While Samsung and LG have already revealed their flagship offerings for the year 2015, quite a few key players have yet to announce their new devices for this year. Apple Inc. is slated to release its iPhone 6s in September, and Samsung also isn’t done yet, with plans to release the Note 5 around the same time.
SamsungGalaxy Note 5:
The Note series has always been Samsung’s crème’ de la crème’, with the company bringing forth most of the innovations in the smartphone space through the Note phones. The latest iteration in the Note series, the Galaxy Note 5, is expected to release somewhere around August or September, with top-of-the-end hardware and all the latest features that we’ve come to expect with all iterations of the Galaxy Note line. While initial rumors pegged the launch date for September at the annual IFA conference held in Berlin, recent rumors suggest that the phone will see the light of day earlier than expected, debuting on August 12 and then hitting the shelves on August 21.
Another rumor suggests that the phone will carry USB Type-C connectivity, making it the first phone to feature the new standards. Following the immense success of the Galaxy S6 Edge, it’s expected that the Note 5 will also launch alongside a dual-edge variant. Other rumors suggest that the phone will ship with a super-AMOLED 5.7- or 5.9-inch display, with 2K (2560 x 1440) or 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution. Powering the device will either be a homegrown Exynos 7422 processor with power efficiency improvements, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 815 chipset with 4GB RAM. As for the camera specs, the main camera is expected to have a 16-megapixel module, along with the ability to shoot 4K video as OIS. There have been a couple of reports suggesting that the Galaxy Note 5 will ship with Android M, but it’s highly unlikely.
One of the main innovations expected in the new Exynos 7422 chipset is that it will contain the CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage, and even the Modem on a single chip. This will reduce the overall size of the chip, as well as offer power efficiency improvements.
OnePlus2:
Launched by the little-known company OnePlus, the OnePlus One was a surprising success, mainly because of the company’s high attention to detail and the optimized software, which was developed by the maker of CyanogenMod. Despite matching all of the flagship smartphones in terms of performance and build quality, the OnePlus One cost only half the price of the phones, competing in the same category. Its successor, OnePlus 2, will launch on July 27, and is expected to feature a slew of improvements over its predecessor.
According to numerous rumors, the phone should sport a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 4GB of RAM, along with a fingerprint scanner for easy access with additional security. Some rumors also suggest the phone will ship with a USB Type-C connector. Despite all these top-notch specs, the phone is expected to be priced under $450. While the Snapdragon 810’s original version has been known to exhibit slight heating issues, reports say that OnePlus has been working with Qualcomm to resolve the issues and release a 2.1 version of the processor.
As for the battery life, the phone will ship with a 3,300 mAh battery, which is a slight bump-up from the previous iteration’s 3,100 mAh. We can predict that the phone will have a longer battery life; however, that cannot be confirmed until the screen type of OnePlus 2 is confirmed. The current debate is that the phone will either feature QHD (2560x1440 pixels) or a Full HD (1920x1080 pixels) display.
Surprisingly, the fingerprint sensor will reportedly even beat the iPhone in terms of speed accuracy, which is the current market leader in terms of fingerprint sensors. It’s not yet known where the fingerprint sensor will be located or whether there’ll be a home button to begin with.
Based on recent rumors, OnePlus 2 will rock a 16-megapixel camera module on the back, equipped with OIS, along with a 5-megapixel shooter on the front. As for the design, it’s expected that the device won’t use metal for most of the design; instead, a rough variant of plastic will be utilized, making for a better overall grip.
