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14th March 2013
The Samsung Galaxy S4 follows on from the phenomenally
successful Galaxy
S III, and it follows the now-predictable pattern of being bigger,
faster and more feature-packed than ever before.
GS4: is it a phablet?
The display on the Galaxy S4 has grown from the 4.0" panel
on the original Galaxy
S, to a 4.3" one on the Galaxy
S II, 4.8" on the Galaxy
S III to become a 5.0" 1080 x 1920 pixel full HD panel.
Technically, the screen is a 4.99" panel which puts it a shade
under the 5" phablet barrier - but the difference is like
splitting hairs.. literally! A screen of this resolution can output
full HD movies and video clips via an MHL-HMDI cable, and you can
expect it to be able to integrate with other Samsung devices on
your home network too.
You can preview items on the screen by floating over them
with your finger (the Note does something similar with the stylus),
and the Samsung GS4 can also be used while wearing gloves.
 GS4:
how many cores are enough?
There are two versions of the Galaxy S4 available, a 1.9GHz quad-core
version or a 1.6GHz eight core CPU. We haven't seen any officially
confirmed benchmarks yet, but you can be pretty sure that this is
going to be the fastest device around. Do you really need eight
cores in a smartphone? Probably not.. but then the Galaxy S range
has always been about pushing the technology as far as it can go.
Unconfirmed benchmark scores indicate that the GS4 is about 40%
quicker than the Google
Nexus 4, although we don't know if there is a significant difference
between the number of cores. At some point adding more cores will
become counter-productive as there is an overhead in managing the
increased complexity, but that seems to be a little way off yet.
Inside is 2GB of RAM, which is becoming common in high-end
devices, plus 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal flash memory
plus a microSD slot. There's a dedicated 533 MHz graphics processor
on board as well, so the GS4 does look like it will run just about
anything that you can throw at it.
GS4: breaking the 8 megapixel barrier
Apart from a small handful of esoteric devices such as the
Samsung
Galaxy Camera, the W880
AMOLED and the old Pixon
12, all Samsung smartphone cameras seem to have been stuck at
8 megapixels. The Galaxy S4 breaks that barrier comfortably with
a 13 megapixel primary snapper, which is only beaten by the Galaxy
Camera.. and that can't even make phone calls.
 On
the front is a 2 megapixel secondary camera, and Samsung have added
their usual improvements here such as panoramic shooting, low-light
mode and various other goodies. Both front and back cameras support
1080p HD video recording. Some interesting features are a dual shot
capability which captures both the subject and the photographer
at the same time, and also the ability to save a sound clip with
the photograph to help to place it in context. Advanced multi-shot
capabilities are available, allowing you to choose the shot you
want or even to eliminate moving objects such as passers-by.
GS4: Are you watching it.. or is it watching you?
Eyeball tracking is a technology that has been around
for a little while, it already exists in the Galaxy S III and LG
announced that it would be available in the Optimus
G Pro. With the GS4, the handset allows you to scroll up and
down just by looking at the phone, and it will also stop playing
videos when you look away. Quite how useful this will be is questionable,
and some people might find the idea that the phone is watching you
looking at it might be un-nerving.
 GS4:
Software
This is an Android 4.2.2 device with the Samsung
TouchWiz interface on top, plus a number of Samsung's own enhancements.
One of these is the S-Voice voice recognition software which attempts
to compete with Apple's Siri, with a version called "S-Voice
Drive" which is designed to be used while driving. Again,
this is one of those applications which might seem a bit of a gimmick,
but some people may well find that it is just the thing they have
been looking for.
One novel feature is "Group Play" which
enables a group of connected GS4 phones to play the same music,
media or games at the same time. The Galaxy S4 also uses a new system
called "Knox" to separate home and work functions on the
handset. On the fly translation is also available, which even allows
for two people to converse in different languages in real-time.
There are a variety of health and lifestyle apps bundled too.
The S4 can talk to a Samsung HomeSync server in
your home to synchronise data in a "family cloud" without
the storage restrictions of commercial online services. Samsung
also have an application to allow you to migrate data from just
about any other smartphone to the GS4.
GS4: Hardware
 Compared
to the Galaxy S III, the Galaxy S4 has almost the same footprint
despite the smaller size, but is about 1mm thinner and 3 grams lighter.
Samsung also say that the S4 is stronger than S III. Inside
is a 2600 mAh removable battery. The Galaxy S4 supports LTE in certain
markets, HSPA+, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and USB connectivity, plus GPS
and GLONASS positioning systems and it also comes with a full array
of sensors including a digital compass, thermometer and humidity
sensor.
Single-SIM and dual-SIM versions will be available,
depending on region, and the GS4 also supports NFC, but it seems
that wireless charging is not supported as standard although we
suspect that it might be an option. Also, in what seems like
a throwback to old days the S4 has an infra-red controller in, although
these days it is designed to control multimedia devices rather than
for talking to other phones.
The design does bear a resemblance to the Galaxy
S III, but it does seem a bit more slabby. The polycarbonate front
and back have a subtle pattern on them though, and we suspect that
this is another one of those phones that looks better in real life
than in photographs. The GS4 is available in black or white colour
schemes.
GS4: Availability
Estimated availability of the Galaxy S4 is from
the end of April onwards although this may vary from country to
country. No guidance was given on pricing, but we would expect the
GS4 to retail for between €550 and €600 when it hits retail channels.
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