Samsung Galaxy S4 officially unveiled
Korean electronics giant Samsung unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S4 at the Samsung Unpacked event it held in New York today (15 March 2013).
As usual many rumours were confirmed while many others were refuted.
Among the features whose details leaked before the Samsung event include:
- Smart Scroll: Eye-tracking lets you scroll the browser and emails up and down without touching the screen. It recognises your face looking at the screen and movement of your wrist and then scroll the pages up or down accordingly.
- Smart Pause: Eye-tracking recognises when you’re looking away from the device and pauses videos that are playing. When you look back, the video starts playing again.
- Air View: Lets users hover with their fingers to preview the content of an email, S Planner, image gallery or video without having to open it. You can also see a magnified view on the internet browser, or a phone number saved in the speed dial on the keypad.
- Air Gesture: You can change the music track, scroll up and down a web page, or accept a call with a wave of your hand.
Samsung Galaxy S4 press shots
Features announced at the event that didn’t make it into “leaks” include:
- Dual Camera: Capture photos or videos with both the rear and front cameras at the same time.
- S Translator: Translate text from one language to another and speak it out loud. Listen to the spoken language and convert it to text in another language.
- Samsung Knox: Announced at CES 2013, this is similar to BlackBerry’s “Balance” feature which keeps work and personal data separate. The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the first device to receive this “business-to-business” feature, according to Samsung.
- Group Play: Link multiple Galaxy S4 devices together to share music, photos, documents, or play games. Devices playing music may be configured for 2 channel or surround playback.
The confirmed key specifications for the device are summarised in the table below, with the “leaked” specifications from earlier this week shown beside it:
| Specifications | Samsung Galaxy S4 | Samsung Galaxy S4 (leaked China Unicom model specs) |
| Maker | Samsung | Samsung |
| Operating System | Android 4.2.2 | Android 4.2.1 |
| Display | 5″ 1080p HD (1080×1920) | 4.99″ 1080p HD (1080×1920) |
| Rear camera | 13MP | 13MP |
| Front camera | 2MP | 2MP |
| Storage, internal | 16GB/32GB/64GB | 16GB |
| Storage, expandable | microSD (64GB) | microSD |
| RAM | 2GB | 2GB |
| Dimensions | 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9mm | 140.1 x 71.8 x 7.7mm |
| Weight | 130g | 138g |
| Chipset | Exynos Octa 5410 | Exynos Octa 5410 |
| Processor | 1.6GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 + 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 | 1.8GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 + 1.2GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 |
| Graphics | PowerVR SGX 544MP | PowerVR SGX 544MP |
| NFC | Yes | Yes |
| Battery | 2,600mAh | 2,600mAh |
| Mobile data | LTE and HSPA+ models | LTE and HSPA+ models |
| SIM type | Micro SIM | Micro SIM |
Not all models will use Samsung’s new Exynos Octa chip, according to the company. Samsung said that depending on the market, some devices will instead use a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor.
Other hardware features not listed above include an infrared (IR) LED that offers television remote control functionality, similar to that announced for the HTC One earlier this year.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 also include a temperature and humidity sensor, as well as an IR gesture sensor, Samsung said.
Availability
Samsung said that the Galaxy S4 would be available from 327 mobile operators across 155 countries, starting from April 2013.
The Long Term Evolution (LTE) model of the device would be available a bit later this year, Samsung said,
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