Recently we got to take an extensive look at Samsung’s ruggedized Galaxy S5 which hasn’t been officially announced as yet. There have already been countless leaks about this device but the momentum doesn’t seem to be slowing down. A new video has surfaced online which shows that the Galaxy S5 Active is going to have a dedicated hardware key located next to the volume keys.
Over the past few years the trend has been to have as little hardware keys as possible. A dedicated hardware key used to be staple on almost all BlackBerry devices but even the struggling manufacturer got rid of it on its BlackBerry 10 series. Samsung seems to be looking for an encore with the Galaxy S5 Active.
The video reveals that this key will be customizable. It will apparently be called Active Key and an app of the similar name will let users decide what the key is to do when pressed. For example a short press can be set to launch utilities like the compass or barometer whereas a long press can be used to activate the camera. It would make sense to have a dedicated button for the camera particularly when the entire premise behind this smartphone is to make it truly resistant to the elements. Taking pictures under water with the Galaxy S5 Active will be a whole lot easier with the Active Key.
It is also rumored that the Galaxy S5 Active might have optical image stabilization, a feature that’s not present in the flagship Galaxy S5. The latter uses software based image stabilization and it would certainly be unusual for Samsung to introduce hardware based OIS in a variant that’s not the flagship.
Filed in . Read more about Galaxy S5, Galaxy S5 Active and Samsung.