Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung knows we’re gurgling with barely-restrained anticipation for its Galaxy S4 launch next week, but it’s cranking up the pre-show fever with a mildly-cringeworthy teaser campaign featuring a “secret messenger.” The promo, featuring a milk-sipping child executive supposedly called Jeremy Maxwell, tells us little to nothing about the Galaxy S4 itself, but it looks like this won’t be the last of the videos we get before March 14.

Samsung has been swift to use video campaigns ahead of its launches in the past, counting on the fact that interest in its own products has begun to rival that of Apple gadgets. The pre-reveal Galaxy S III hype reached iPhone-style levels, and given the smartphone market has, in many ways, come down to an Apple vs. Samsung battle, the quality of what Samsung wheels out in NYC will go a long way to deciding Android’s phone successes in 2013.

The exact star of next weeks show hasn’t been named, not in so many words, but given the proliferation of “4″s in Samsung’s promo material, it’s not hard to guess what the company will be announcing. It notably comes two weeks after Mobile World Congress, which Samsung eschewed in favor of holding an event all of its own and monopolizing all of the attention.

SlashGear is headed off to New York City next week to bring you all the news from the Galaxy S4 launch, so join us on Thursday, March 14 for the full event. Meanwhile, if you’re already in NYC yourself, Samsung is holding a huge launch event in Times Square.

Samsung’s weird little kid is as excited about the Galaxy S4 as we are is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The Samsung Galaxy S4 is probably one of the most anticipated smartphones of 2013, but if there’s one thing we’ve learnt from previous Galaxy S smartphones is that there is a chance it will be built using plastic components. This is a trend we’ve seen in the Galaxy S, Galaxy S2 and the Galaxy S3, and it seems that this will be the case according to Eldar Murtazin who claims to have already seen the phone. Given Murtazin’s reputation and connections, we wouldn’t be surprised if that was true.

To be fair Murtazin did not really get an exclusive look at the phone as it seems that Samsung’s partners and carriers have already seen the phone as well. He reports that the Galaxy S4 was shown behind closed doors during MWC 2013.

This seems to be in line with earlier rumors that suggested that even though the phone will not be announced, it will still make an appearance albeit shrouded in secrecy. To be honest the idea of the Galaxy S4 being built from plastic is a bit of a downer. Considering that Samsung’s competitors such as Sony and HTC have utilized more premium material like aluminum and glass, we half expected Samsung to step it up as well. Either way we guess we will have to wait until the 14^th of March to find out more, so stay tuned!

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: T-Mobile May Become A Contract-less Network This Month, Samsung Galaxy S4 To Be Available In White/Black And 16/32/64GB Storage Options,

Popular Benchmark maker Rightware has received what it believes to be a benchmark score submission from a Samsung Galaxy S4 (model GT-I9500). As expected, the alleged Galaxy S4 performs very well and had no problem landing at the top of the current charts in the BrowserMark suite of tests. In case you are not familiar with the Galaxy S code names, one variant of the Galaxy S3 was named GT-I9300 and one of the Galaxy S2 models was GT-I9100. The upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4 is said to be coming at least in two variants: the GT-I9500 and the GT-I9400. Rumor has it that one S4 variant would be equipped with a Snapdragon 600 processor, while the other would use a Samsung Exynos chip. Whether it is the Exynos Octa 5, or a Dual core Exynos with two A15 cores is still a hot debate topic. (more…)

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As some of you guys might have heard, the Samsung Galaxy S4 could be launched with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 chipset instead of Samsung’s own Exynos 5. The rumors are suggesting that this is because of production issues, perhaps not being able to produce enough to meet initial demand. Now if you were a bit bummed by that news, all is not lost because according to a note to investors from a JPMorgan Securities (via Taipei Times), it is possible that the Galaxy S4 will launch with different versions. One version will feature the Exynos 5 8-core chipset, while the other will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 chipset.

Apparently the version with the Exynos 5 chipset will be launched for the European market, while those in the US will get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 version. This is not the first time Samsung has done this. Back in 2012, the Samsung Galaxy S3 was launched in the US with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset as Samsung’s Exynos chipset was not equipped with an LTE modem. Since the Galaxy Note 2 managed to overcome that problem, we’re not sure why the discrepancy. However since there has not been any official word from Samsung, we suggest you not get too worked up yet and wait for Samsung’s announcement on the 14^th of March for the full details.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Windows Phone Blue Update Rumored To Be Delayed Until 2014, Samsung Galaxy S4 Full Specs Leaked [Rumor],

Just the other day alleged bumper cases for Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S4 were revealed, perhaps giving us a very, very rough idea of what the phone might look like. Now it looks like the folks at Mobile Fun have managed to get their hands on photos of some upcoming cases for the Galaxy S4 which supposedly came from a “trust Chinese accessory manufacturer”. While it’s hard to tell the dimensions from these cases, Mobile Fun seems to think that they could support a phone with a 5” display, which so happens to be one of the rumored specs of the Galaxy S4. Given that the HTC Butterfly and Sony Xperia Z both feature Full HD 5” displays, we wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung were to follow suit.

The case also reveals the placement of the camera, the flash unit as well as its rear speaker. This seems to be in line with the previously announced bumper case, although these cases seem to suggest a more rectangular-ish design, perhaps along the lines of the Galaxy S2. While these might be able to give us an idea of what to expect, it should be noted that sometimes case manufacturers get their facts wrong and instead rely on rumors to build their products. We’ve heard of manufacturers in the past who get screwed over when they attempted to predict the iPhone 4S (many thought it would be the iPhone 5 at that time), so there is a chance that this particular manufacturer could have their facts wrong as well. Either way hopefully we will know soon, assuming these rumors of a possible delay aren’t true.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Orb Rumored To Be Samsung’s Answer To Google’s Photosphere, Possible Samsung Galaxy S4 (GT-I9500) Sample Photos Hit The Web,