Published in Mobiles

Samsung officially launches new Galaxy S4

by on15 March 2013

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4.99-incher with Exynos 5410, bunch of features


Sammy unveiled its new newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, at the Unpacked 2013 event in New York last night.

There have been a quite a few juicy rumors and leaks prior to the launch, but now we can see all the official specifications and features. The new Galaxy S4 is built around a 4.99-inch Super AMOLED 1920x1080 screen that adds up to 441ppi. The precise dimensions of the smartphone are set at 136.6x69.8x7.9mm and it weighs in at 130g. When compared to its predecessor, the Galaxy S III, the phone is slimmer, narrower thanks to thinner bezel and even lighter. Unfortunately, it is still made out of plastic which might be disappointing for some people.

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The rest of the features are pretty much in line with what has been earlier rumored and we will indeed see two versions of the Galaxy S4. The first and probably more widely availble one will be based on Exynos 5 Octa chipset with four Cortex A15 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and four Cortex A7 cores running at 1.2GHz, paired up with PowerVR SGX 544MP3 graphics. The second version will be "for some markets" according to Samsung and will be based on Qualcomm''s Snapdragon 600 chipset with four Krait 300 cores and Adreno 320 GPU. Both version will be paired up with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM and will be available in versions with 16, 32 and 64GB of internal storage expandable by up to 64GB via microSD card slot.

The new Samsung Galaxy S4 comes with a 13-megapixel AF camera with flash, zero shutter lag and BIS as well as the front 2-megapixel one with full HD recording @30fps also with zero shutter lag and BIS. As far as the connectivity is concerned, the new Galaxy S4 features 802.11bgnac WiFi, GPS/GLONASS, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 (BLE), IR LED (remote control), MHL 2.0 as well as 3G HSPA+ 42Mbps and 4G LTE Cat 3 100/50Mbps. It will normally run on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and it features a 2,600mAh battery. It also features an accelerometer, RGB light, Digital compass, proximity sensor, gyro, barometer, IR Gesture, as well as temperature and humidity sensors.

The feature list is quite extensive and includes bunch of camera features like Sound and Shot that adds 9 seconds of sound to the picture, Cinema Photo that lets you pick a part of the video that you want to be animated or static resulting in a GIF image, Drama Shot that captures burst of photos and place them in a single image and features a dual-mode where you can use both the front and the rear camera at the same time.

It also took some features seen on Galaxy S II and Note II like Smart Say, AllShare Cast&Play and S Voice that got a slightly upgrade with S Voice Drive, but also added some new ones like the S Translator that translates text-to-speech and speech-to-text in ten languages and works with email, SMS and ChatOn apps; S Health that links up with S Band, Body Scale and Heart Rate Monitor accessories in order to monitor some of those health parameters; Group Play that connects up to eight Galaxy S4 smartphones in case you want to do some network gaming or even turn those eight into one big surround sound system; Air gestures that let you scroll or answer the phone without touching it, Air View that we have seen on Note II but now works with finger and not just the S Pen as well as Smart Pause feature that pauses the video when you are not looking at the phone. Unfortunately, the rumored Smart Scroll was not announced but we did see scrolling by tilting the smartphone.

The new Galaxy S 4 will be available in two colors, White Frost and Black Mist as well as a four different cover/case accessories in multiple colors. It will go on sale at end of April and will be available in 155 countries and with 327 mobile operators.

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Last modified on 15 March 2013
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