Samsung Galaxy S IV: Everything we know so far

Samsung is set to release its fourth Galaxy S device tomorrow in Times Square, New York. The madness and hype for this phone has definitely made it one of the most eagerly awaited devices this year. Of course there have been numerous leaks about this smartphone — so much so that the launch will probably just confirm a lot of what we already know.

A day ahead of the launch we take a look at everything that we know about the Galaxy S IV so far:

Specifications: Eight-core or quad-core processor? This seems to have caught everyone’s attention. Samsung showed off the Exynos Octa CPU at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, which has sparked off rumours that the new phone will also have one of these. According to an Antutu bench-mark test of the S IV which was leaked, it was confirmed that the S IV has an Exynos Octa 5410 CPU clocked at 1.8GHz and a PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU chip for graphics.

Now there have been also been leaks with a quad-core version and dual-SIM version of the device. This could be the US version of the smartphone or it could be that Samsung will launch two variants of the smartphone.

In terms of processing speed Samsung’s device looks like it is going to knock the competition out of the park. Other specifications include a 5-inch screen with a Full HD (1920×1080) screen , 2 GB RAM and a 13 megapixel camera. The phone will run Android 4.2 with a new TouchWiz user interface from Samsung.

Sammobile has also reported that the screen will use a new kind of Display. The new AMOLED material called “green PHOLED” uses color GREEN-YELLOW makes these AMOLED display’s 25% more efficient.  This sounds good news for battery life.

‘Smart Features’: Samsung knows that for users, new and interesting features matter more than mere specs. Some of  the features that have been leaked include Smart Scroll, Smart Pause, and Smart Rotation to name a few.

The Smart Scroll feature, which was first reported by the New York Times, allows the phone to track the user’s eyes via the front camera. Once you reach the end of a page, the phone will automatically scroll down to the remaining paragraphs.

The Smart pause feature which was reported by an Israeli blog, will allow the phone to pause a video if the phone detects that the user is no longer looking at the screen. Smart rotation feature ensures that the screen rotates only if the phone is held at an angle.

Clearly we’re going to hear the word, ‘Smart’  a lot in the Galaxy S IV launch. But will these features be enough to woo users?

Floating touch screen: According to Sammobile, the S IV will have floating touch technology similar to Samsung’s Air View. The Air View option allows users to simply hover the SPen over their devices to get a sneak peek view of say pictures inside an album.

Floating Touch technology was in fact first used by Sony in the Xperia Sola. The technology allows users to interact with phone by just hovering their fingers over the screen.

There were also reports that the Galaxy S IV could have an SPen but these were dismissed later. The e Korean DDaily, said there will be no S-Pen although the home button with other touch keys will still be on the phone. The report quotes industry sources, and adds that while the smartphone will have a “Non-contact Gesture” feature. This is likely to be to the floating touch technology.

As far as specs go Samsung’s new phone will definitely be the top end of the market.  But will its features live up to the hype that has been created around the smartphone? We’ll have to wait and watch that one. Samsung will launch the smartphone at 7.00 pm Eastern Standard Time in New York which is around 3.45 am, 15 March in India.

For now you can watch another of Samsung’s super cheesy promotions videos for the Galaxy  S IV. Is it right to call it a flash mob? You decide:

source: firstpost.com