Head of Samsung Electronics Co's mobile business, J.K. Shin, received a $5.8 million compensation package last year, beating the paycheck of his counterpart at U.S. rival Apple Inc, the South Korean firm said on Monday in its first such disclosure under new regulations.

The world's biggest technology company by revenue said Shin's pack included a base salary of 1.17 billion won and 1.6 billion won in incentives and performance bonus.

By comparison, Apple chief executive Tim Cook received $4.25 million in 2013, little changed from the previous year when he had been paid $4.17 million.

Shin, who has led Samsung's mobile business since 2009, has since overseen the launch of its flagship Galaxy handsets that helped it unseat Apple in the smartphone market and also sparked patent litigations the world over that claimed Samsung copied the look and feel of the U.S. firm's iconic mobile products.

Samsung's other co-chief executive Kwon Oh-hyun, who leads the component business, earned even more, taking 6.77 billion won home, while third co-CEO Yoon Boo-keun, the head of its consumer electronics business, received 5.09 billion won.

South Korean financial authorities changed regulations late last year, requiring listed companies to include annual compensation details of executives who earn more than 500 million won in their business reports filings.

But the measure also drew some criticism as it does not shed much light on pay details of some high profile owners of business conglomerates or chaebols, as they frequently assume non-executive titles.

Samsung didn't disclose remuneration details of J.Y. Lee, non-executive vice chairman and son of its chairman Lee Kun-hee, who is also non-executive chairman and receives no salary from Samsung. ($1 = 1069.3000 Korean Won)

(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

© Thomson Reuters 2014 All rights reserved.

There are tons of rumors going around the web about the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, primarily because its predecessors is still one of the best high-end smartphones available on the mobile market seven months after its release. Being one of the most expensive devices from the Galaxy series, the Note line has always been announced either August or September. That being said we could probably have to wait at least three or four months until we hear something official about the Galaxy Note 4, yet we can let our imagination run wild. That’s why we here at GH compiled a wishlist of the Top 5 features we want to see, that are also the most probable to be featured on the smart device.

4GB of RAM

One of the most probable features of the upcoming, still unannounced, Galaxy Note 4 is the 4 GB of RAM memory. Although speculation, this feature may appear on the device as we’ve seen Samsung Electronics use their 20-nanometer 4GB DDR3 DRAM chipsets in a wide range of their devices. Having that much memory will affect in faster running applications and will let developers come up with even greater mobile games and experiences.

Water and Dust Resistance

This seems like an obvious choice, as Samsung have managed to include this feature on their Galaxy S5 phone without compromising its amazing Super AMOLED touchscreen. Although most believe that this is a rather unnecessary feature, it would make the device safer to use despite the activities you are participating in.

The Bendable Display

One of the features that was unveiled back at CES 2012 by Samsung, yet still hasn’t been used in any of their new smartphone devices is the bendable display. Although uncertain as to how it might be used, we would like to be surprised by the Galaxy Note 4 that should definitely feature some sort of an innovation, changing the way we look at our mobile devices once again.

20 MP Rear Camera

Although most rumors suggest that the camera on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will be upgraded to a 16 MP one, we like to dream big and add the 20 MP rear camera to our wishlist. In combination with any software tweaks that the developers may include, the new camera on the device should be a significant improvement from the one featured on the Note 3 and should let us capture every moment of our lives in astounding quality.

Prolonged Battery Life

Recent years, the smartphone manufacturers have managed to upgrade the overall battery life of their devices. However, a few more hours won’t hurt, thus making the last thing on our list for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 a 3,500 mAh battery.

Even if some of the upgrades on our wishlist aren’t featured on the upcoming device, as every smart device from the series up to now has proven to make the best use of the newest hardware and software releases, we are certain that the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will be a huge improvement from the already perfect Note 3. What features would you like the next smartphone in the Note line to have?

Love it or hate it, there’s no denying the fact that the Galaxy Grand Duos was a huge success for Samsung and is one of the phones that cemented the company’s place as the top player in the Indian market. The Grand 2 launched at a time when the sub-Rs 20,000 price segment wasn’t a terribly exciting place and offered features such as dual-band WI-Fi, GLONASS, Full HD video recording and a large display, which no one else did. The display panel was the Achilles heel of the Grand Duos, which created two factions of users – some who despised it and others who saw past this little flaw. Honestly, we didn’t think it was that terrible like most made it out to be but then that’s just us.

Exactly a year later, we have a follow up called the Galaxy Grand 2. The successor comes with the mandatory cosmetic facelift and few tweaks under the hood to keep all the right boxes ticked. Trouble is though, this segment isn’t what it was a year back. It’s extremely cut-throat and features like Full HD displays and 13MP cameras can be easily found. So, with a higher launch price than the Grand Duos and a few changes under the hood, does the Grand 2 have a place in this segment? Can it recreate the magic of its predecessor when you have tough competition from Lenovo, Nokia, Sony and Gionee?

Design and Build
If the Grand Duos looked a lot like the Galaxy S3, the Grand 2 (SM-G7102) is modelled around the Galaxy S4 and the Mega. It still weighs the same at 163g but is a tiny bit slimmer at 8.9mm. The phone is made predominantly of plastic and Samsung has shaved down the bezel quite a bit so the larger 5.2-inch display fits in a slightly smaller chassis.

The build quality is very good and the phone feels sturdy without any creaking plastic bits. The bezel also has a mosaic-like pattern on it, which is visible when light catches it. The back cover is treated with the same faux-leather texture and faux-stitching like the Note 3. The buttons and the edges have a heavy chrome trim, which is prone to scratches and wearing off easily.

Samsung can’t seem to get enough of faux-leather

The back cover snaps off easily, revealing the two SIM slots and a microSD card slot. We even have a chunkier 2600mAh battery which should give us better backup time. The rear speaker is decently loud for incoming calls but is quite muted when it comes to alert tones. Even after maxing out the notification volume, the most alert tones weren’t as loud as you’d expect them to be. Another issue is the lack of a notification light. This is a real problem since if you don’t hear you phone, there’s no way of knowing if you have a pending alert.

The chrome trim adds to the bling-factor, but also wears off easily

The ambient light sensor also seems to have just two settings – dim and bright. It doesn’t change as quickly as well so at times; you’re just waiting for the brightness to kick up a notch when you’re outdoors. The latter seems more like a firmware issue however.

Features
Speaking of which, there’s definitely some major bugs in the current firmware as we experienced very inconveniencing, sporadic slow-downs. This was a brand newretail unit that we unboxed so it’s not like it had been through a lot of wear and tear. When it works, it’s very smooth without any hitches. Every now and then though, the phone will just lock up and no amount of hitting the home or power key would make things right. It seems like a RAM management issue which is causing this. We hope Samsung fixes this in their future firmware update.

The familiar TouchWiz UI

The display is a lot better than the Grand Duos thanks to the bumped up resolution. It’s a shame we have to deal with just a TFT panel but we’ve seen worse. Colours are fairly punchy and text and icons aren’t pixelated. Screen sensitivity is also good and we didn’t have any issues here.

Almost twice as fast as the old one

The phone is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC and there’s 1.5GB of RAM accompanying it. In benchmarks, the SoC is a lot faster compared to the dual-core Broadcom chip in the Grand Duos. Both, AnTuTu and Quadrant posted some good numbers compared to its predecessor.

Some of Samsung’s own apps

Android 4.3 gets a smattering of TouchWiz apps. The new Multi-window is also present and its nice to see support for more third party apps as well. There’s also S Voice, Group Play, Story Album, S Translator and a Voice Recorder.

Media
The music and video player are quite competent so you won’t need to look elsewhere for a better experience. The music player supports lyrics and you also get cool enhancements like Tube amp effect, Adapt sound, EQ presets and more. The video player supports most formats, including MKV.

The music player is among the best from other OEMs

There’s 8GB of onboard storage and you can further expand this by up to 64GB.

Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is a 3G and quad-band GSM phone. Other features from the Duos also make a comeback like dual-band Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth v4.0 and GLONASS. NFC is still missing and we’d really like to see an IR blaster as well, which I don’t think is asking for much. The new display definitely makes web browsing a more pleasant experience and web sites can be read more easily without having to zoom in too much. Call quality was also good although the speakerphone volume was rather weak.

Good for surfing the web

Camera
It seems like the Grand 2 inherits the same 8MP snapper of the Grand Duos. This isn’t a bad thing considering the Grand did have a very good camera. The Grand 2 really excels when it comes to macro shots and we were surprised at the level of detail we were able to capture. That insect you see in the first image is no bigger than a small pea. We wished we had some sort of image stabilisation though, as it’s not easy capturing macros if your hands aren’t steady.

We managed to get some crazy macros

Very good for outdoor shots

Plenty of modes to choose from

The UI is similar to the one found on the S4 and Note 3. You even get most of the same features. Dual shot was missing though.

Battery Life
The 2600mAh battery easily sailed through our 8-hour loop test with about 30 per cent to spare. With regular use, we easily managed to get by two days before having to charge it.

Verdict and Price in India
The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 is officially available for Rs 24,890 but you can find it for it little lesser online and in most stores. Samsung is charging a Rs 4,000 premium over Grand Duos’s launch price and we feel this is too much for what’s on offer. If this was mid-2013 and the Grand 2 launched for this price, it would have been acceptable. But a year later, the Grand Duos has almost reached its EOL (End of Life) period, which is typically when we expect a refresh of sorts with mildly bumped up specifications for the same price. And the Grand 2 ticks all those boxes perfectly, except for the pricing. Samsung has also missed out on little details like putting a notification light or NFC even.

It’s an ever tougher sell when you consider the Lenovo Vibe X, which is superior in almost every respect, retailing for the same price. To sum up, the Grand 2 is a worthy upgrade to the Grand Duos but poor pricing, tough competition and lack of some crucial features might hurt its sales. At its current market price, you’re better off with the Lenovo Vibe X.

Display

Form Factor	Bar
Screen Type	TFT Capacitive TouchScreen
Screen Size	5.25 inches
Screen Resolution	720 x 1280
Number of Colours	16M

Processor

Processor	Quad-core
Speed	1.2 GHz

Memory

Internal Memory	8GB, 1.5GB RAM
Extendable Memory	microSD, up to 64 GB

Camera Features

Sensor Resolution	8MP, 3264 x 2448 pixels
Video Recording	Yes
Front facing camera	1.9MP

General Features

OS	Android
Bluetooth Features	Yes
Dual Sim Support	Yes
Messaging	SMS, MMS, E-mail
GPS	Yes
USB Connector	Yes
Available Colours	Black, White, Pink

Carrier Networks

2G	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

Data

GPRS	Yes
EGPRS or EDGE	EDGE
WiFi	802.11 a/b/g/n

Body

Dimensions	146.8 x 75.3 x 8.9 mm
Weight(grams)	163

Sound

Media Player	Music formats: MP3, M4A, 3GA, AAC, OGG, OGA, WAV, WMA, AMR, AWB, FLAC, MIDI, MID, XMF, MXMF, IMY, RTTTL, RTX, OTA - Video formats: MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, ASF, AVI, FLV, MKV, WEBM

Battery

Type	Li-ion
Capacity(mAh)	2600
Talk Time with Standard Battery (Minutes)	Up to 17 hrs
Standby Time with Standard Battery (Hours)	Up to 370 hrs

Bulky, sluggish and unintuitive, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear hasn't exactly lived up the hype or the expectations of a ‘smartwatch’.

The Galaxy Gear wasn't Samsung’s first stab at a smartwatch. In 1999 and again in 2009, it had a go at chunky digital watches but neither took off with consumers. Samsung’s grand vision for the Galaxy Gear was "a companion device that will keep us constantly connected," as Samsung‘s executive vice-president of marketing Lee Young-hee described it.

Whether it was through bad timing - a rush to beat Apple’s much rumoured ‘iWatch’ to the market - or through the limitation of current technology, including the lack of viable curved displays and battery technology restrictions, the Galaxy Gear was released as very much a limited product, with a confused and slow interface, a lack of device support, and very little in the way of ‘killer’ functionality to justify its £299 price tag.

'Our Gear lacks something special'

Samsung has admitted that the Gear isn't up to scratch, as a Samsung official told the Korean Times, “We've acknowledged that our Gear lacks something special. With more investment for user interface and user experience, Samsung devices will be better in terms of customer satisfaction.”

This is despite Young-hee telling reporters that the Gear is "definitely receiving warm response," at a launch event for the smartwatch in southern Seoul yesterday. "The Galaxy Gear is a wow product. It's a wholly new and must-have accessory."reporters.

Not so much Dick Tracy...

The Galaxy Gear promises Dick Tracy-style phone calls and messaging from your wrist, and connects via Bluetooth only to Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 phablet, although support for others like the Galaxy S4 is being added at a later date according to Samsung.

As well as letting you make and receive calls via a microphone on its wrist strap and speakers embedded in the Gear's main body, it pulls messages, contacts and alerts from your phone, placing at-a-glance information on your wrist.

The Gear also has its own bespoke third-party apps like Evernote, Path, Pocket and RunKeeper, plus Samsung's own applications like the instant messaging service ChatON, its S Voice digital assistant, and a pedometer, which takes advantage of the built-in sensors including an accelerometer and gyroscope within the watch.

The Gear feels awfully sluggish

While promising much, on initial testing Samsung's Galaxy Gear hasn't lived up to the hype.

In our hands-on experience at the launch event in Berlin on 4 September we found it to be sluggish during navigation, with an awkward swipe-based interface that, although was simplified compared to Samsung's Galaxy Android smartphones, was unintuitive and confusing at times.

The smartwatch was also bulky on the wrist and difficult to use as an actual timepiece, with the time display only visible when you shook your wrist, not at a glance when you are likely to want to see the time.

Other initial hands-on testers had similar experiences.

"The Gear feels awfully sluggish, whether you're launching an app such as Evernote or Path, or swiping down from the home screen to activate the camera. The interface also feels a bit clunky and unpolished at times," wrote Zach Honig for gadget site Engadget.

Likewise Vlad Savov writing for the Verge found there to be "a tangible lag to anything you do with the Gear, while the swipe gestures are hard to figure out and do different things depending on where you are in the menus".

Ian Fogg, director for mobile and telecoms at research company IHS, described the Gear as "a prototype masquerading as a commercial product - and because of that, it is unlikely to be successful in the market".

Fogg explained that "the device exhibits multiple shortcomings, including a high price tag, a short battery life, its status as a companion device and its limited compatibility. The bottom line is the Galaxy Gear smartwatch probably will not succeed in the market and Samsung will need to try again with a more refined product."

'A prototype to determine market reaction'

A report in Daum, which is based in Samsung's homeland of South Korea, suggests that the Galaxy Gear was indeed "just the first… to determine the market reaction", and that an upgraded version could be announced as soon as January at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas or Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in March, complete with GPS and location-based services.

Despite a its high price tag of £299, Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, reckons that Samsung will sell one million units, "although compared to the expectation of 1bn in overall smartphone sales it's a drop in the ocean".

"Given the 125 million install base of Samsung's Galaxy S3, S4 and Note series, plus the fact that Samsung's likely to bundle them with the purchase of new phones as it has done with tablets in the past, I can see them selling at least one million units," Wood told the Guardian.

"It is very much a 'version 0.1' product, however, but Samsung has a history of rapid evolution of products - I suspect the Galaxy Gear 2 is very close behind."

Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear went on sale on 25 September priced at around £599 for the phablet and £299 for the smartwatch.

• Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder, wants more than just a smartwatch - he wants the entire internet on his wrist.

Copy righted data▐ all credits are accredited to Galaxys5info 

Samsung is today considered the renovation in the mobile tech world, at par with all the leading phones available today in the Smartphone sphere. Managed to go from strength-to- strength, it can be directly attributed to the success of Galaxy range of devices. In this rapid mobile world, it’s obvious to talk of a device’s successor even before its release. With the establishment of Galaxy S4 in the mobile world, surprisingly there’ve been few reports pertaining to the product the next in line, THE SAMSUNG GALAXY S5.

The much anticipated Samsung galaxy S5 is officially confirmed but still haunts the curious minds for when we are actually going to see it. A Lot of specs have already been rumored. Though Samsung has chosen to remain quiet about the whole sweet details of its next flagship, we have tried to stick on with the most reliable sources. A Smartphone industry that never sleeps, the executors and engineers are working round the clock to plan out, design and built the new S5.

Software and features:

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is supposedly bigger, faster, tougher and wider. Similar to the previous two generations, It won’t be running on Android 4.0, rather it is likely to run on Android 5.0 ‘Key Lime Pie’.

Currently unsure, but the phone might feature a 2GHz Octa-core processor, featuring a 5.2 inch screen and offering easier navigation with multi-touch capacitive and a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. To go along with the bigger screen size, this device will also feature a ‘Smart Eye Tracking’ to possibly improve navigation. It is being expected that Galaxy S5 might feature the Youm Flexible display. Furthermore, it will be equipped with the gyroscope, accelerometer, proximity sensor, light sensor and compass just like any Smartphone. Good news, that Samsung is perhaps boosting the RAM to 4GB, never before seen in a Smartphone. A chip that could spell more than increased speeds and improved capabilities of multitasking, the RAM improvement of Samsung Galaxy S5 could result in a much better battery life and a slimmer phone looks. The company’s official spokesperson stated: “Samsung’s new ultra-slim memory solutions will enable thinner Smartphone designs and allow for additional battery life, while offering a speed of up to 2,133 megabits per second (Mbps) per pin for data transfer.”

Exterior: Aluminium Back Cover and AMOLED Plus Display

By far Samsung has chosen to stick with plastic for lightness and durability. There have been rumors that Samsung’s next will feature metal body in order to compete with other upscale phones of Apple, Sony or HTC. It has been reported that Samsung would revamp their entire design. Also a Korean tech news website ET News reports that Samsung plans on giving the Galaxy S5 a metal exterior. Contrary to Samsung Galaxy S4, whose plastic body look is often considered as inferior compared to the metal chassis for its fifth-generation hero phoneas plastic design would give a cheaper look than its rivals. The metal body is perhaps meant to seal it completely and make it dust and water proof. There have been rumors of Galaxy S5 with carbon fiber body too.

ET News also predicted that the production for the phone will start late in 2013. According to the buzz, the development of the next device has already taken place in Europe and is going to be produced on a large scale in Vietnam.

CAMERA

Designer Bob Freking shares his views for the Galaxy S5 camera in a video that suggests that it would have 16 MP rear camera with Optical Image Stabilization and 6x lose less zoom to vastly improve the qualities of the images captured, which Samsung is currently working on. The report mentions that Samsung has scheduled to finish working on the new camera hardware by the end of this year and to start making tests with handsets at the beginning of 2014.

NETWORK AND CONNECTIVITY

The high tech phone is rumored to be working on the following frequencies GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 / UMTS 850 / 900 / 2100 MHz.

RELEASE DATE AND PRICE

With no official announcement of scheduled release date, it is predicted to be in the summer of 2014 to follow the current trend and have a price range of 650$.

The phone still remains shrouded in speculations of mystery. Many fans are hoping that the next Galaxy S phone will be bigger and better than its previous generations unlike the last two, S3 and S4, which were almost alike, especially when Apple is set to release the iPhone 5S next month. We hope that S5 will surpass all the previous phones.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 hasn't been around long, but rumours about its successor are already doing the rounds with a familiar topic at the centre of the early chatter.

According to Android Geeks, an "inside source" has "confirmed" the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be the first smartphone to come from the Korean firm sporting a fully aluminium chassis - although we're not getting too carried away just yet.

Numerous rumours, leaks and tip-offs claimed that the Galaxy S4 would follow in the footsteps of the iPhone 5 and HTC One, joining the premium material brigade and finally putting plastic to rest - but that wasn't the case.

Design 3.0

Lo and behold, Samsung decided its fans weren't ready for a metal body and stuck with the trusty polycarbonate to wrap their best selling, record-breaking handset in.

The Galaxy SV will apparently kick off a new design direction for Samsung which is currently being dubbed "Design 3.0", which will see the Korean firm move away from the now familiar look of the Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S3 and the fleet of Galaxy S4 branded devices.

This new design language will supposedly see the Galaxy S5 feature a unibody design which ditches the firm's long-standing alliance to a removable battery, which could be a real deal-breaker for some.

The unknown sources did not provide anything on the way of specifications for the Samsung Galaxy S5, but you can rest assured that this is the first of many, many rumours surrounding the handset.

• Had enough or are you thirsty for more? Here's everything we think we know about the Samsung Galaxy S5 so far.