Samsung sought Monday to frame its new Galaxy S5 smartphone as a lifestyle product, as it emphasized a built-in heart-rate sensor and improved camera features over its slightly larger size.
One of the main appeals of Samsung phones has been their size. The screen has steadily increased since the 4 inches (10.2 centimetres) on the original S from 2010, while the iPhone made that jump to 4 inches only in 2012 and has stayed that way since.

But the S5 pushes the screen to only 5.1 inches (13 cms), measured diagonally, from 5 inches (12.7 cms) in last year's model. Instead of size, Samsung touted the new phone's ability to adapt its screen to changing external conditions and to dim it to avoid disturbing others nearby. The Galaxy S5 offers the world’s fastest autofocus speed up to 0.3 seconds and the advanced High Dynamic Range (HDR), reproduce natural light and color with striking intensity at any circumstances. Also new Selective Focus feature allows users to focus on a specific area of an object while simultaneously blurring out the background. With this capability, consumers no longer need a special lens kit to create a shallow depth of field (DOF) effect.

Here are the specs of Samsung’s new flagship handset:

• Size: 142 x 72.5 x 8.1
• Weight: 145g
• 5.1-inch FHD Super AMOLED display (1920 x 1080 resolution)
• 2.5GHz quad-core processor
• 2GB of RAM
• 16/32GB of memory
• microSD support up to 64GB
• 16-megapixel camera with UHD 4K video recording at 30fps and various software features
• 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera
• LTE Cat 4 (150/50Mbps) support
• 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac HT80 MIMO (2×2) Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 4.0 BLE/ANT_
• USB 3.0
• NFC
• IR Remote
• 2800mAh battery
• IP67 Dust and Water Resistant
• Fingerprint scanner
• Heart rate sensor
• Android 4.4.2 KitKat with various software features on top including Ultra Power Saving Mode, Download Booster, S Health 3.0, Quick Connect, Private Mode, Kids Mode

 Samsung has just announced that the Galaxy S5 will be available starting April 11th in 150 countries. Over here in the US, it'll be available on Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, MetroPCS and U.S. Cellular. Ma Bell is going one step further, offering up the Gear 2 and the Gear Fit smartwatches as well. If you'd rather go elsewhere for your mobile needs, retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Target and Walmart will have the GS5 plus all three of Samsung's newly announced wearables.

As for our friends across the Atlantic, UK providers EE, Three and Vodafone UK have jumped aboard the GS5 bandwagon, as have retailers Phones4u and Carphone Warehouse. Though it hasn't been announced, we expect other carriers such as O2 will support the phone too. No word on pricing just yet, but we expect we'll find that out closer to the phone's April launch date.