Samsung: The Refined

The moment you are defined by expectations you have two choices, please yourself or attempt to please everyone else. Samsung met the increasingly unrealistic expectations head on with a big dose of refinement that reinforces their belief that they’ve achieved the holy grail of brand loyalty.

It was a bold, risky move by Samsung. I love the move for many reasons not the least of which is the self assuredness it exudes to those who believe that anything less than cramming way too many features into their latest and greatest is the Samsung way  It may be the new agreement with Google to dial things back and let Android take on a more prominent role. It may also be that Samsung has realized that when you’re royalty there is strength indulging in the less is more mind space.

Did you hear the one about the iHeartBeat? Yeah Samsung has been there and doing it a whole lot better this time around. The inclusion of the heart monitor feature which already has been released to the public so this time Samsung has been able to pour massive resources into making the function itself the “killer app.” A bonus for Samsung is that by the time Apple gets around to satisfying the beggars on Wall Street Samsung will be in their third cycle of making health monitoring common place.

I think the finger print scanner is a blatant and clear counter to Apple’s iTouch ID. Surely history can be the best teacher. Apple is well versed in crafting a beautiful story around a seemingly mildly used feature and making it the “must have” feature by which all current and near future smartphones would be judged. In one fell swoop Samsung has managed to get in the game before the momentum swung the pendulum completely in Apple’s favor.

Less goofy TouchWiz, more focus on allowing the user to see just how far and good Android has come. I’ll take this approach every time over getting googly eyed over features you’d quickly forget was even there. Well played Samsung, well played.

Android Central has a good gallery full of angled shots of the Galaxy S5. You can find it by clicking here.