Samsung's Galaxy S 4: Introduction & Hands On
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 14, 2013 7:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Mobile
- Galaxy S 4
Final Words
With a release scheduled for sometime in Q2 of this year, today’s announcement is more of a preview. We’re sure to have more details on hardware and software in the coming months. For now, the Galaxy S 4 seems like a logical evolution of the Galaxy S lineup. Faster hardware and a larger higher-resolution display were both expected and delivered upon.
Power users will be pleased by the modern SoC integration, and I’m sure there are some that will still be happy with the removable battery and micro SD card slot.
Samsung has continued to increase its focus on delivering enhancements through software, which is very obvious based on the list of launch features for the Galaxy S 4. Although I’m sure power users will still prefer unmodified Android, it’s important to note that many of the features Samsung is introducing with the Galaxy S 4 will be very easy to market to mainstream consumers. The ability to control your smartphone without ever touching it or pause/unpause video with a glance are marketing messages that are very clear and easy to deliver.
The same is true for the enhancements to the camera app. While Samsung continued down the path of the megapixel race, truth be told it will have an easier time selling the Galaxy S 4 to mainstream consumers based on specs and the added features enabled by the new camera app.
Round it all up with S Translate and S Health, two more features that aren’t really new but definitely speak directly to consumers. It’s Apple’s Siri strategy, but coming from many different angles. Samsung’s consumer focused strategy is one that has done very well and I see the Galaxy S 4 continuing that. The real question is how well all of these features will perform/work in final software. Conceptually the Galaxy S 4’s software suite makes a lot of sense, the proof as always will be in the execution and how long it takes Samsung to get to the appropriate level of polish.
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Badelhas - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Spam!Grandpa - Sunday, March 17, 2013 - link
I'd rather have a phone that didn't need a removable battery. The Micro slot would be nice though.jayseeks - Tuesday, March 26, 2013 - link
This phone is most definitely not high end.robert3892 - Monday, April 1, 2013 - link
That is also why I won't buy the HTC ONe because it has neither a removable battery nor a micro sd card slotkcsween - Tuesday, April 9, 2013 - link
Now if they can only add the front facing dual speakers from the HTC One and we'd have arguably the best phone thus far in 2013.Freakie - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
Am I the only one who caught that this thing has a THERMOMETER?!?! Nearly 67 years of mobile telephony and we FINALLY HAVE A PHONE THAT CAN TELL THE TEMPERATURE! PRAISE THE GOD OF THE TECH GODS!VivekGowri - Thursday, March 14, 2013 - link
That is actually really cool, I completely missed that.Freakie - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
I can't shake the feeling that I am missing something here. It seems no other tech blog is picking up on the fact that there is finally a phone that can tell ambient temperature. Hasn't every smart phone owner ever wanted their phone to do this at some point? This is just one of those awesome tiny details that is small on paper but a "killer" feature in practice, in my opinion of course.Ridgie - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Potentially lots of problems with a thermometer on a mobile phone, such as accuracy when the device itself is running hot during intensive use or the fact that most of the time the reading will be close to body temperature... The number of caveats, warnings and disclaimers around the feature will detract from its appeal.. I'd be interested to see how they position this feature in the marketing.Freakie - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
I can think of a couple of ways to mitigate that. They can simply use the battery's temperature as a basis for how warm the device is in general, or any of the other temperature readings they can get across the chips on the PCB. And with that, they will be able to tell whether it is possible that the phone's internal temperature is interfering with the ambient reading. Then they can display a message along the lines of "We noticed that your device is running a bit warm at the moment which may affect the Ambient Temperature reading. For the most accurate results, please reduce phone activity and try again after the device as lowered in temperature."Another thing they could do is simply take minutely readings of ambient and battery temperature (I would think this could still be accomplished while the phone is in deep sleep too, so that it does not create a wake-lock in order to be effective) and then if it detects that both ambient and battery temperature have risen in a specific pattern (battery heating phone up would look different than going from air condition room to 110 degrees outside) in a short amount of time, it can display a similar message about the phone's internal temperature interfering with the reading. All in all I don't think it would actually be too difficult to differentiate between real and artificial ambient temperatures and so the caveats and disclaimers wouldn't be too much.... If they do it right that is =P
I think it's a nice touch and a small detail that hopefully can be the start of a mainstream feature. Features gotta start to be built up somehow, after all!