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Although we thought it odd that Samsung would launch their big flagship for 2014 — the Samsung Galaxy S5 — without any mention of a Google Play edition, we didn’t doubt that the TouchWizless phone would eventually find its way into the Play Store. Today, the Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play edition is making an appearance in the Play Store but with one small issue — it’s not actually available for purchase.
Thanks to a tip, we find Google has finally updated their Google Play edition device page with an image of the Galaxy S5, only it’s still being listed as last year’s Galaxy S4. A fluke perhaps? Or does this mean we can expect the Galaxy S5 Google Play edition to launch any day now? We’ll keep an eye out.
Thanks, Tommy!
Again, still won’t be available in Australia. Don’t know why Google keeps doing this. There’s a huge market out there that’d appreciate GPE versions of flagship phones.
Australia? i think you mean the whole wide world outside of the US.
That’s why I said “huge market”
Dunno about the S4 version, but i’m assuming once a GPE model is released, you could extract the rom (find it on XDA), and then you could simply flash it on to a non GPE model, so long as everything else (internals ie. chipset etc) were the same and it was the same device model!? I never really looked into that with the S4 because i had an S3. Something to consider maybe!
I’ve been flashing roms for almost 4.5 years now. It grows tired.
Lets hope its a 32GB model or a 32GB model option
If it is, I’ll jump on it. Hoping the issues I was having are related directly to TouchWiz, and not Samsung’s kernel (which they still use for their GPe “stock” ROMs).
Do you really need 32GB for apps when all your user-created photo/video/music/ringtone multimedia can be put on a 128GB microSDXC card?
cool…how much?
Soft keys AND capacitive keys … that’s just weird
This is what you call a bad Photoshop. Oops.
Pretty sure this was meant just to torture Chris Chavez.
I think you’re right. Lol
Will most likely jump on this. I’m dying to know if the performance has been improved with “stock” Android, and what Samsung features are intact (fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor, camera performance, etc.).
Chris, if it helps, I can confirm that my S4 GPE runs circles around the Touchwiz model in terms of user interaction (real world performance). I’m still on Dalvik, though I’ve toyed with ART, and despite this, there’s rarely a hiccup. It’s as smooth as or smoother than my wife’s iPhone 5s, with the exception of Google Chrome. Even Chrome has gotten better, but it still has an occasional hiccup as a heavy website is loading.
I suspect that the camera (when using Google Camera) will perform identical. Samsung’s Touchwiz camera has some software features (digital stabilization, for example) that put it ahead. Of course, last year we had an issue with different camera sensors. The i9505 variants, including the GPE, using Sony’s Exmor sensor, while the i9500 (Exynos) variants had the Exmor RS, which was slightly superior. Not sure if they did the same thing this year (I’m not a big camera nerd).
Dat Gmail icon.
All of them really. This thing looks really badly photoshopped. Not saying that it isn’t real, it probably is, but Google needs to do some work on this picture.
Hopefully they offer it in black this time. Love my GS4 GPe but got sick of the white color after a few weeks.
Honestly love my S5 the way it is, no dramas with it at all……. but i must be the only one :/
Anybody else think the GPE S5 could be the “PRIME” model that everyone is waiting for?
No. The prime is a new metal phone coming out.
Man I hope they release an Xperia Z2 GPE…
Now THAT would be awesome!!!
I know that it won’t happen, but I would LOVE to seem them launch it in a way that would allow the user to choose 16/32GB options and different colors. However, it will likely be the same as last year – 16GB and white for $649. Oh well, at least being a GPE, it won’t have 11GB available for immediate use).
Whats the big deal about it? A micro sd card 16GB costs only 10 bucks… a 64GB costs less than 50 bucks and for 119 you can add whopping 128GB!! (amazon.com prices)
Because since KitKat, applications cannot control data on the MicroSD card as they used to. When I got my S4 GPE, it came pre-loaded with Android 4.2. I promptly installed a 64GB MicroSD and had no issues. I could use an application like FolderSync to offload my photos/videos/Flac Music to the MicroSD and keep it perfectly in sync with my other devices. Not anymore.
No complaints here with my gs4 gpe, definitely the best phone I have ever owned, probably won’t jump ship to anything else till I see what this project Ara has to bring to the table.
I’m loving mine. No phone release has caught my interest since. I kept my S2 for just over two years. I expect about the same here.
lol yeah I had a lg G2x before this s4 gpe, I had that phone for over 2 years, thought it would get great support being vanilla and all and its fancy 1ghz dual core tegra2 inside and was definitely wrong, I’m pretty confident this phone will be supported for awhile.
If GPe devices end up with nexus-like support, you can expect 18 months, give or take. Given that it launched end of June (early July), the last major update should be whatever we get with Google October/November device launch, and then the x.x.1 updates for that version.
If Samsung has any say, it may be given one more version, given Samsung’s history with long term support.
That’s what I’m assuming , I’m pretty sure my nexus 2012 has seen its last treat from Google.
Assuming you mean the Nexus 4, you’ll get 4.4.3. And if there is a 4.5 that comes out with a summer tablet launch, you should get that as well. It won’t be until October/November that Google officially ends support for the Nexus 4.
Oh sorry, nexus 7 2012
Will this mean that the heart rate monitor and finger print scanner are useless on the play edition ?