Week 15 news in review: Galaxy S5 launch, LG G3 rumors

This week marked the arrival of one of the year's most anticipated flagships, the Samsung Galaxy S5. But some other manufacturers took the opportunity to announce devices of their own, and Qualcomm took the spotlight by unveiling its new 64-bit Snapdragon chipsets.

Let's take a look at all of the headlines from this fifteenth week of 2014.

The Samsung Galaxy S5 went global today, and in a big way. Its launch in some 125 countries marks the largest flagship launch by Samsung ever, handily eclipsing the 60 countries where the Galaxy S4 premiered in last year.

Like the former Galaxy S5 flagship, the new S5 is also region locked, in an attempt by the Korean manufacturer to stem grey market imports. Earlier in the week, the Exynos 5 Octa variant of the Galaxy S5 handily outclassed its Snapdragon 801 counterpart in AnTuTu benchmarks. We'll see if Samsung also outs two variants of the rumored upcoming Galaxy Note 4.

A slew of other devices were announced this week, none more impressive than the Sharp Aquos Xx 302Sh. Sharp's new flagship makes up for its uninspired naming with an impeccable screen-to-body ratio, packing in a 5.2-inch display in a smaller footprint than all the latest flagships from the top manufacturers.

Otherwise, Samsung announced its competitively priced Galaxy Ace Style smartphone, while Nokia outed its ultra-cheap Nokia 225 and 225 Dual-SIM costing just €40!

Sony has fixed a speaker bug plaguing its new Android 4.4.2 KitKat release for the Xperia Z1, Z Ultra and Z1 Compact devices, while Qualcomm announced its robust new Snapdragon 808 and 810 chipsets, promising increased performance, better 3D rendering quality, and faster LTE speeds.

Finally, the LG G3 has finally appeared in our rumor mill, first in the form of a glimpse at its alleged new flat interface, followed by hints of a QHD display and 3GB of RAM on a 5.5" display. There are also signs of a 13MP shooter and Android 4.4.2 KitKat on board.