Samsung Galaxy S4 up close, Arrives May 2013
We’ve all been anticipating the launch of Samsung’s next latest greatest and this past Thursday, Samsung announced in grandiose fashion, the new Galaxy S4 smartphone at Radio City Music Hall in NYC. The Samsung Unpacked event was also simulcast live in Time Square for all to get a gander.
If you own the Galaxy S3, your going to love the S4. The Galaxy S is back and better than ever! The S4 has come back with some surprising innovations, they’ve really been putting in R & D time to make the S4 better and more functional and of course lighter, thinner and a larger screen! You you may already know something about the S4 from all the leaks, but let’s take a closer look.
Design
I can’t help but think of the design progression of the iPhone 3gs to the iPhone 4 when I look at the new Galaxy S4. It takes a similar styling cue from iPhone moving from a fully plastic case to a slightly less curved back and a metal looking band around the side. It makes the phone feel more blocky but at the same time a bit more solid then it’s predecessor. Not to worry the band is plastic, you don’t think Samsung would re-create the same signal attenuation issue that the iPhone did, do you?
It also comes with a polycarbonate glaze, which is a thinned layer applied to the plastic to provide shine and extra strength. With smartphones coming out fast and furious, my concern for buying an aluminum museum piece for a phone, is beginning to fade. Apple will need to come out with something a little better then the incremental updates that we’ve all been seeing in the iterations of iPhones in the past to compete.
I was hoping to see a bezel-less AMOLED screen that would span to the edges but maybe they are saving that for the Galaxy Note 3.
Specs
Aside from aesthetics, the Galaxy S4 sports a 4.99″ Full HD Super AMOLED screen with a 1920 x 1080 resolution at 441 PPI. A 1.6 GHz Exynos 5 Octa processor (EDIT: I was hoping, but it turns out to be a 1.9 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600, not to worry, your apps and OS would need to be threaded for it to take any real advantage of it. Soon enough.) along with 2GB of onboard LPDDR3 ram powers the new S4. A larger removable 2,600mAh battery helps support all that processing power and a 13mp rear firing and 2mp front firing camera help you to capture life in HD.
The device ships with Android 4.2.2 JellyBean and comes with your choice of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB internal storage sizes, but the Micro SD port will also support a 64GB SDXC card for plenty of space when you need it.
The Galaxy S4 also comes with a host of sensors to enhance your user experience : An Accelerometer, Digital Compass, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer and even sensors for Temperature & Humidity.
New Features
Check out some of the innovative new features of the SIV such as Dual camera which allows you to shoot full HD video simultaneously with the rear and front firing cameras and you can threeway video conference! You can also Group Play allows you to broadcast video other S4’s but music and/or movies can be set to play 5.1 audio from a combined 5 handsets! Use one as your center, right, left : front and rears or simply play your music over multiple handsets!
Other noteworthy features include S Health which is an integrated health monitor, measuring things like calorie burn, walking steps, heart rate and more. S Translator gives you both text to speech and speech to text in 9 languages that will fuction without an internet connection! S Voice Drive gives you convenient voice controls for replying to incoming calls, text messages while utilizing onboard GPS navigation. The Samsung S4 also gives your gloves some love and allow you to operate your phone with ANY gloves you want!
Today, we are faced with a workforce that uses their personal smartphones more and more for business and with Samsung Knox, you and your employer can feel safer that your information is secure and separated from your personal smartphone information.
Stay Tuned
We all knew it would happen, but Android has passed it’s infancy and brings a more robust and versatile experience compared to the heavily restrained sandbox of iOS. Samsung has put their own layers /of polish and fine tuning to stay ahead of the demand of what users want.
Due to be released in May of 2013, we are very excited to get a chance to spend some quality time with the Galaxy S4 and it’s new features, hardware as well as innovations for life that Samsung has worked so diligently creating for us.
