After months of speculation and rumors, Samsung finally unveiled its latest flagship mobile device. The company says that the Galaxy S 4 was “developed to redefine the way we live and to maximize our fulfillment of life.” It may not be that revolutionary, but the new Galaxy S is certainly a beauty.
The most apparent change to the Galaxy S 4 is its new larger display. The device sports a 5-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display powered by a 1.6GHz Exynos Octa-core CPU. As for other specs, it sports 2GB of RAM, a 13MP back camera, and a 2MP front camera. The device will also ship with the latest version of Android – version 4.2.2.
“With the GALAXY S 4, Samsung is again going to enhance the way we live,” said JK Shin, President and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung. “All the innovative features of GALAXY S 4 were developed based on the insights and needs we found from our consumers all around the world. Following the successful GALAXY S series, this phone is yet another great proof point of people-inspired innovation. At Samsung we’ll never stop pursuing innovation conceived by people, so we can inspire them in return.”
As for specific software features, the Galaxy S 4 has quite a few that should make the device stand out from the crowd. The first is called “Air View,” a new feature that “allows users to hover with their fingers to preview the content of an email, S Planner, image gallery or video without having to open it.”
The new “Smart Pause” and “Smart Scroll” use the front camera to follow your face and eye movement to interact with the screen. “Smart Pause” uses this feature to pause a video whenever it detects you as looking away from the screen and automatically starting it up again upon looking at it. The “Smart Scroll” will scroll browser and email pages up and down by tracking where your eyes are looking.
“WatchON” turns the Galaxy S 4 into an IR remote for TVs, set-top box, DVD players and compatible air conditioners.
The most innovative feature by far, however, is that users can interact with the screen while wearing gloves. You had to buy special gloves before for this, but now it seems that any thin pair of gloves will work. Compatible glove thickness has yet to be revealed, but I doubt it will work with heavy duty work gloves. Your casual winter gloves will probably do the trick though.
As expected, there is no official release date or price yet. Samsung says that we can expect to see a global launch in Q2 though. It will be available at every major carrier in the U.S. and even some minor rising stars like US Cellular and Cricket.
