Dual shot – This new camera feature makes for some interesting stories, mainly because it compiles videos by recording content with the front and rear cameras. It’s neat because you can tell a story about what you’re trying to shoot in the video. In another scenario, just like how we perform hands-on videos at tradeshows, the dual shot feature comes in hand for allowing us to shoot video on a device – while keeping our face in the frame of the recording as we speak.
Sound & Shot – This is simple, it just allows us to record up to 9 seconds of audio when we snap a photo. Therefore, when we preview it in the gallery, it’ll play the recording when we look at it.
Drama Shot – Always wondered how professional photographers snap those cool photos of someone diving into a pool? You know, the ones where it shows in the photo the step-by-step moment? Well, the drama shot feature relies on multi burst to take various photos of something in motion, and then complies them together in a single shot.
Cinema Photo – Now this one is really cool, it’s like having a photo that you can honestly say you’re “feeling the moment.” Basically, it’s like making a gif image on the smartphone. As the handset is capturing images, we can select what elements to animate and what others we want to keep stationary.
Story Album – The name says it all! It’s a feature that lets us stitch together a story album using pictures, time, place, weather, and more.
S Translator – You guessed it folks, the Galaxy S IV makes it super convenient to translate stuff on the fly. Incorporated into a variety of apps, like ChatON, messaging, S Translator app, and email, language barriers will be a thing of the past with this new S Translator feature.
Group Play – There are to aspects of Group Play. First, there’s the ability to allow the smartphone to pair with other Galaxy S IVs so they can conjure up a powerful sound system with its new Share Music feature. Come to think about it, the entire thing kind of reminds us of daisy chaining. Lastly, the Galaxy S IV allow for more social engagement when it comes to playing games. Specifically, optimized versions of Asphalt 7 and Gun Bros 2 allow multiple Samsung Galaxy S IV smartphone to play collaboratively.
Air View – Yup, the Note’s Air View feature has somehow magically arrived on the Galaxy S IV – and boy does it impress on many levels. We’ve already talked about its usefulness and the display’s accuracy, but Sammy has an optimized version of Flipboard that allows us to hover our finger over its tiles to get a preview. Of course, the feature works in many other places – like previewing email and calendar appointments.
Air Gesture – Holy smokes! So what’s Air Gesture? Simply, it’s a basic version of Kinect for the Microsoft XBOX 360, but for smartphones (SGSIV in this case obviously). At its core, Air Gesture is touchless commands for the Galaxy S IV and breaks down to three commands – Air Browse, Air Jump, and Air Call Accept. In the browser and email apps, we can wave our hand in a downward/upward motion to tell the phone to scroll up/down. Likewise, we can “swipe” through photos in the gallery by waving our hand over the display in the appropriate direction. Yeah, it’s super neat, but not all apps support it. Instead, most of Sammy’s set offer it, but not others like Chrome or Gmail. Unfortunately though, there’s no air gesture for “pinch zooming.”
Smart Pause – It’s hard enough remembering a storyline when watching a movie on a phone, especially when we decide to do something else aside from watching it. Well, with Smart Pause, the handset knows when we’re not looking. Therefore, it’ll automatically pause the moment our eyes are no longer affixed to the display, but it’ll resume once we look back at it.
Smart Scroll – Using a combination of looking with our eyes and some tilting action, we can scroll through various content in the web browser and email app.
Samsung Optical Reader – No one likes having to manually input business card information into their phones, so that’s why we’re given the Samsung Optical Reader. Snap a business card, it’ll automatically retrieve the pertinent content and convert it digitally for us. Also, it works to decipher QR codes.
WatchON – Seeing that the handset is now sporting an IR blaster, WatchON is the one stop hub for all our television program needs. Not only can we control, select, and viewing programming, it also has a cool video on demand feature.
S Health – Fitness junkies will surely appreciate S Health the most, since it tracks and measures various physical activities – eventually giving us detailed statistics about our fitness regimen. From counting the steps we’ve take to the amount of calories we’ve consumed for the day, S Health is the central spot where we can monitor our healthy lifestyle. Heck, it can even tell us if the temperature and weather conditions are conducive to our health. Oh yeah, did we mention it can also monitor sleeping patterns?
Samsung Adapt Sound – In its attempt to be self-aware, the Samsung Adapt Sound will automatically adjust some of the handset’s settings based on what we’re doing. For example, if we’re reading a book in the dark, it’ll adjust the contrast and brightness to make it easier on our eyes. Another scenario pumps up the two so that it provides for an enticing video watching experience. Rather than doing it ourselves manually, it’s nice to see the handset doing it automatically for us.
those features are all gimmicky af, basically a glorified s3. Not to mention most of those software enhancements will be offered for the s3 anyways. Thanks Samsung for making my choice easy, HTC One>>
those features are all gimmicky af, basically a glorified s3. Not to mention most of those software enhancements will be offered for the s3 anyways. Thanks Samsung for making my choice easy, HTC One>>
Finally someone agrees just more of Samsung's bloat-they-call-features like in that S3 vs iPhone 5 ad they made.
those features are all gimmicky af, basically a glorified s3. Not to mention most of those software enhancements will be offered for the s3 anyways. Thanks Samsung for making my choice easy, HTC One>>
HTC blinkfeed is gimmicky too, let's not even talk about their "4 megapixels ultrapixels"
Wow, they still used plastic. They had about 12 months to develop something that was, from a design standpoint, more premium than their last... less than premium device. The internal specs are top-notch as usual, but I expect that from any new smartphone. It looks like HTC and Sony are the only Android manufacturers that care about premium design.
Wow, they still used plastic. They had about 12 months to develop something that was, from a design standpoint, more premium than their last... less than premium device. The internal specs are top-notch as usual, but I expect that from any new smartphone. It looks like HTC and Sony are the only Android manufacturers that care about premium design.
Wow, they still used plastic. They had about 12 months to develop something that was, from a design standpoint, more premium than their last... less than premium device. The internal specs are top-notch as usual, but I expect that from any new smartphone. It looks like HTC and Sony are the only Android manufacturers that care about premium design.
That's nothing compared to the s4. The htc one at least has it's build quality and design going for it.
like there's no comparison
"like there's no comparison"
That's exactly why no one compared them...
And I'd rather have a decent looking phone (the S4) with tons of feats, an amazing camera and of course the new android updates before everyone else (except the Nexuses), than a phone that only has as advantage it's design...