Google made an accidental slip up on the Play Store by placing an image of what appears to be a Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition in the Galaxy S4 GPE section.
For years Google has sold its Nexus smartphones and tablets through the Google Play Store as a way to allow consumers to purchase smartphones and tablets that run stock Android and come with a guarantee of being upgraded to new versions of Android before other devices. It's one of the main reasons Nexus devices are extremely popular.
Last year, Google broke from tradition and offered two of the most popular Android smartphones on the market from Samsung and HTC. Google first began selling the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play Edition and then followed up by adding the HTC One as a GPE smartphone. Google Play Edition smartphones run stock Android and have customizations like Samsung's TouchWiz UI and HTC Sense completely removed from the devices.
Google has already added the HTC One M8 to its Google Play Edition lineup and we reported at the time it was very likely the Samsung Galaxy S5 would also be added. It now appears that assumption was correct, as Google replaced the image of the Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE with a Galaxy S5 running stock Android and with on-screen buttons in addition to the physical home button the Galaxy S5 uses for fingerprint scanning. The image has since been removed and neither Google nor Samsung have made any comment on the device's existence.
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition is expected to feature the same specs as the current Galaxy S5. That means the smartphone will ship with a 5.1-inch 1920 x 1080 Full HD Super AMOLED display with a pixel density of 432 pixels per inch (ppi). The handset will likely run Android 4.4.2 and include 16GB of internal storage and a microSD expansion slot that will support up to 128GB microSD cards. It will be powered by a 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdrgon 801 processor and 2GB of RAM.
Its camera capabilities include a 16-megapixel rear camera and 2.1-megapixel front facing camera. The Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition will also retain the Galaxy S5's IP67 water and dust resistant case and 2,800 mAh removable battery.
When Google begins offering the Samsung Galaxy S5 Google Play Edition, it will likely be priced at the same price the Galaxy S4 GPE is being offered for, which is sold unlocked for $649. We'll definitely keep you posted as more details become available.
