Samsung Electronic’s head of mobile design, Chang Dong-hoon, has resigned following criticism about the Galaxy S5 smartphone’s lack of pulchritude.Though the Galaxy S5′s design did not actually deviate too far from earlier models, its looks and textured plastic back were roundly lambasted by reviewers.
Despite their perceived lack of beauty, Samsung still managed to sell 86 million smartphones in 4Q2013, widening its lead over Apple. During that quarter, it also attained a 29.6% share of the global smartphone market, compared to Apple’s 17.6%.
But Samsung has been struggling to make a profit with its phones, thanks in part to heavy spending on marketing. In April, it also reduced the price of the Galaxy S5 in South Korea, the first time it has ever done so for a flagship phone.
Samsung said Chang will be replaced by Lee Min-hyouk, Samsung’s vice president for mobile design. Chang, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, offered to leave the company last week, but will continue to oversee Samsung’s overall design strategy.
Samsung will reportedly launch the premium version of the Galaxy S5 at some point in June, according to “industry sources” that spoke to South Korean publication Asia Today. The Galaxy S5 “Prime” model has been detailed in many reports preceding the Galaxy S5 launch and was spotted online after the regular model hit stores, even though Samsung officially denied working on such a device.
The Prime model is expected to have a 2560 x 1440 (also known as 2K or Quad HD) display, and a faster, more energy-efficient Samsung Exynos chip, at least according to recent reports.
It’s not clear in what markets this Prime Galaxy S5 version will be launched in, or how much it’ll cost, especially when compared to the regular Galaxy S5 that’s already selling very well in many countries.
For smartphone fans around the world, things really started to get interesting over the past couple of months. First, Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S5 flagship smartphone in late February, revealing a smartphone that was quite impressive and touted a number of great new features, but failed to live up to the hype stirred up by dozens of rumors. Then, HTC unveiled its own flagship phone, the HTC One (M8), and launched it the very same day.
We called HTC’s new handset the best Android phone on the planet when we published our in-depth HTC One (M8) review. But now HTC’s flagship handset finally has some serious competition in the Galaxy S5.
