Samsung Galaxy S4: Features explained, quick hands on

What are the best Samsung Galaxy S4 features to look forward to? T3 runs down the key specs that have been revealed about the the Galaxy S3 successor, and wraps up with a quick hands on.

By: Simon Khoury

So after literally months on months of leaked pictures, alleged specs and video the Samsung Galaxy S4 has officially been unveiled at an extravagant New York -based event this evening, and we have some information about the official S4 specs.

We reveal the features that are likely to persuade you to make the upgrade from the Samsung Galaxy S3.

Build and design: Bigger screen, same width and height

Bigger screen aside, the Galaxy S4 which will be available in white and black, at 130g is slightly lighter than the S3 (133g) and has the same height and width dimensions. That should shut up critics of the jump to a larger screen (including previous ones like ourselves). We'll happily take a bigger screen for the same pocketability factor. Samsung did that by trimming down the bezel, especially the lower chin.

At 7.9mm thick its noticeably slimmer than the Galaxy S3, but not quite as thin as the iPhone 5.

Samsung is still sticking to a mostly plasticky (sorry, polycarbonate) shell to keep weight down, but it feels less glossy/toyish thant its predecessor the Galaxy S3, being made textured.

 Jumping from a 4.8-inch display to an almost Note-like 5-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display, the S4 promises 441 ppi which should mean a massive jump in terms of clarity for what is already one of the most vibrant smartphone displays on the market. However, Samsung chose (again) to stop a notch short of perfection, going for a PenTile arrangement for the S4's screen. To be honest, at 1920x1080 pixels a PenTile matrix isn't a problem anymore (it was barely a problem on the S3), but its our job at T3 to be nitpicky.

The newAdapt sound and Adapt display tech will also change the screen and sound settings to suit whether you are watching a video or reading an article on the web.

Until we make our final judgement after we spend some quality time with the S4, looks like the HTC One's Full-HD 4.7 inch screen is the one to beat in 2013.

Adopting some of the features introduced with the Samsung Galaxy camera including the interface, there is now a dual shot mode which essentially takes two separate photos which can then be merged.

Other notable new camera features include Eraser Shot which can delete those people who try to ruin pictures by moving in the background, Drama Shot that lets you turn Burst photos into one picture and Sound Shot to record nine seconds of audio and combine with a photo.

On the filming front theres dual recording to shoot two video simultaneously a new Cinema Photo mode which lets you select which video shots to stay dynamic and still which you can then turn into your very own ready-made GIF.

Operating System

Out of the box the S4 will be running on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean which is the latest version of the mobile OS which arrived on some handsets last month and brings some minor updates but users will be most interested in the key features announced in Android 4.2 which include Photo Sphere and Daydream.

Processor

There will be two variants of the Galaxy S4, depending on the country of purchase. It could either ship with a 1.9 Ghz quad-core QualcommSnapdragon600 processor, or a 1.6GHz EXYNOS 5 Octo-Core processor officially announced by Samsung last month. Luckily, residents of the Middle East will be getting the latter. The 4 ARM-A15 cores in the Octo chip will provide killer performance when needed, while the 4 remaining power-saving A7 cores kick in when not much processing power is required, resulting in improved battery life.

The Galaxy S4 will be the first Android phone (well, maybe even the first any phone) to beat Apple's iPhone 5 in terms of graphics performance, with its 3-core PowerVR 543MP3 GPU chipset running at 533 Mhz.

The S4's pixel count and sundry features running in the background both demand processing grunt as well as memory, and luckily the handset has both, with 2GB of RAM to help take care of multitasking and background processing.

Battery and storage

The good news for is that the capacity has jumped from 2,100 to 2,600mAh, but is some way behind the Galaxy Note 2 (3,1000mAh). On the storage front, like the S3 there will be 16, 32 and 64GB versions available with microSD support for up to 64GB. Removable battery and a microSD slot? Samsung, we salute you.

New Smart features

Samsung has revealed a trio of intriguing new features that we are sure are going to get a mixed response as to how useful they will actually be.

First up is SmartPause which essentially halts any video you are watching when you look away from the screen, and Smart Scroll which lets you browse through content by tilting the device. Samsung had apparently planned a scroll-by-eyes kind of feature, however this got scrapped before the launch for some reason.

Share

Sharing is big theme for the S4 integrating S Translator to email Chat-On and messaging making it easier to communicate with your international buddies by converting speech to text. On top of that you can now do dual and 3-way video calls, share content on your screen Note-style and annotation that youve made to documents.

In the multimedia realms, you can pair up to eight Samsung Galaxy S4 devices via NFC and a feature called Group Play to play the same song / multimedia file simultaneously and for gamers you can also indulge in some multiplayer action with games like Asphalt 7 and Gun Bros 2 over Samsungs own Wi-Fi technology.

Enhanced Air features

Building on some of the Air features introduced on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, you can now access Air View using your finger by hovering it roughly 2cm off the screen to preview videos or details inside applications like email and calendars without launching them. There is also Air Gesture to scroll up and down while browsing or wave your hand to navigate through your phone or accept a call. Now you can catch up on your favorite series during lunch break without fear of smudging your precious phone screen with unsightly sauce stains. hurray.

S Health

Having announced its S Health application for the S3 which aims to help you maintain a healthier lifestyle.This will also be part of S4 proceedings, helped by all the different sensors built inside the S4, such as the temperature, humidity and infra-red sensors. In addition, the built in pedometer can track your steps, while a 'food tracker' keeps an eye on how much calories you are consuming. Additional accessories including an S Band bracelet, body scale and heart rate monitor will be compatible with the S4 and will can then be synced by Bluetooth to give you a much greater overview of your progress. Samsung is cleverly anticipating the rush towards wearble smart tech, and S Health could be one of the non-gimmicky S4 features that we might end up sticking to. Stay tuned for the full review.

Samsung Optical Reader

One for serious networking folk and travellers, this new feature uses the camera tech to translate text on menus and books or read QR codes and can actually view a business card and know exactly what information it needs to pick out and keep (offline use is possible, however Arabic is not one of the supported languages during launch, unfortunately).

Samsung Galaxy S4 pricing and Middle East release date

The next Galaxy smartphone will be available from April 24th. Samsung had nothing to say about pricing except that it going to be 'premium'. Make what you will out of that.