Samsung to answer the Galaxy's every prayer - The Australian Financial Review
John Davidson
Every night, every Galaxy owner in the cosmos goes to bed with just one prayer on their lips: if only their phone looked a little nicer. Well it's beginning to look like Samsung might just answer that prayer.
Rumours are mounting that the world's number one smartphone maker will abandon the chintzy plastic used in the manufacture of its (otherwise) premium line of phones, the Galaxy S, and go for an all-metal body instead.
Just like HTC. Just like Apple.
The Japanese website EMSOne, which specialises in reporting on the "Original Device Manufacturers" (ODMs) that make devices on behalf of bigger brand names, says its sources have confirmed that Samsung will use an ODM known as Catcher Technology to make all-metal unibody cases for the next Galaxy S phone.
I know we've been around this block before, only to be disappointed by yet another plastic Galaxy S, but this time it just has to be true, doesn't it? Where else can Samsung take its Galaxy S phones? With the exception of updated Bluetooth (which is coming with the Android 4.3 update to the Galaxy S3 and S4 anyway), they don't really need any more features. And they can't get much bigger without encroaching on the Galaxy Note.
Reports about Catcher Technology making metal bodies for the Galaxy S5 are coming thick and fast. In September, the Taipei Times reported that Samsung was in talks with Catcher to get it to make metal phone bodies.
It's worth noting that Catcher is the company that makes the metal bodies for Apple's MacBook Air, arguably the best-put-together notebook PC on the market. A Samsung phone inside one of its bodies would be hard to resist.
According to the reports, Catcher will start making the bodies this month, opening up the possibility that the Galaxy S5 might even ship slightly earlier in the year than the S4 did. You may recall, that phone was launched in March and shipped in April.
Then again, Samsung has never used a metal unibody design in its phones before, so it may just be getting the bodies made early in case of unforeseen production difficulties. If it means a metal Galaxy phone, I'm happy to wait till April.
The Australian Financial Review
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