Samsung S5 and other Mobile World Congress soothsayings

-Hey everyone, welcome to the Inside Scoop. I'm CNET Kara Tsuboi joined by CNET senior editor, Jessica Dolcourt. We are talking about the Mobile World Congress coming up in Barcelona and everyone is expecting a big announcement from Samsung that they're going to release the Galaxy S5. -Absolutely. We already pretty much sure that's gonna happen and that is basically the highlight of the show at this point. -What is one thing that you would really like to see out of this new iteration of the Galaxy? -I'd like to see a really dramatic design change. We've had a lot of the same universal-looking, rounded corner, very plasticky, look and feel. Samsung's tried to increase the premium feel of that a little bit by adding a little silver around the ridge. -Sure. -But what I wanna see is something really beautiful and finely crafted, more long lines of what you get with the HTC One or even the iPhone 5S. I also love to see personally the power button remove from the side to the top. It's such a small thing, but I carry these things around all the time in my purse mostly and even with the dedicated purse pocket. The thing turns itself on all the time. So, either let's stiffen up that button or let's just move it to the top. -Yeah. Okay. So, besides like a hardware overhaul, what else? What about the guts of the phone? What do you need to see performance wise? -Well, we're definitely gonna see a step up in specs, so it's going to have a very fast. We're expecting quad core process, something long lines of the 16-megapixel camera, a very good front-facing camera as far as these things go. So, what we're expecting is the screen is gonna be something called 2K. You can think of that as ultra HD so the pixels are just gonna be cramped right up there. It will be absolutely gorgeous. As far as the size goes, you know, probably about the 5-inch mark could be a little bit bigger, but they don't wanna encroach on the Galaxy Note territory by making it too big. -And what about fingerprint scanners? A lot of new phones have them. Do you think Samsung will hop on board? -That's definitely the rumor and I would expect it especially because Apple has that with the iPhone 5S. There are couple different implementations we've seen scanners on the back of the phone before. That's been around for several years, but not really implemented well. The problem is in order for it to be useful, it really means work correctly all the time and needs to be easy to find and needs to be accurate to use. So, Apple kind of has a lock on putting the fingerprint scanner on the home button. I'm not really sure if Samsung is going to attempt to do that, maybe encounter some legal battles along the way or we could see it on the back like you get with something like the HTC One Max. -The S4 is a very popular phone. All these rumors that you're hearing about the S5, does it add up enough to be competitive in that high-end space with whether it is the iPhone or other Androids on the market? -Absolutely. I think Samsung excels at checking off all the boxes that need to be done. So, usually, I think that the specs are very, very good. What I think the phone sometimes has locked in the past. There's a little bit of soul. -For sex appeal-- -Yeah, exactly. But Samsung is just an absolute advertising juggernaut. They pummel everybody else around the world. So, I think that the phone will sell. It has to sell. As long as there's nothing wrong with it, it will sell and there will be nothing really wrong with it. Now, is it going to be a beautiful, amazing device, I sure hope so, but that's something that we've got to see when it actually comes out. -Galaxy S5, any thoughts and it's having a curved screen. I know we've sort of seen that emerging out there in the smartphone market. -Right. I don't think we're gonna see anything deeply curved like we did on the Samsung Galaxy round, which is Korea only, or the LG G Flex, which is available in the U.S. So, I think it's possible that the actual glass or screen on top could have a slight curve to it like we've seen in the past. I'm not entirely certain that the OLED display underneath is going to be curved. So, I don't think we're gonna see that really deep arts. -So, the S5 announcement is what you think will be the highlight of Mobile World Congress. But what else are going to see from the show? -Now, one other thing that we're gonna be paying a lot of attention to is actually phones for emerging markets, because this is where the battles really gonna be fought in 2014. We've got players like Lenovo that bought up U.S. Motorola and some others as well. You've got Nokia shifting under Microsoft. So, I think the question is gonna be now that, you know, a lot of developed nations are really saturated when it comes to smartphones. People mostly replacing what they already have. The next phase is getting the hearts and minds of people who are moving from their first smartphone or maybe moving from an entry level smartphone into sort of the next model. So, for these companies, they're gonna be targeting these markets. So, let's keep our eyes out for the Samsung announcement and then all these other trends and mobile that you mention. Thank you so much. -Exactly. -Jessica Dolcourt. I'm Kara Tsuboi, thanks for watching the Inside Scoop.