Samsung's new flagship, the Galaxy S4 that was unveiled recently seems all set to be launched in India on April 25, in-step with the rest of the world. IBNLive claims their sources told them the smartphone will start retailing from April 27. The Samsung Galaxy S4 (model GT-I9500) would have an MRP of Rs 42,000 but sell lower, at under Rs 40K. The device is currently up for pre-booking on ecommerce sites such as eBay.in and Naaptol.
Samsung's media representatives weren't able to offer any comments, when we contacted them.
Still retaining different processors for the US and rest of the world, the Samsung Galaxy S4 had a launch party at New York on March 14th, on a pretty large scale. We got confirmation with most details living up to expectations and ending months of speculation. The looks of the Galaxy S4 (model GT-I9500) don't depart dramatically from the S3/Note2, and the design still offers a hardware "Home" button. Is this a brazen dare, for Apple to expand its lawsuit?
As expected, the new smartphone does offer eight cores with the Samsung Exynos 5410 "Octa" chipset - four Cortex-A15 cores at 1.6 GHz and four Cortex-A7 cores at 1.2 GHz. India will get this 8-core version and that's what we shall list in the specs below, whereas the US will only see a quad-core variant (Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 with 4 Krait 300 cores and Adreno 320 GPU - same as the LG Optimus G Pro and HTC One).
The higher screen resolution seems to have led Samsung to include a 2600 mAh battery, almost 25% more battery juice than the Galaxy S3. Samsung has taken pains to explain that the S4 is barely lighter than the S3 with a polycarbonate body, but first-looks still seem to convey a "plasticky" build, despite Samsung's claims of "slimmer, lighter and more solid" build quality.
Let's get on to what you're waiting for, the technical specifications:
- 8-core processor (Exynos 5 "Octa" 5410 chipset)
- PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU
- 2 GB DDR3 RAM
- 16 GB internal storage (microSD card slot available)
- 13 MP rear camera, 2 MP front camera
- 1920x1080 full-HD display resolution
- 4.99-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen (~441 ppi density)
- 4G LTE (up to 100 Mbit, FD and TD-LTE supported)
- WiFi dual-band (supports the faster 802.11ac standard, only the second after HTC One to do so)
- 2600 mAh battery
- Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
- Temperature and Humidity sensor, in addition to existing sensors
- Bluetooth 4.0, IR gestures
- Weighs 130 grams
- Available in Black and White colours, from the end of April.
Samsung hasn't taken away the old features/specs you are familiar with. At their event, Samsung made sure they illustrated how some newer features would be useful in daily life. The list of new (non-hardware) additions includes:
- Air View and Air Gesture
- Smart Scroll and Smart Pause
- Smart Switch, to migrate data from your old phone
- Group Play
- Glove friendly screen
- S Translator, supporting many European and Asian languages (no Indian language support)
- S Voice, improved for driving instructions and communicates a bit more
- S Health, Samsung Knox, Samsung HomeSync, Samsung Hub.
The "Dual Shot" camera mode in this device is quite unique, allowing for recording from both, the rear and front cameras simultaneously - useful for videos, photos and calls (Dual Video Call).
Gee, TouchWiz! So many more toggles on a different page from the Notification bar. (Credit: BGR)
In another dare to Apple (in case they possess a valid patent on the iPad "Smart Cover"), the Samsung Galaxy S4 supports similar functionality with its "S View Cover" accessory to cover the phone's screen, available in multiple colors.
In another dare to Apple (in case they possess a valid patent on the iPad "Smart Cover"), the Samsung Galaxy S4 supports similar functionality with its "S View Cover" accessory to cover the phone's screen, available in multiple colors.
