Lau­ra Dowrich-Phillips

Con­sumers want­i­ng the newest phone in the Sam­sung Galaxy fam­i­ly of de­vices can pre-or­der them from to­day through bmo­bile and Dig­i­cel.The newest star in the Sam­sung Galaxy se­ries, the S5, was of­fi­cial­ly launched last night at the Hy­att Re­gency. The phones are ex­pect­ed to go on sale glob­al­ly from April 11 but may be avail­able a few days ear­li­er in T&T, said Elias Kabeche, Sam­sung's vice pres­i­dent of Sales and Mar­ket­ing for Hand Held Prod­ucts (HHP) and IT Busi­ness­es, Latin Amer­i­ca.

"If you pre-or­der the phone to­mor­row you will get two free ac­ces­sories and if you or­der the phone and one of the Gear de­vices you will get an in­ter­est­ing dis­count," said Kabeche in an in­ter­view a few hours ahead of the me­dia launch. The S5 was launched to­geth­er with the Gear 2 and Gear Fit smart­watch­es.

While de­clin­ing to give ac­tu­al fig­ures for the num­ber of phones they have sold lo­cal­ly, Kabeche said he was very thank­ful to T&T for em­brac­ing the Sam­sung brand. This mar­ket, he said, is a very im­por­tant one and is their first stop when it comes to launch­ing new prod­ucts in the re­gion. Fol­low­ing the T&T launch last night, the S5 will be launched in Ja­maica, Puer­to Ri­co and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

"We are re­al­ly thank­ful and ho­n­oured and we will con­tin­ue to in­vest in the mar­ket through pro­mo­tions, mak­ing sure you get the prod­ucts first, and work­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion on a schools project," he said.He al­so re­vealed that since its open­ing late last year, the Gulf City-based Sam­sung Ex­pe­ri­ence Store, done in con­junc­tion with bmo­bile, is do­ing tremen­dous­ly well. Two more stores in West Mall and Trinci­ty Mall are ex­pect­ed to open this year.

While the S4 has proven to be pop­u­lar, the S5 is ex­pect­ed to do even bet­ter Kabeche pre­dict­ed.The new phone boasts a se­ries of new fea­tures such as a fin­ger­print scan­ner that not on­ly un­locks the de­vice but will al­low hold­ers of Pay­pal ac­counts to pay via their phones. This ser­vice will be ini­tial­ly avail­able in Mex­i­co, Co­lum­bia, Brazil and the Unit­ed States be­fore be­ing ex­tend­ed to oth­er ter­ri­to­ries.

By press­ing the pow­er but­ton three times, the S5 goes in­to emer­gency mode alert­ing your emer­gency con­tacts of your where­abouts. The wa­ter and dust re­sis­tant de­vice al­so boasts an SHealth fea­ture with a pe­dome­ter and heart mon­i­tor.The Gear 2 al­so boasts sim­i­lar fea­tures in­clud­ing a cam­era, which is ab­sent from the Gear Fit wear­able de­vice. The Gear Fit, which is sleek­er and more styl­ish in de­sign, is the first wear­able with a curved dis­play.