with Intel and other partners, which is known as Tizen. Samsung recently released its first smartphone based on Tizen, the Samsung Z1, which was launched in India at a price of Rs. 5,700. The South Korean consumer electronics giant is expected to shed more light on the development of Tizen operating system and new devices that it may have been developed for the platform.
Samsung might announce its J-series of entry-level smartphones at the event, which may be joined by many other mid-range and entry level tablets. Samsung will have its hands full at the MWC this year and we will be looking forward to the company's event at the event.
