After a lot of speculations, Samsung finally unveiled its latest phone in the Galaxy line, the S4 at a glimmering event in New York City. The Galaxy S4 had promised a whole lot of change and betterment over its predecessor Galaxy S3. Well it seems that the Galaxy S4 has really improved a lot when features and hardware’s are concerned. Almost all the hardware specs of the Galaxy S3 have been enhanced and the new phone brings in some new software elements as well.
Samsung has definitely come a long way to the top in a few years time with continuous endeavor to provide something better with each product. So, is the S4 a real winner?
Does it really have all the fascinating elements to enthrall the smartphone users? Read on to know the complete features and specifications of the brand new Samsung Galaxy S4.
Key Features:
Design and built
Firstly, design wise the S4 looks very appealing, if you liked the look of S3, then you’ll love S4, as it does look better than its predecessor. However, Samsung could have given it a complete new look by working little harder on the design. Speaking of hardness, everyone was hoping that Samsung would finally ditch its plastic casing for a superior look and feel but that did not happen even this time.
While the plastic built is not that bad owing to its lightness, but it does not provide the classy feel of an expensive smartphone nor does it give the assurance of tough durability.
Screen
The new S4 has a little larger screen than its predecessor S3. It has an HD screen, with 1920 x 1080 pixels and enhanced sharpness and 441ppi pixel density. It has a multitouch function with the protection of Gorilla glass
Eye Tracking
A great feature which involves the tracking of the user’s glance is included in the Galaxy S4. The feature called the Smart Pause is really helpful as the phone monitors your gaze when you are watching a video content and pauses the video when you look away from it. Another feature allows you to scroll through content by just tilting the device up and down.
Hand Gestures
The S4 finally comes with the ability to read hand gestures, allowing users to control various device functions just by pointing, waving, and making swiping motions of the hand. This hand gesture that is operated through the camera’s lens is a great feature indeed who vows by trendy features even though everything can be done with just a feather touch on this phone’s highly sensitive touchscreen.
Air View
This was an originally a Galaxy Note 2 feature that used the S-Pen, now it works with your fingers in this phone.
Specifications:
OS – Android 4.2.2 with TouchWiz
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the first phone to be launched with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, the latest version of the OS. Instead of the dark, neon-lit interiors of stock Android, TouchWiz goes for a bright, vibrant and lively outlook. It’s just not a redesigning of the stock UI. There are some very nice additions to the interface, which Samsung claims will improve the overall smartphone experience.
The home screen also looks much cleaner now. TouchWiz is not that different from the one running on the Galaxy S3. The app drawer looks the same, but there are some changes inside some of the core apps. Samsung has taken Air View and Smart Stay to the next step and enhanced their functionality. However, the users may get confused by the plethora of software features in the phone.
The new additions include the S Translator, which supports 10 languages and is baked by apps like email, SMS and ChatOn. There’s also S Health, a lifestyle-tracking app that uses the handset as pedometer and calorie counter. You can use the S4’s share music in a surround sound-like mode or enjoy in network gaming, which is enabled by default on two in-built games, namely Asphalt 7 and Gun Bros 2.
Cellular connectivity
The new age Galaxy S4 comes with LTE connectivity, in case your region has no 4G infrastructure, then it will play nicely with 850/900/1900/2100 bands for HSPA. The phone supports Cat 3 LTE, so practically you will get download speeds of up to 100Mbps and 50Mbps for uploads.
Wi-Fi
Samsung has been very generous in this field and has packed in practically everything. The S4 supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/ac/b/g/n bands along with support for dual-band Wi-Fi. Multimedia content can be sent to your TV with help of the DLNA, while Wi-Fi Direct can be used to share files with other phones on the same network.
SoC – Exynos 5 Octa 5410 or Snapdragon 600
Here there are two options for the potential buyers, but it actually depends on where you stay. In the US, the Snapdragon 600 will be employed thanks to the widespread LTE coverage there and the embedded nature of the LTE chip. In any case, at 1.9GHz each, the four Krait cores should be plenty fast.
The much-talked about Exynos 5410 processor will be used in other regions. The CPU is expected to come to the India-bound handset. It has a dual quad-core setup with four Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 1.2GHz and four Cortex-A15 cores ticking at 1.6 GHz. Both versions of the handset will have 2GB of RAM, which is plenty for any usage.
The Exynos CPU is mated with the PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU, while the Snapdragon 600 version of the phone will use an Adreno 320 GPU.
Internal storage
There are three options here. The Users can choose between the 16, 32 or 64GB storage options. On top of that the S4 comes with a microSD card slot to further increase the storage up to 64GB.
Primary camera
The S4 has packed in a 13 megapixel camera. The S4 has borrowed the Galaxy Camera’s wheel interface to help users easily choose the modes they want. Galaxy S4 can do dual still and video capture using the front and back cameras. The camera also offers themed templates for the picture-in-picture stills. There are a lot of features here such as the Cinema Photo, Sound & Shot records, Drama Shot and many more.
GPS
Samsung has been including GLONASS support for a long time now and the Galaxy S4 also gets that along with Assisted GPS. The location lock times could be drastically lower due to the GLONASS support.
Battery
The Galaxy S4 draws power from a 2600 mAh battery. Given the specs of the phone, it is good that Samsung decided to upgrade the battery from the 2100 mAh unit of the S3. The back of the S4 is removable and thus allows battery replacement. The company has also announced a battery carrier to easily carry the extra pack.
If you are continuously browsing through the phone then also the battery is expected to last for 8 hours and may be more. But I am really disappointed with the battery they provided for S4, even Galaxy Note old version us having 3100mAH battery. I was expecting more power battery for Galaxy S4.
Conclusion
The Samsung Galaxy S4 does pack in a lot of improvements over its predecessor, but now that all its specs are known, only time will tell if it can retain the magic it had casted before its launch.
