Samsung's successor to its popular Android-powered smartphone, the Galaxy S5, will forgo an iris sensor in favor of a fingerprint scanner.
The Galaxy S5 is slated to launch in March or April, according to Samsung's VP of mobile, Lee Young Hee.
Now Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities, predicts the S5 will require a fingerprint verification method to stay competitive with the latest smartphones, especially considering the market craze for biometrics, which has been spurred by the iPhone 5s.
"Fingerprint is necessary for a star model," Kuo writes. "Because Apple's iPhone 5S and HTC's One Max have fingerprint, S5 the star model can't lack the function even [if] the solution (area type same as iPhone 5S's provided by Validity) is not as mature as iPhone 5S's."
Previous rumors claimed the Galaxy S5 will incorporate an iris sensor, but Kuo believes the South Korean company is not ready to introduce the iris scanning technology in the Galaxy S5.
He says Samsung will deploy fingerprint technology built by its partner Validity Sensors, which was purchased by Synaptics in 2013.
"Many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology," Lee said at the recently concluded CES 2014 in Las Vegas. "We are studying the possibility but can't really say whether we will have it or not on the S5."
However, the Korean Herald cited an anonymous source earlier this year who said Samsung will not have an iris sensor in the Galaxy S5 because fingerprint scanning is a more effective biometric security method.
Samsung will make two versions of the Galaxy S5, according to Kuo, one version called "Prime" and the other "Standard." Both will be made of plastic, not aluminum, and they will have a 5.2-inch display. The device will also house an Exynos 5430 processor and 3GB of RAM, as well as a 16-megapixel primary camera with 3D gestures.
