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

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.