The Samsung Galaxy S4 was announced in New York on the 14th of March (last week Thursday). This smartphone promises to be one of the most exciting gadgets to be announced in 2013.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 doesn’t look very different than the Samsung Galaxy S3. The phone is slightly thinner (7.9 mm) than it’s predecessor, but has a bigger screen (5 inch). The phone weighs 130 grams, sports a 1920 x 1080 resolution and has a Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU. The phone will be available in two colours: White Frost or Black Mist. There will be models available with 16 Gb, 32 Gb and 64 Gb storage.
The Samsung Galaxy S4’s screen can be operated just by hovering your finger over it. This feature is known as Air View. It lets you hover over content on the screen (like an e-mail or photo) and allows you to preview it (without having to open the actual app). The phone also has the Air Gesture feature which lets you change tracks on the music player, scroll through a web page on the phone’s browser or answer a phone call by waving your hand over the screen.
The phone has two cameras: a primary 13 megapixel camera and a secondary 2 megapixel camera. The phone’s Dual Camera feature allows you to use the primary and secondary cameras at the same time. This feature also allows you to superimpose yourself as a floating stamp when you’re recording HD Videos on your Samsung Galaxy S4.
The secondary (or front) camera has a dual purpose. Besides being a camera it also allows you to control the Samsung Galaxy S4 with the Smart Pause feature. This technology knows when you’re looking at the phone screen. If you’re watching a video on your phone and you look away, it will pause the video for you. As soon as you look at the screen again, the video will continue playing.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has a 2,600mAh battery. It’s 500 mAh bigger than the Samsung Galaxy S3 and should be adequate to handle the phone’s bigger screen and should ensure a longer battery life (even if you’re on the phone all day long). The phone also has full support for 4G LTE networks. The phone also has an infrared transmitter (which allows you to use your phone as a remote control for your television or other devices) and S Voice Drive (which puts up a simpler interface for when you’re driving and recognizes voice prompts).
Check out CNET’s First Look of the Samsung Galaxy S4 below:
Samsung announced that the Galaxy S4 would be available from 327 mobile operators across 155 countries, starting from April 2013. So far Vodacom and Virgin Mobile announced that they will be releasing the Samsung Galaxy S4 sometime in April in South Africa. The recommended retail price is expected to be between R7000 and R8000.
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