The next big thing from Samsung is finally here as the Samsung Galaxy S IV has been announced in New York this morning. The phone is unarguably one of the very best in the smartphone industry ever with its ground-breaking specs.
Featuring a 4.99 Inch Full HD display, 13mp camera and an 8-core processor, this phone has enough power to thrash any phone in the market right now.
Here are the specs followed by details below:
- OS: Android OS, v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
- CPU: Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
- Chipset: Exynos 5 Octa 5410
- GPU: PowerVR SGX 544MP3
- Design:
- Dimensions: 5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 in
- Weight: 130 g
- Display:
- Type: Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
- Size: 1080 x 1920 pixels, 4.99 inches (~441 ppi pixel density)
- Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- Memory:
- Card slot: microSD, up to 64 GB
- Internal: 16/32/64 GB storage, 2 GB RAM
- Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA: 42.2 Mbps; HSUPA: 5.76 Mbps; LTE, Cat3, 50 Mbps UL, 100 Mbps DL, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth, NFC, Infrared port, microUSB v2.0 (MHL), USB On-the-go, USB Host
- Primary Camera: 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
- Features: Dual Shot, Simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization, HDR
- Secondary Camera: 2 MP
- Battery: Li-Ion 2600 mAh battery
Design
The design of the phone is similar to take of the Note II and the Galaxy S III. Its again made of polycarbonate plastic which some people don’t like a lot but it has its own advantages. It keeps the weight low and adds durability to the phone which isn’t that bad. A thin layer of metal surrounds the phone. It still is hardly a premium material though.
The whole body of the phone weighs just 130g and is razor thin at an astonishing 7.9mm. Height and width dimensions are 136.6 and 69.8 mm respectively.
Display
The display is one of the strongest points of the Galaxy S IV. It sports a 4.99 Inch screen and has a mind-blowing Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. That sums up to 441ppi which is a huge achievement indeed. Its also an AMOLED unit so the colors are extremely vibrant and viewing angles are great. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
Its actually a Pentile Matrix display but that won’t hurt the display much especially of this resolution. But you simply can’t deny that this is the new benchmark of the entire phone industry and all of the phone companies should develop their next flagships by keeping this display in mind.
Operating System
Just like other recent Samsung flagship phones, the Galaxy S IV also runs on the latest piece of software. It runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean which is the latest Android software to have come out of Google.
Its covered on top with Samsung’s Touchwiz UI which some people don’t like when compared to Vanilla Android but still it several unique and new features to the mix so that’s not necessarily a disadvantage.
Just like the previous year, the Galaxy S IV this year comes with really cool software tricks too. There’s S-Voice which in short is the Siri of Android. Smart Pause stops the video playback when you look away from the screen. Smart Scroll scrolls webpages downwards when you tilt the device and look at it at the same time. There’s S-Health and S-Translator too. Air gestures is another amazing trick which let you do stuff simply by waving in front of the screen. Finally there’s hover-touch which lets you do stuff just by hovering your finger above the display. Video/Audio codec support is pretty rich too.
Hardware
There lives a beast inside every Galaxy S IV. It has got two 4-core processors. The first one is a 1.6Ghz quad-core Cortex A15 processor. The second is a less capable 4-core 1.2Ghz quad-core Cortex A7. No need to get worried though as you won’t be frying eggs on it anyway. The chipset used is Exynos 5 Octa and the GPU is PowerVR SGX 544MP3.
The amount of RAM is set at 2GB. It will be available in 3 storage options: 16, 32 and 64 GB. You can expand that even further by 64 more GBs via a microSD card slot.
In short, the Galaxy S IV has got more power than a lot of PCs on earth. Enough said.
Cameras
Samsung’s obsession with 8mp camera units in flagships has finally come to an end. The Galaxy S IV features a 13mp camera with Full HD video recording, along with a 2.1mp front Full HD camera.
That’s not all though. The camera is full of additional features. There’s HDR mode. There’s a mode which takes video from the front and back camera simultaneously. A Drama Shot mode takes 9 photos and merges them into a single image. One mode even lets you throw an object out of the image you’ve taken.
There’s also a CInema Photo which lets you create GIF images by shooting a video and deciding which part should look moving and which stopped.
Connectivity
The phone shines in the connectivity department too. It features Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, card slot, microUSB 2.0, USB-on-the-go, GPS, dual-band Wifi and Wifi-Hotspot. There’s also IR Blaster which can turn this phone into you most expensive remote control. GPRS and EDGE are there too (for Pakistani telecom companies, just kidding).
It supports micro-sim card slots and connections up to 4G LTE are supported.
Others
A lot of other great features are part of the pack too. First of all, there’s a huge 2600mAh battery which will guarantee long battery life. It will be available in White Frost and Black Mist colors. A lot of social networking services are available. The usual list of sensors including Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Barometer and others are built right into the phone.
Pricing and Availability
The phone will be available in April this year. Pricing details are unknown but considering the fact that the Galaxy S III was the first phone which was more expensive than the iPhone when it first came out, you shouldn’t be placing too many bets on the Galaxy S IV’s lower price tag either.
But whether you like it or hate it, you simply can’t ignore this phone. Featuring great features, a lot of cool tricks, top-of-the-class display and a similarly capable camera, the Galaxy S IV is one of the best smartphones ever.
If you don’t care about the cons, i.e. the big size and the build materials much, I don’t think anything other than the Galaxy S IV can suit you better. All hail the new king of the Android kingdom.
