Samsung Unveiled Galaxy S4

Finally, the new-gen Samsung smartphone is here! Last night, the South Korean company unveiled its long-anticipated Galaxy S4 flagship phone. That happened at a special event held in New York and broadcasted live on Times Square and all over the web. What can we say about the device and its quality? Well, almost everything about Samsung’s latest smartphone has been leaked on the internet. In other words, there were no big surprises. Yet, if we have to be honest, the rumours about S4 attributed pretty much all possible features and hardware to the device. There were sources claiming that the new Galaxy will have a flexible screen, tons of colour options and so on and so forth. It is natural that some of the dozens of the rumours and leaks will coincide with the truth. Here is what you need to know about Samsung Galaxy S4.

Design

It terms of design and dimensions, Galaxy S4 is clearly a bigger than the previous Galaxy S smartphones. However, it is slim and really light. That is due to the fact that it is made of plastic. This material is commonly used by Samsung for phones, and devices in general. S4 has two removable panels – a front and a back one. They are made of brushed plastic that has a texture of many small circles. This creates an appearance that is a little rough and not really sophisticated. Despite that, the plastic feels really nice and smooth. To the device’s edges there is a metallic bar (also seen in older phones form the Galaxy S series). What is interesting is that the metallic bars are not made of metal, but of polycarbonate. This material does a great job in protecting the edges and corners of the product. These materials make the device pretty light. In fact, lighter than the S3 version of Galaxy. Still, there are almost no high-end materials used in the design of Samsung’s latest smartphone. Contrary to the rumours, S4 will be offered in only two colours – black and white.

Hardware

Samsung Galaxy S4 has a larger screen compared to its predecessor S3. The device comes with a 5” Super HD AMOLED display. In addition, the screen of the phone is protected by Gorilla Glass 2. Also, Galaxy S4 has a resolution of 1,920×1,080 at 441p which is higher than that of Apple’s iPhone 5. The new amazing thing about S4’s hardware is its memory capacity. The models of the device will start with 16GB of internal memory and will reach 64GB. The latest Galaxy S will support MicroSD cards of up to 64GB. That makes a total of 128GB at the most! The battery of phone is also quite robust with its 2,600 mAh. S4 has a 13MP rear camera and 2MP back, which is again higher and better than what Galaxy S3 currently offers.

Software, Apps & Features

Samsung’s latest Galaxy S smartphone runs on Android 4.2.2 and its boost with plenty of new and interesting features.

The first nice function of the device is called Air Gestures. With users can operate the phone without having to touch the device’s display. The feature allows the performing of actions and commands by a simple wave or hover over the Galaxy S4’s screen.

Another newly-added feature is S Voice. According to Samsung, this feature is capable of reading text messages, as well as transcribing and sending messages. In addition, S Voice will give users information on the weather and driving directions. This function sounds, more or less, similar to iPhone’s Siri. Hopefully, S Voice will do well in practice.

The next nice S4 feature is called Knox. It is reminds of BlackBerry’s Balance. Knox is announced as a security feature that will divide apps, calls and emails. This will allow a better protection and its will separate your private data from your business one.

The smart functions which were leaked a few days ago are also present in Samsung’s new device. Smart Pause is a function that will pause a video whenever the user looks away from the screen. Smart Scroll, however, has nothing to do with eye-movement detection as it was rumoured at first. Although it does scroll pages automatically, it does not do that by tracking your eyes. Instead, it is activated when the phone is tilted.

Samsung has put a number of new functions to Galaxy S4’s camera. Dual Camera takes a photo using both the front and the rear cameras at the same time. In that way, the one taking the pic can also be added to the final image. Similar is the Dual Video Call which again relies on the two cameras. It separates the screen into two parts and shows the viewer images from the two camera devices.

In addition, Galaxy S4’s camera will support function for erasing. With it, users will erase parts of the photo which they don’t like or consider inappropriate, for example.

The next feature is named S Translator. As you can probably guess, it translates from one language to another. However, for that to happen you do not need to even enter any text. The phone will translate your words on the go as you pronounce them. That can be very useful for travellers, for instance. As a start, S Translator will work with the most popular languages like English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese and others.

One particularly amusing Galaxy S4 app is S Health. It works as a pedometer and it can measure your blood sugar, blood pressure and other vitals without using any additional hardware. However, users can get some accessories to it like the S Band to measure their heartbeat and temperature.

Price & Release Date

Surprisingly, Samsung did not reveal the official release date of Galaxy S4. It only mentioned that the dive will be launched on the market around the end of April. Also, the company did not share any details on the smartphone’s price. Despite that, we can assume that device will sell at prices similar to the original ones of its predecessor S3. When the last Galaxy S was released in 2012, its pricing varied between $599 and $649 without contract.

Initially, Samsung Galaxy S4 will be launched in 125 different counties. In addition, the device will be offered by nearly 330 mobile carriers.