Samsung Pins Hopes on Virtual Reality

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) shakes hands with Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung's mobile communications business, at the launch of the Galaxy S7 series smartphones in Barcelona, Spain on Sunday. /AP-Yonhap

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Samsung hosted a launch event for its new Galaxy S7 smartphone series in Barcelona on Sunday on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress. But the real showpiece was the virtual reality headset Gear VR distributed to some 5,000 visitors to view the main functions the phone immersively.

Samsung hopes that VR technology can help it overcome the deteriorating profitability of smartphones in a saturated market and growing competition from Chinese rivals.

Koh Dong-jin, the new president of Samsung's mobile communications business, claimed it intends to "redefine" and "reimagine" the purpose of the smartphone with virtual reality gadgetry.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a cameo appearance at the event. "Pretty soon we're going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes as if you're just there, right there in person", Zuckerberg claimed. "And that's why Facebook is investing so much early on in virtual reality. So we can hope to deliver these types of social experiences".

Samsung has been developing VR headsets in partnership with Oculus VR, a start-up Facebook acquired in 2014.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones, as well as the Gear 360 camera which enables 360-degree filming to create virtual reality content.

The filmed images can be sent to the smartphone for editing, storing and viewing later through the Gear VR. At present, the Galaxy S7 series, as well as S6 and Galaxy Note 5 can be connected to the Gear 360. 

Participants wear virtual reality headsets at Samsung's launch of the Galaxy S7 series smartphones in Barcelona, Spain on Sunday. /Yonhap

Ben Wood, an analyst at UK-based market researcher CCS Insight, recently pointed out that the field of virtual reality is one of Samsung strengths that it should pursue to get ahead of Apple.

The Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge have managed to eke out some hardware improvements over other models in an increasingly samey market. The S7 Edge's screen is 5.5 inches, while the S7's is 5.1 inches. The camera has also been bolstered to feature a dual-pixel image sensor for the first time. The S7's battery cannot be removed, but battery life has allegedly been increased by 18 percent for the S7 and 38 percent for the S7 Edge, while wireless recharging is also possible.

Still, critics were underwhelmed. The Wall Street Journal said Samsung's latest smartphone lacked "showstopping" power.

The new phones go on sale on March 11 in Korea, the U.S. and other major markets.