Samsung's announcement of the Galaxy S4 at a media event in New York on Thursday night layed it all out: The specs, the release date, everything. Now that we've had a night to sleep on it, let's take a look back at what happened.
Not every piece of speculation about the Galaxy S4 panned out, but the rumor mill proved to be accurate, generally speaking. The Galaxy S4 display is a 5-inch screen with 1080p "Super AMOLED" display showing 441 pixels-per-inch, protected by Gorilla Glass 3. Depnding on the region, the phone will run on a Exynos 5 or Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor: The rest of the important specs are universal: The phone will sport 2GB of RAM, 2,600 mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, Cat 3 100/50 Mbps LTE and an IR blaster.
The S4 has a 13-Megapixel rear camera and a 2-Megapixel front-facing camera. The phone has a slew of new photo-related features to take advantage of its higher fidelity. The camera can take 100 photos in four seconds, allowing users to pick the ideal snapshot. The S4 also has a "Sound and Shot" feature that records five seconds of audio before the taking the photo. In case you want to take picture and get a reaction shot at the same time, the phone has a "Dual Camera" feature that takes photos with both cameras at the same time.
The phone will have the rumored eye-tracking features. "Smart Scroll" allows users to move up and down web pages and emails by looking at the top or bottom of the screen. "Smart Pause" automatically pauses active video when users look away from the screen.
The phone also includes a handful new miscelaneous features. The phone can control your TV with the IR blaster. An optical reader scans documents or business cards and allow users to translate text or make contacts based on the appropriate information. "Group Play" allows users to share information or connect multiple phones to play games, or turn a pair phones into stereo speakers.
The weirdest, most interesting new feature on the S4 has to be touchless gestures. With "Air View" and "Air Gesture," users can expand notifications by hovering their finger over the message, and perform basic actions-answer calls, control music, scroll down web pages-without touching the screen.
The S4 will also take a stab a slightly awkward stab at enchancing the phone's gaming experience. In addition to the phone itself, Samsung showed off a variety of accessories for the phone, inclduing a bluetooth stand/controller that looks like a cross between the NVidia shield and a knock-off Xbox controller. Between the Ouya, Game Stick, and NVidia Shield, controller-based Android gaming is clearly taking off, and it seems Samsung doesn't want to get left behind.
The Galaxy S4 will launch worldwide at the end of April while the controller will come out this summer. The phone will available on 327 carriers across 22 countries on day one, and will be available in two colors: Black and white.
