Hands On: Samsung Galaxy S4

 

How does one come up with a successor to the best-selling Android smartphone of all time? Samsung showed the world how it is done by unveiling the Galaxy S4. You don’t fix what ain’t broken seems to be the mantra this time as Samsung continued with the same design as its predecessor. But everything simply gets bigger and better. Read on for our first impressions of the Galaxy S4.The Galaxy S4 has a bigger 4.99-inch full HD 1080p display but the overall footprint doesn’t seem to have gotten much bigger. The phone fits as comfortably as the Galaxy S III, though surprisingly it feels much lighter. The back cover is no longer the thin, cheap plastic that has become associated with Samsung smartphones. Instead, Samsung has gone for polycarbonate plastic but it doesn’t feel at par with what you see on HTC or Nokia smartphones. Yet it feels much better than the Galaxy S III though a bit more prone to fingerprints.
I won’t delve into hardware specs, which you can find in our launch post. Instead the real beauty of the device is in the software additions that Samsung has added. Samsung has incorporated some of the best features from its rivals and then added many of its own.


Take for instance the HTC One. While the Galaxy S4′s camera doesn’t have any ultrapixels, it does have most of the software wizardry in terms of being able to remove unwanted elements from photographs as well as stitch multiple shots clicked in burst mode into one shot. It also does dual camera recording, just like the LG Optimus Pro. The touchscreen can now work even when the user is wearing gloves, a feature found in Nokia’s new Lumia smartphones.
But that’s not to say that the Galaxy S4 doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Instead, Samsung has innovated with features that could make a big difference. My favorite is a multiplayer feature that lets users to play the same song over multiple devices, which could convert into a 2.1 or 5.1 setup depending on the number of devices available.
 
The Galaxy S4 also brings the Air View feature from the Note II, the big difference being it works with fingers rather than a stylus. Smart Stay now adds Smart Pause that pauses a video if the phone detects the user is not looking at the display and resumes it when the user’s gaze returns to the display. There is also a translate feature that can provide output in both speech and text in 19 languages in real-time.
Samsung has also added a suite of sensors that can detect the temperature, humidity apart from regular stuff. Samsung is betting big on health monitoring apps and is also looking at selling accessories like monitoring bands, wireless scales and others. The phone in itself would challenge fitness device makers like Fitbit among others.
All this is powered by Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa processor with a relatively massive 2,600 mAh battery. If the success of the Galaxy S III is any indication, the Galaxy S4 would only be an even bigger hit.
Yes, it does not have a camera with a huge sensor size to take photos in darkness and it might not have a premium metal chassis, but if that was a prerequisite, then the Galaxy S III wouldn’t have been the success that it has been. Folks, all hail the new king in Android town.

Read more

Samsung to launch the Galaxy S IV later today

 
Samsung will launch the Galaxy S IV later today at an event in New York city. Samsung will hope that the new device will build on the success of the Galaxy S III, which by far was the best selling Android smartphone in the world for 2012. The success of Galaxy S III was only eclipsed by the iPhone 5 that arrived in Q4 of 2012, but even after its arrival it has given Apple’s signature product a tough fight. The arrival of the Galaxy S IV could make things difficult for the iPhone 5 as the next iPhone is expected to be launched at a much later date.
Over the last few weeks we have seen Samsung post teaser videos for the device and today it even invaded Times Square in New York with a group of mob dancers.
The Galaxy S IV is expected to have a 4.99-inch 1080p display, a 8-core Exynos Octa 5 processor, which is based on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera, a larger battery, wireless charging, Android 4.2, some eye tracking capabilities and a new version of the TouchWiz user interface.
People hope that with the Galaxy S IV, Samsung abandones its brash favouritism for a plastic industrial design, but recent comments by Samsung executives and leaks suggest that to be unlikely.
While there are already many smartphones like the Sony Xperia Z, the HTC Butterfly and the soon to be launched HTC One that offer features comparable to what one expects of the Galaxy S IV, undoubtedly the Samsung flagship is the most highly awaited of the lot. Pricing wise it should be competing with the iPhone and one can expect Samsung to pull all the stops in terms of marketing the device.
Photographs: Rohit Sharma

Read more

First alleged Samsung Galaxy S IV render leaks

 
It is that time of the year again when we start hearing rumors and seeing alleged renders of Apple’s next iPhone and Samsung’s next Galaxy S flagship smartphone. We have already been hearing loads about the two phones but today we have the first alleged render of the Galaxy S IV courtesy Sammobile.
The fake-looking render essentially shows a device with an even thinner bezel than the Galaxy S III that also lets go of the physical home button. In our books this photo screams fake as we have found the ease with which these renders are been faked these days. This is just the beginning of the render faking season.
Forgery notwithstanding, word on the street is the Galaxy S IV could sport S-Pen input just like the Galaxy Note II and is expected to have a 5-inch 1080p HD display. It could also feature a 13-megapixel camera and would run on an Exynos processor on ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture that would have a A7 processor for basic tasks coupled with an A15 processor for processor intensive tasks.
 
Read

Read more