Ladies and gents, the waiting is over - Samsung has just officially unveiled the Galaxy S 4. An iterative device, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 looks almost identical to its predecessor the S III, but adds on a slightly larger, sharper 5-inch 1080p display, a snappier processor and an updated, 13-megapixel camera.
Designwise, the S 4 is an almost identical twin to the S III: a slightly thinner 7.9mm one (the S III was 8.6mm thick), with a narrower bezel taking up more of the front leaving little space for everything else. The screen is a Super AMOLED one, a sharp 441ppi display with deep blacks and great viewing angles. Buttons are the same as on the S III: the single big physical home key on the front surrounded by a capacitive back and settings buttons. On the left side is the volume rocker and on the right a lock key hiding an IR blaster underneath.
And yes, the Galaxy S 4 is made out of plastic and you are not the only one disappointed by that.
Samsung seems to have adopted Apple’s approach to devices - a two year cycle, a tick year when a new design is unveiled and a tock year focusing on software. This is obviously a tock year for the Samsung Galaxy S series, and the S 4 comes with a plethora of new software features: Air View with its hover based actions borrowed from the Note series and Air Gestures for a Kinect-like interface that allow you to make a swiping gesture in front of the display to scroll up or down. Then you have the Smart Scroll and Pause where the device tracks your eyes.
Those are just a few of the novelties that come with the updated Nature TouchWiz UX, Samsung’s refreshed skin running on top of the latest Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
Skinny on the inside, the Galaxy S 4 is a beast on the inside running on the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip with a quad-core 1.9GHz Krait 300 processor. Now that’s what the U.S. version will have and it of course comes equipped with a 4G LTE connectivity. The international version is featuring Samsung’s home-grown Exynos 5 Octa chip running at 1.6GHz. Internal memory starts at 16GB, and you also have a 32GB and 64GB versions, all expandable via microSD cards of up to 64 gigs.
Samsung is also bundling a serious 2,600mAh battery that should easily get you through a day of use, and the device features NFC and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
The 13-megapixel main camera with a single LED flash ****** slightly on the back, promising to capture a stunning amount of details. And here is another area where Samsung brings its software magic. Again, we have a bunch of new little camera features. Dual shot for once allows you to simultaneously record footage on your rear and front cameras, while Cinema Photo basically makes a GIF for you and Story Album stitches all footage and stills into an album.
One thing we are excited about is the huge number of sensors that Samsung included in the S 4. Along the traditional accelerometer and gyro, there are a temperature and humidity as well as a gesture sensor for the Kinect-like Air Gestures functionality.
The Samsung Galaxy S 4 will go on sale on a whopping 327 operators in 155 countries at the end of April. There are no price details yet but we’d guess prices will start from $200 on a two-year contract.
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.
I doubt the S4 will have a flexible screen. I'm looking at the video, the operational parts (like the motherboard, s at the bottom of the device. in phones the mother board is in the back. Theyll have to figure out how theyre gonna get around that first.
Trying what ? They're the #1 smartphone seller in the WORLD, have sold 10 million S1, 20 million S2, 30 million (that was months ago before the Holidays) S3.
So how are they "trying it" ?
Trying what ? They're the #1 smartphone seller in the WORLD, have sold 10 million S1, 20 million S2, 30 million (that was months ago before the Holidays) S3.
So how are they "trying it" ?
Samsung and Nokia for 2013
Oh man, the OCD kicking in just making sure the S4 is perfectly straight all the time without a bend.
I doubt the S4 will have a flexible screen. I'm looking at the video, the operational parts (like the motherboard, s at the bottom of the device. in phones the mother board is in the back. Theyll have to figure out how theyre gonna get around that first.
The video is from 2 years ago tho. In two years they could have made HUGE improvements, let's not underestimate the #1 smartphone seller in the world.
