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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
206 Comments
View All Comments
jabber - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
The reason that Samsung make their phones from plastic isnt just a cost thing. They realised that people tend to drop their phones...a lot!Plastic holds up better to knocks and drops than glass or aluminium. Plus you can always swap your plastic battery cover for a new one if it gets damaged that badly.
doobydoo - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Er, sorry but you're wrong. The SG3 fares far worse than the iPhone 5 in every drop test I've seen.Xyfaz87 - Saturday, March 16, 2013 - link
Er, forget about the drop test... I dropped my s3 a lot, and still it is intact and no cracking no dent, only slight scratch, I don't use case also.I don't mind the design of s3, and the choice of plastic. For me I can use it comfortably with one hand, while for xperia Z it looks cool... But I found it awful to hold it for long time with one hand, the more angular design just not my taste.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, March 16, 2013 - link
It's not just you, anyone with a whit of experience knows sharper edges cut into the meaty part of your hands and fingers and joints, and can be quite painful rather quickly.That doesn't matter though, as the hoi polloi has been exactly trained to spew out ridiculous things like feel of build quality with their internal mental deficit ruling the scoring.
Let them have their butt fugly rectumtangle and let it rip on their digits and give them arthritis as the cold metal and harsh glass guts their tendons.
Since a rectangle with sharp edges and corners is as dumb as it gets, the dorks of the net decided "industrial design" was cool. Yes, it's cool, if you're a basement tard whose never seen the inside of a factory and wouldn't last 2 days in that harsh environment.
Their phones are harsh, sharpened, health hazards, but it's okay the know it all parrots repeat and bleat on cue, no matter what they have ever personally experienced if anything.
Stupid is stupid because stupid does stupid so well, the smartest nerds in the room. ( Cough)
ATBTCT - Sunday, March 17, 2013 - link
Er, actually you are wrong. All the drop tests I have seen of SG3 mostly show damage to the screen only and that is understandable considering that SG3 has a bigger screen compared to iPhone 5. Even if the plastic is damaged it doesn't cost much to change it. Whereas for iPhone and other aluminium clad phones, not only are they not durable as plastic but expensive to repair. And I rarely see expensive flagship without cases. The only ones I see are those that are made up of...................... plastic...I wonder why..............Azurael - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Here are some simple yes-or-no questions I would like answered regarding the S3.Brick bug? Y/N
COMPLETE, WORKING Kernel Source & binaries provided Samsung? Y/N
If this is like the SII/Note/S3/Note 2 in having buggy hardware, iffy patches and not even remotely GPL compliant 'developer relations' then they can shove that phone where the sun doesn't shine.
I think it's quite cute that they managed to get A15s in there, I was seriously starting to wonder whether we'd even see A15 in a phone at 32/28nm, let alone a working quad. I can believe it'll only be running at 1.2GHz from what we've seen of A15s power consumption. It still looks as ugly and plasticky as everything else Samsung make too. In fact, it looks the same as the S3 to me, I'm not sure I could tell the difference aside from the larger screen if you put the pair in front of me. If you're going to charge £500 for a device, surely it should look like it cost that?
IKeelU - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
Agreed. Every Samsung I've handled works just fine, but feels/looks pretty cheap compared to anything by apple or htc (or even the N4, which feels incredible compared to its last two iterations). But a race to the bottom is what the market calls for - artistry and grace be damned. I can't fault Samsung for giving people just enough so they keep coming back.glugglug - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
So the release is in Q2. Would that be April 1? Because it kind of sounds too awesome to be true.Some of the features (i.e. eye scrolling) sound silly and probably are just battery draining annoyances, but you can turn them off.
I'm hoping the S Translate is limited to translation only, and they didn't override the built-in Android 4.2.2 speech recognition which I've been using for awhile now. Non-cloud for good responsiveness, and the most accurate I've ever seen.
doobydoo - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
End of April basically. So you could probably get it mid May - 8 months after the release of the iPhone 5.Friendly0Fire - Friday, March 15, 2013 - link
The one element that's *never* covered in any press release or preview is always the one I'm the most curious about: the DAC. I love my Wolfson DAC and having one in the S4 would be a big plus for it, but I've been unable to get any sort of information regarding this anywhere. Even Supercurio doesn't seem to know thus far.Anand, do you have any details or the ability to provide some in the near future?