While we have yet to hear an official release date from any of the US carriers about the Samsung GALAXY S 4, the UK is getting on the ball. British carrier EE — UK’s only LTE carrier — has announced that they’ll be offering the GALAXY S 4 starting on April 26, with pre-orders beginning March 28.
Pricing is still a mystery, however, but we’re guessing that we’ll see the price tag for the new phone before it opens up for pre-order toward the end of the month. We’ve already heard from a couple of US carriers as far as availability, with AT&T and T-Mobile both announcing that they’ll be offering the new smartphone.
We’re guessing that more and more carriers will come forward in the next couple of weeks, though, since Samsung announced last night that the GALAXY S 4 will support 327 mobile carriers in 155 different countries. The phone will also be available in 3G and 4G LTE in multiple bands, with Samsung president JK Shin saying that the phone supports all frequencies and standards.
As for other UK carriers, both Orange and T-Mobile have announced that they’ll be offering the GALAXY S 4, although they have yet to announce availability and pricing, but it should be the same as EE, since both Orange and T-Mobile are subsidiaries of EE. However, we’re guessing that many carriers will model their release dates after EE, give or take a few days. We should be hearing more details from carriers soon.
I’m sure we’ll see our fair share of cases for the new Samsung GALAXY S 4 release over the next few weeks and months, but Belkin and OtterBox have come right out of the gate to announce that they’ll be offering cases for the new phone when it arrives in late April. Belkin has already released photos of their new cases, while OtterBox is keeping it a mystery for the time being.
Belkin will be releasing 11 cases in total. The Wallet Folio case being their most premium case for the new phone. It will be priced at $49 and will feature genuine leather, a cover that folds up into a stand, and there will even be pockets inside to store small things like credit cards, IDs, and receipts.
As for OtterBox, they will have their usual lineup of cases available for the GALAXY S 4, including their Defender Series, Commuter Series, and Reflex Series. The Defender Series is OtterBox’s premium option that offers the best protection, while the Reflex Series offers a low-profile design that’s sturdy enough to take on a few hits.
Belkin says their cases will be available in “April 2013″ while OtterBox has yet to officially announce availability, although the cases will “soon be available” for the new device. Again, we should be hearing about more companies in the coming weeks who will be releasing their own cases, but Belkin and OtterBox seem to have been the first ones to the line.
Today was a very exciting day of many of us. Samsung finally announced its Samsung Galaxy S 4 device that’s set to dominate the world of Android. The device features top of the line specs, including a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor (Exynos 5 Octa CPU internationally), 5-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, 13MP rear-facing camera, and more. Samsung has also announced a series of accessories to protect your future smartphone with, as well as a few accessories that will allow you to fully utilize its S Health app.
Samsung will be releasing 4 types of cases for the Samsung Galaxy S 4. There’s the pouch that will protect your S 4 from the dangers that exist inside of your pocket or your purse. There’s the standard Flip Cover that was introduced with the Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II. There are the protective cases that come in a variety of colors, so you can both personalize and protect your S 4 at the same time. Finally, there’s the S View cover, a new type of cover introduced by Samsung that protects your phone, and also provides an opening on the front screen that will allow you to check your Caller ID, or notifications quickly.
There were also 3 accessories Samsung introduced that will help you fully utilize its new S Health app. These include the S Band pedometer, a body scale, and a heart rate monitor. The S Health app will be a great tool for those of you trying to stick to a diet and get into shape. The app, combined with these accessories, records all of your health information, including distance walked, calories burned, eating habits, weight, sleep patterns, heart rate, blood sugar, blood pressure and more. All of the information will be organized for you in an easy-to-read format. We’ll provide you with a hands-on demonstration of these accessories soon.
The Samsung Galaxy S 4 is a phenomenal device, and it should be making its way to 155 countries sometime around the end of April. If you weren’t able to catch Samsung’s Mobile Unpacked event today, no worries, because SlashGear has all of the information you need to know about the device. You can find a break down of the S 4′s new features, a hands-on demonstration, and device comparisons in the timeline below.
The Samsung GALAXY S 4 is official, and now that we got our hands on the new device, it’s time to see how it compares to Samsung’s previous Galaxy S handset, the Galaxy S III. Obviously the GALAXY S 4 is an improvement over its predecessor in almost every way, but what exactly has changed here? Let’s take a look.
As for looks, both devices are almost look identical, save for a few changes to the edges. They both have the rounded top and bottom, and the earpiece and home button look very similar. However, the biggest difference cosmetically is the larger 5-inch display on the S 4, while the Galaxy S III is left with a smaller, lower resolution 4.8-inch screen.
However, it’s really the internals that you’ll want to focus on when comparing these two handsets. The GALAXY S 4 runs a quad-core Snapdragon CPU clocked at 1.9GHz (a 1.6GHz Exynos in some regions), while the Galaxy S III touts a Snapdragon S4 dual-core chip clocked at just 1.5GHz. There’s also 2GB of RAM in the S 4, which is the same in the S III. However, the camera is where there’s a big difference: a 13MP sensor in the S 4, while the S III only rocks an 8MP shooter.
Then again, the display is where the GALAXY S 4 really shines when compared to the S III. a 5-inch 1080p display is pretty much unbeatable right now. As for the question of whether or not you should upgrade from the Galaxy S III to the S 4, it certainly doesn’t hurt to do such a thing. There’s definitely faster internals, more features, and that larger screen and camera. However, if you’re still rocking a contract with the S III, don’t worry about having to wait it out. The S 4 will still be here waiting for you when you’re eligible for an upgrade.
There’s also a few new software features in the S 4 as well, including Smart Scroll and Smart Pause, both of which may come in a future Android update for the Galaxy S III, but that’s simply just rumored at this point. Of course, we’ll be taking the GALAXY S 4 and put it through its paces in a full review, but for now, this new device is quite the beast. We’ve already compared it to other new handsets on the market right now, including the iPhone 5 and the HTC One, which was just recently announced last week.
As the fourth and perhaps most innovative pillar of the collection here with the Samsung GALAXY S 4, the “Health and Wellness” category introduces a brand new app: S-Health. The app ecosystem known as S Health has been introduced with the Samsung GALAXY S 4 with the ability to keep track, monitor, and provide information on your health activity. This app works with the sensors on the smartphone to show you pedometer information – how fast you’ve walked, where you’ve walked, and how long you’ve walked.
S-Health also shows you information on your environment – humidity and temperature – tracking these elements over time. You can also track your dietary habits – though in that case you’ll have to tell the device what you’re actually eating and drinking. That information can be tracked over time and, “based on a database,” you’ll have caloric consumption information.
You’ll have Adapt Sound and Adapt Display prepared for understand the type of content you’re consuming and will adapt speakers and display based on that content. Reading text will have the device “maximize the viewing experience”, making the display most comfortable for your eyes.
A set of accessories is also being introduced by the company with the S-Band, for starters, and a body scale and heart monitor to round out the collection. We’ll have a full hands-on look at these lovely bits and pieces for you sooner than later. Stick to the GALAXY S 4 tag portal for more!
Meanwhile you’ll want to head to the timeline below to see the full set of hands-on and news blast articles posted during the big Samsung GALAXY S 4 reveal event without a doubt. There you’ll see the device itself, full specifications included, as well as the rest of the full four pillars Samsung has presented for the device as an ideal new-world user experience for you!
With the third of four pillars included in Samsung’s approach to the user experience with the GALAXY S 4, they’ve explored how to “add convenience to your life.” The Samsung GALAXY S 4 adds convenience to your life with several features that take you above and beyond the traditional smartphone experience, starting with some Galaxy Note features pulled in from the larger Samsung universe.
With the Galaxy Note II, the S-Pen began working with a feature called Hover. With the GALAXY S 4, you’ll be able to use the Hover feature with just your fingers. Hovering over emails or calendar events expands them to preview with ease – a step between seeing just the title of note and seeing the full message is exactly what this preview element represents.
You can expand contacts to see who’s behind your speed dial numbers, magnify elements throughout the device’s UI, and the custom version of FlipBoard shown with the Galaxy Note 8.0 works here with the finger-only Hover as well.
You’ll also find Air Gestures to be working here with the GALAXY S 4. You can browse content now with your hand just hovering above the device. You can Air Browse through your music, flipping from track to track with a wave of your hand. This also works with your web browser to move up and down through the page you’re viewing or back and forth through tabs.
Smart Stay continues to work in the GALAXY S 4 as it did with the Galaxy S III, so your device will never go to sleep as long as it detects your face looking at it. The Galaxy S4 works with Smart Pause and Smart Scroll now as well. If you tilt your device with Smart Scroll, you’ll scroll through content without having to gesture or touch the display. With Smart Pause, video will be paused when you look away from the screen – like magic!
This device works with an analog optical reader, meaning you’ll be able to view – for example – a business card with the camera on the GALAXY S 4 and the vital information will be translated digitally for you. Text can be translated easily, emails, phone numbers, and of course QR-codes as well. S-Translator is also embedded into your analog optical reader so you can view text in a language you don’t understand and have it translated for you in a jiffy.
The GALAXY S 4 has an IR-blaster equipped right up at the top. Similar to what we’ve seen with the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 series, you’ll be able to control your television right from your smart device. You’ll be working with Samsung WatchON to control any TV and discover Video On Demand content and see television station information based on your location and provider as well.
Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on the Samsung GALAXY S 4 including full specifications as well as some hands-on experiences as well – coming your way soon!
The four pillars of what Samsung hopes to project as the GALAXY S 4′s friendly user experience continues with pillar number 2: Creation and Nurturing of Relationships. To both create and nurture relationships with the people you meet and the people around you daily, you’ll find the GALAXY S 4′s integration of S-Translator to be especially helpful. As the world becomes more “global”, Samsung aims to help you translate what anyone says for your consumption – and help you translate what you say so you can speak with anyone. This translation tool is integrated into Email, ChatON, and in a stand-alone S-Translator app.
ChatON was also re-imagined to add some new ways for you to communicate through quick messaging. You’ll be able to work with three-way video calls, dual camera video calls, the ability to share your screen, and the ability to share what you’re annotating on your screen.
GroupPlay returns with the Samsung GALAXY S 4 to bring on a set of new features for the already awesome collaborative personal network sharing app ecosystem. At launch you’ll find the ability to play songs between GALAXY S 4 device at the same time with Share Music. This new Group Play app also is able to connect your Samsung GALAXY S 4 devices manually or via NFC.
That’s right – here in the newest version of Group Play you’ll find the need for connecting on the same wifi network to be taken away entirely – games like Asphalt 7 and Gun Bros 2 will work between GALAXY S 4 devices even over your mobile network connection. The Samsung-specific connectivity universe is expanding more and more each day!
Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on the Samsung GALAXY S 4 for specifications, hands-on experiences, and the rest of the four pillars of GS4 excellence!
With the Samsung GALAXY S 4, the company is letting the world know that they’re taking an approach that’s meant to make your life better with four key pillars of excellence, the first being an effort to allow you to get “more Enjoyment out of life.” The camera experience will be the first way in which the Samsung GALAXY S 4 will help you get more enjoyment out of life. As Samsung has mentioned, they’ve created a camera experience that’ll allow you, the user, to take as much emotion away with the device as possible. This camera experience was designed to allow you to get as top-notch a photography and video experience as possible as well.
With Dual Shot you’ll be able to work with both the front and back-facing cameras at once. With Samsung’s experience here, you’ll have an array of templates for placement of these photos together in compositions for sharing with friends and family. You’ll also be able to take videos in this manner with Dual Recording – front and back-facing cameras shooting at once with a final product that’s got both videos in one file.
Sound in Shot allows you to capture up to 9 seconds of audio while a still photo is shown. Drama Shot allows you to combine a series of photos together into one final product. Cinema Photo takes a video of a moment you’d like to capture and allows you to highlight the areas on the screen you want to feature while the rest remains static – the result being one moving .gif file.
Story Album allows you to store all your photos into collections with pre-set templates. With Trip Advisor you’ll be able to pull out GPS location data and apply to these albums with ease. With Samsung’s connection with the company known as Blurb, you’ll also be able to easily print these albums for real-world viewing.
Have a peek at the timeline below for more information on the Samsung GALAXY S 4 with news posts and hands-on experiences galore, including the rest of the four key pillars of this smartphone’s user experience!
If success is judged by anticipation, the Samsung GALAXY S 4 is already a winner. Hotly discussed in the months leading up to today’s big reveal, expectations for the phone have varied wildly from a ground-shaking rethink to a buff and polish of the best-selling Galaxy S III. The end result, though, treads a line between the two: familiar and yet bursting with new functionality, and refined in ways that, while not perhaps the most headline-catching, nonetheless keep Samsung’s hardware at the top of its game. Read on for our hands-on first impressions.
From the outset, it’s clear that Samsung hasn’t strayed too far from the formula that made the Galaxy S III so successful. The new phone follows in the family style footsteps, though while the dimensions are similar to before – the same 136.6mm length, slightly wider at 69.8mm, and slightly thinner at 7.9mm – Samsung has managed to squeeze in a larger display. The new Super AMOLED HD screen measures in at 5-inches, versus the 4.7- of the older phone, and now runs at a crisp 1080p resolution for 441ppi pixel density.
Even just accommodating a screen of that size without a significant change in size is impressive, but the panel itself is a good one too. It’s still PenTile, which is likely to make some display purists groan, but it keeps the great contrast and rich colors we’re familiar with from AMOLED. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the similarly 1080p (though slightly smaller) HTC One’s LCD3 screen is a little more natural and pleasing to our eyes, though.
If HTC has focused its software efforts on BlinkFeed and Zoe, Samsung has cast its net wide, basically throwing everything at the wall in the expectation that at least something will stick for most users. The 13-megapixel main camera (paired with a 2-megapixel front camera) gets a new suite of features, such as the ability to take two photos or videos simultaneously from the front and rear cameras and combine them into one, Samsung Dual Shot, and being able to append up to nine seconds of audio to a still, to give it some context when you later review it. Samsung calls that Sound-in-Shot, though while it’s clever, we’re not quite as impressed as we were by HTC Zoe.
There’s also no shortage of signs that Samsung has its eye on what’s currently fashionable in mobile. So, there’s Cinema Photo, which basically creates a cinemagram-style animated photo without demanding a third-party app, and Drama Shot, which builds a single frame out of multiple burst-photography stills. You can easily share a group of images about, say, a recent holiday in a Story Album, complete with facts from Trip Advisor; that can later be printed courtesy of a tie-in with Blurb.
The Galaxy S III introduced eye-recognition for keeping its display active, and the GALAXY S 4 builds on that with Smart Pause and Smart Scroll. When you look away from the screen during video playback, the phone automatically pauses it until you look back; similarly, if you’re looking at the S 4 and reading a longer list, then simply tilting the phone scrolls through it. The GALAXY S 4 is pretty obsessed by where your fingers are, too: the Galaxy Note II, for instance, could track whether its S Pen nib was hovering over the screen but not touching, but now the S 4 can do the same only recognizing your fingertips.
That means you can peep inside folders and galleries, or at the content of unopened messages, simply by floating your fingertips over the top of them; Samsung has also brought in some third-party app support, with titles like Flipboard also supporting the Hover feature to preview new stories. It’s not the only way the GALAXY S 4 is watching you. Air Browse, Air Jump, and Air Call Accept all track hand movements, allowing you to wave and gesture your way through menus, answering calls – which we could see being particularly usefully when you’re driving – and controlling music playback.
When you can pretty much count on your phone selling in the millions, you can start to look at how different units interact, as Samsung has with the GALAXY S 4. There’s Group Play for audio, video, and gaming playback, creating ad-hoc local networks of multiple handsets all running the same content synchronized, for instance, with support for games like Asphalt 7 and Gun Bros 2 working with the feature. There’s also S Translator in the latest version of ChatON, the messaging app, and the email app, usefully switching between languages rather than forcing you to copy and paste into something like Google Translate.
Samsung has really gone to town on added-extras – in fact the number of times you might have to dig into Google Play for a third-party solution is shrinking all the time. There’s a business card scanner – which also usefully gets S Translator baked-in, to pick out and convert foreign addresses and job titles – and an IR blaster which, with the new Samsung WatchON app, turns the phone into a remote control complete with EPG and on-demand access.
The rest of the hardware basically backs up that software flourish with the power the Galaxy S4 needs to deliver on its promises. Different geographies will get different processors, depending on the combination of LTE and other factors, with Samsung choosing between the quadcore Snapdragon 1.9Ghz and its own eight-core 1.6Ghz Exynos 5. . No matter the chip, there’ll be 2GB of memory to accompany it, and the usual 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of internal capacity. Samsung has also stuck with expandable memory and a removable battery, something neither the HTC One nor the iPhone 5 offer, features which remain popular among power-users and business customers.
Image and sound processing also get worked over, with Samsung Adapt Sound and Adapt Display. We’ve seen such DSP used to good effect by Sony and others, and the Galaxy S4 benefits too, though when it comes to sound it’s clear that nothing can replace big drivers. The HTC One’s custom speaker system and Beats Audio processing still has the edge, to our ears.
Samsung didn’t stint on accessories for the Galaxy S III – at a time when, while iPhone had a thriving ecosystem of third-party add-ons, Android devices still lacked anything so cohesive – and the company hasn’t slowed down with the Galaxy S4. There’s a new S View Cover, like a flip-cover only with a window cut through that allows a small part of the smartphone’s display to remain powered-up and show battery, signal status, music playlists, and incoming call details. That’s courtesy of AMOLED’s capability to only power a small subset of an overall display, and sip battery while it does so.
Then there are the new add-ons to go with S Health. Samsung did have some health & fitness tech for the previous Galaxy, but the S4 steps it up a notch, timely given the focus on wearables and monitoring right now. Software-only, S Health will work as a pedometer as well as tracking temperature and humidity, in addition to allowing users to log their food (with a huge database in the background of nutritional information). However, there’s also Samsung S Band, a Bluetooth-enabled tracker in the manner of a Jawbone UP, which logs data even if the GALAXY S 4 isn’t nearby, and then synchronizes with it once they’re back in range. Samsung also has a Bluetooth-enabled body scale and heart-rate monitor, which also feed their recordings into the phone.
Expectations for the GALAXY S 4 have been high, but Samsung has taken the evolutionary rather than revolutionary path for its new phone. Then again, it didn’t have to: sales of the Galaxy S III remain brisk, and the company has the marketing budget to hammer home its latest message. It also avoids frustrating existing owners too greatly: they’ll be getting software updates which add many of the new Samsung-exclusive additions, and haven’t been left too far behind with the hardware.
That said, should Galaxy S III users upgrade to the GALAXY S 4? If you insist on being on the very latest hardware, and you’re wedded to Samsung, then perhaps it’s a no-brainer. However, it’s not the vast step-up we saw from, say, the Galaxy S II to its successor. In fact, while the hardware is cutting-edge, it’s clear that Samsung’s efforts this time around have really been focused on software enhancements. Some won’t care about things like the IR blaster or Group Play, but will lap up the S Health system and Air Gestures, or vice-versa, but either way there’s a sense that there’s something for everybody.
On the one hand, that’s liberating – after all, why should everyone use the same device in the same way? – but on the other it can get overwhelming and confusing. The appeal of the HTC One is not only that it’s built so well (leagues ahead, we must say, than the in-hand-feel of the GALAXY S 4) but that it focuses on doing a couple of things particularly well, in ways that make a significant difference to the user over and above the standard Android OS.
We’ll confess to a certain sense of unease, then, about how the GALAXY S 4 will find its place in the smartphone market today. Samsung has done what it needed to – in the manner of Apple and the transition between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S – to bring its flagship up to speed. Promotion and advertising will take care of the rest. If that overshadows phones like the HTC One, however, devices which really do take a more revolutionary approach, then we’d be mightily disappointed.
The Samsung GALAXY S 4 will sell by the bucket-load. Everybody knows that. But in a way we’re still more thankful for its predecessor and how that forced every other Android OEM to raise its game for 2013. That’s better for consumers, and more interesting for us. We’ll have to wait until we can review the Galaxy S4 before we can tell whether it’s actually the best Android device of the lot, however.
Samsung just officially introduced the GALAXY S4 to the world here in New York City, and right off the bat the company is talking about all of its new features. They’ve also revealed details about the phone’s availability, as well as the carriers that will carry the phone once it’s out.
The GALAXY S4 will be available sometime toward the end of April, and will be supported by 327 mobile carriers in 155 different countries. The phone will be available in 3G and 4G LTE in multiple bands. Samsung president JK Shin says that the phone supports all frequencies and standards, and there’s even global roaming on LTE.
We should hear more information about which carriers will get the GALAXY S4 and when the phone will be available. Pricing details are also another topic that hasn’t come up yet, but we’re guessing the carriers will decide on their own how much they’ll sell the phone for, and when it’ll be available.
UPDATE: We’ve heard word from both AT&T and T-Mobile about the GALAXY S 4. T-Mobile will carry the phone, but they haven’t yet announced any details except for a sign-up page where you can enter in your email address for more details when they arrive. As for AT&T, they too have a landing page for the new phone, but no details yet.
As for the device itself, it has a 5-inch 1080p display and weighs just 130 grams. As expected, the phone will come in both black and white variants, with a silver band outlining both of the devices. The phone has Bluetooth 4.0 and even an IR blaster just like in the HTC One. It’s also packing 2GB of RAM, a 13MP camera, and up to 64GB of storage. We’ll be updating as we hear more info about availability and carriers.
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