You don’t need to be a gadget geek to know Samsung just took the wraps off its Galaxy S4 smartphone.Available this spring across all major U.S. carriers (no price announced yet), the Samsung Galaxy S4 improves on the Galaxy S III in every way – yet still retains what made this smartphone family so successful, and the one Apple has its sights on. (The Galaxy S III overtook Apple’s iPhone 4S as the world’s best-selling smartphone for the first time in the third quarter of 2012, but the iPhone 5 regained the crown in the fourth quarter.)
Yahoo!’s Digital Crave was at the glitzy launch on March 14, plus yours truly spent some time with the phone after the presentation. The following is a “first look” at the device, including a comparison to its predecessors and competitors.
Hardware
While slimmer than the Galaxy S III (now just 7.9mm thin instead of 8.6mm) and lighter (130 grams over 133 grams), Samsung’s flagship phone has a larger screen, topping out at 5-inches, measured diagonally, instead of 4.8 inches. This makes it ideal for consuming media, such as watching video, playing games and looking at photos.
And for the first time, Samsung is using a Full HD Super AMOLED display, at 1920 x 1080 resolution — just like your 1080p HDTV. Pixel density is 441 per inch instead of the Galaxy S III’s 306 ppi (at 1280 x 720 resolution).
OK, enough with the jargon soup. In short, the display is truly stunning. And you don’t need to worry about damaging it as it’s protected by Gorilla Glass 3 technology.
Also impressive are the two cameras: a rear-facing 13-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video recording and 2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting and more (see below).
Samsung says the 2600 mAh battery is bigger yet thinner than in past phones, but the company stopped short of saying how many hours a user can get out of the device. At least you can remove it, unlike the iPhone, if you need to carry a spare while traveling.
Along with 2GB of system memory (RAM) and 16, 32 or 64GB of storage (expandable via microSD card, up to 64GB), a Samsung rep told me the Galaxy S4 is powered by an octa-core processor (eight individual cores) to handle demanding apps and media playback, and for smoother multitasking.
While the hardware is certainly impressive – including a sleek design not too dissimilar to last year’s model – some people might not like the plastic finish. It does look and feel better than the Galaxy S III which didn’t quite pass the “twist” test. The new phone will ship initially in Black Mist and White Frost, but a variety of additional color options should be available by year-end.
Even with all the cool hardware advancements, I think the real story here is the software.
Software
Building upon Android 4.2.2 (“Jelly Bean”), Samsung has added a large number of cool features to the device.
For one, the camera experience is really enhanced. One feature called Dual Shot lets you capture photos or videos from both the front and back cameras at the same time through a picture-in-picture function. Cinema Photo allows you to select a subject that stays static, such as your friend in front of Times Square, yet all the cars race by behind them. The Sound & Shot option lets you record up to nine seconds of audio with a photo, such as describing what’s happening in the photo, which you can play years later.
One of my favorites is called “Eraser” mode. This puts the camera into a multi-burst mode with movement detection. If someone “photobombs” your photo, or if someone walks behind your subject and ruins the shot, you can tap to remove them from the photo. Seems like something that should always be on, but you must select it before taking photos to take advantage of its unique abilities.
Other photo features were announced, too, including a story album that takes all photos you’ve taken on a given date or in a particular location and creates a themed slideshow for you. Seems ideal for travelers.
Speaking of travelers, a feature called S Translator addresses language barriers. Requiring an Internet connection, this embedded language tool in email, chatON messaging and a separate app can translate nine languages using your voice or text. Imagine taking a taxi in Italy and asking a question in English and your phone says it in Italian to the driver, and vice-versa.
As demoed onstage, the S Voice Drive lets you stay safe while behind the wheel by using voice commands to access email – with text to speech technology – as well as getting directions and weather, making calls, and more.
Group Play lets one Samsung Galaxy S4 device play a song and up to seven others in the room can also hear it on their S4 devices simultaneously. Some games also work this way, including the latest Asphalt racing game and Gun Bros. No Internet connection is needed — Samsung’s own Wi-Fi hotspot is created after an initial NFC (Near Field Communication) handshake is made between devices.
One of the more impressive demos of the Galaxy S4 – and something I was able to test-drive myself – is the hover and gesture feature. Place a finger less than an inch over the Galaxy S4’s screen and you can control content, such as peeking in to an email to see the body of it before opening it, looking into a photo gallery for thumbnails, a calendar appointment for details or magnifying text on a web page.
There are also air gestures, so you can wave your hand in front of the S4 to scroll through photos or songs – perfect for when you’ve got sticky fingers. You can also swipe between open tabs in a web browser by waving left or right.
Some of my favorite “smart” features: the ability to tilt the smartphone up or down on a website to scroll through text – and it only does this when it knows you’re looking at the screen (so it doesn’t happen by accident), and with Smart Pause, your phone will pause the video you’re watching when you look away and resume when you look back.
A few more details
Samsung packed so much into a small amount of time – about 50 minutes – that every time they talked about something new I was waiting for Ron Popeil to tell me why I should pick up the phone and order now. "But wait, there's more!"
An optical reader turns analog data into digital, such as scanning and digitalizing a business card; the Galaxy S4 has an integrated IR blaster to control your TV (any TV – not just Samsung models); and S Health allows the device to monitor and provide info on your health and activity, including how many steps per day you’re walking, running, and going upstairs and downstairs (along with the pedometer, there’s also a sensor to track temperature and humidity).
The phone also automatically adjusts its screen brightness based on your environment to provide an optimum picture (like your TV might).
Samsung Hub is a new, aggregated digital store in which to browse and buy content, such as music, videos, games, books and educational content.
Finally, there are accessories including the S View cover (where you still see pertinent data through a small window, such as SMS status, battery and caller ID), and some health-related Bluetooth accessories including an S Band pedometer (syncs with your device), body scale and heart rate monitor.
Summary
Without question, Samsung Galaxy S4 looks to be a smarter smartphone – and leapfrogs competing devices including the iPhone 5.
Not everyone is an Android lover, of course, but Samsung has added a ton to the platform to entice customers – both consumers and businesses – with a laundry list of software features and innovative services. (On the security front, this device will likely supports Samsung’s SAFE for enterprises, and Knox, which adds hundreds of IT policies.)
The new hardware also impresses,
as the device is thinner and lighter yet more powerful, bigger and with a
longer-lasting battery, says Samsung. Most importantly, the smartphone
doesn’t just look good – including its killer screen – but feels great
in the hand, too.
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