Samsung Galaxy S5 hits the market starting tomorrow, 11th of April in 125 countries concurrently. Each of the 150 countries get the device within the 24 hour day based on their timezone in what Samsung calls S Carpet. S Carpet is a 24 hour relay that starts East from Australia going east as the sun rises for each countries as per their timezones to the west ending in North America. Time for commencement is 11:11 am on 11th April.
Kenya is one of the countries among the four countries getting the relay tomorrow. The others are Egypt, South Africa and Tunisia. The launch for Samsung Electronics East Africa (SEEA) is today with the countries served by the Nairobi office also participating in the launch later today. These include Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, North Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, DRC and Burundi.
The Galaxy S5 was launched earlier in the year on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of February and hits the market worldwide a month and two weeks later.
Safaricom is one of the retail channels that offered the device for pre-order in Kenya and has confirmed that the device will be available in their shops starting tomorrow 11th April. Of course the pre-order people get it first. Usually, the first stock gets out fast as the scramble to get the hottest smartphone of the season goes on.
Safaricom says they got 300 pre-orders of the smartphone which was bundled at a price of Kshs 75,000 with free 3GB internet and a Gear Fit which outside of the deal is priced at Kshs 22,000.
Below are the Galaxy S5 Specifications:
- 5.1-inch full HD (1920×1080 pixels… 432 ppi) Super AMOLED display
- 2.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor. An Exynos variant may exist for certain markets.
- 2GB RAM, 16GB / 32GB internal memory, expandable up to 64GB with microSD
- Android 4.4.2 KitKat with a refresh of Samsung’s custom TouchWiz UI
- 16 megapixel camera at the back with LED Flash, BSI and supporting 4K video recording at 30 fps and 1080p video recording at 60 fps; a 2.1 megapixel shooter that can record video at 1080p sits on the front of the device
- IP67 certified for dust and water resistance.
- Infrared LED for smart TV remote using Samsung’s built-in WatchON application
- S Health 3.0 and a Heart rate sensor at the back of the device
- Fingerprint scanner
- HSPA+, 4G LTE-A, Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2X2 MIMO), Bluetooth 4.0 LE, GPS, USB 3.0 and NFC
- 2800 mAh Battery
Here is the official TVC for the Galaxy S5
http://youtu.be/E6MhcTStADU
