Samsung Galaxy S4 official with 5-inch full-HD display, 8-core CPU
After months of speculation, the Samsung Galaxy S4 has finally been unveiled at an event in New York. With a larger screen, faster processor and range of new features, it’s the company’s new flagship smartphone.
SCREEN
The 4.99in Super AMOLED display is gorgeous. It has a Full HD, 1,920×1,080 resolution with a high pixel density of 441ppi. While that’s certainly impressive, theHTC One has the same resolution but a smaller screen, so a higher pixel density of 468ppi and the Sony Xperia Z has the same size screen and resolution, so has a matching 441ppi. What’s important is that on all three phones everything looks pin-sharp and there’s no danger of spotting individual pixels.
PROCESSOR
The phones at the event were kitted out with Exynos octo-core processors running at 1.6GHz. It’s not strictly an eight-core phone, though, as it uses ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. The eight cores are divided in two, with four high-power, complex cores to do the heavy lifting and four smaller, power-efficient cores for more mundane tasks. The S4’s architecture is designed so that the phone can switch seamlessly between the different types of core.
BATTERY
The battery on the S4 is an impressive 2,600mAh. That’s around 500mAh bigger than the S3’s battery and bigger than the vast majority of batteries used in smartphones today. With such a big battery it shouldn’t have any problems providing all-day power.
CAMERA
At the front is a 2-megapixel BSI camera. While it can be used for video calling, it can also be used with Samsung’s Dual Camera mode, which lets you superimpose a shot from the front camera on the footage from the rear camera. In practice, this means that you can have your floating head, bordered by a postage-stamp frame imposed on the picture taken by the main camera. It feels a little gimmicky.
STORAGE
The Samsung Galaxy S4 will be available in versions with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB of storage, although it’s expandable by up to 64GB via the microSD card slot. Prices for the models haven’t been announced yet, but it may well work out much better value to buy the 16B or 32GB models, then upgrade storage as and when you need it.
ACCESSORIES
As well as what comes with the phone, Samsung is also pushing the phone’s lifestyle aspect with a selection of Galaxy S4 accessories. These range from health accessories that can monitor how active you are and your weight and heart rate, to a gamepad that you clip the phone into. There’s also a wireless charging dock, so you can charge your phone simply by laying it on the charging pad.
RELEASE DATE
Samsung has promised to have the phone out by the end of April. Exact launch dates will depend on the country, but we expect the UK to be one of the first on the list. We’ll bring you updated information as and when it becomes available.
