During the first official day of Mobile World Congress, Samsung Mobile CEO JK Shin has confirmed that the conglomerate will launch the next iteration of the flagship Galaxy S Android smartphone on March 14th in an event being held in New York City.
The change of venue for the Galaxy S launch from the typical London launch was explained as having to do with US carrier demand for the launch event, as US carriers were requesting the latest version of the device be launched locally by the manufacturer.
Previously, Samsung Mobile’s Galaxy S launch events were held in London and focused on the international market, with US carriers merely confirming launch plans via separate press releases.
The lone Galaxy S launch event held in the US before this upcoming event was held in 2010 for the first model, which spawned multiple carrier variants, all differing from the reference design and unlike the international version sold around the world, to the point that the underlying hardware differed between variants depending on carrier and reflected carrier priorities in terms of what level of hardware the carrier decided to subsidize.
That the venue for the worldwide launch was changed due to US carrier pressure suggests that Samsung’s latest Galaxy S is an important device for US carriers to launch simultaneously, as the last variant was launched across all four major carriers last year with minimal changes, which marked a change for US carriers normally accustomed to heavily modifying reference designs to suit specific requirements.
The next version of the Galaxy S is expected to be yet another evolution of the line with an even larger high-resolution display, the latest reports suggesting that the phone will ship with a quad-core Exynos series processor and a 5-inch 1080p display along with an improved camera module and improved LTE support along with improvements to Samsung’s software suite. The Galaxy S IV is also expected to resemble the recently announced Galaxy Note 8.0, which would also mean a slight but significant departure from previous designs.
