Last year, Samsung released the Galaxy S4 Active as a rugged and water-resistant variant of the Galaxy S4, but this year, the company made water-resistance a default feature of its latest flagship, the Galaxy S5. This naturally made people think an Active version won't be required any more, but it seems that isn't the case – according to notorious leakster evleaks, the Samsung SM-G870x will be the Galaxy S5 Active, and will be headed to AT&T, Sprint and other US carriers.
Provided this information is correct (and coming from evleaks, it usually is), it makes us wonder why Samsung is making an Active version of the Galaxy S5 when it's already water- and dust-resistant. It's possible the Galaxy S5 Active will act as a cheaper version of the Galaxy S5 (the unit price of a test SM-G870A was considerably low for a high-end device), with a couple of downgrades when it comes to hardware – the Galaxy S4 Active sported an LCD display and a lower-resolution camera compared to the Galaxy S4, and we could see similar changes in the Galaxy S5 Active (maybe an LCD display and a 13-megapixel camera instead of a 16MP unit?)
Well, as long as it has a good reason for existing instead of just being another device to further expand Samsung's already huge smartphone lineup, we certainly won't be complaining.
Samsung SM-G870x is the Galaxy S5 Active. Coming to AT&T and Sprint, among other carriers.
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) March 25, 2014
