Galaxy S4: Samsung's ULTIMATE device till date?

Ashish Narsale on why the Samsung Galaxy S4 might have pre-empted competition from the likes of Apple, Sony and HTC.

Earth Date: March 14, 2013

With the launch of Galaxy S4, Samsung has once again raised a war cry against competition. It has delivered yet another warrior to give nightmares to rivals.

Continuing its human touch it so aesthetically showcased with the Galaxy S III, the latest kid on the block teaches a few more tricks to assist humans.

Inside the plastic and the thin bezel, the warrior gets its juice from Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset with two quad core processors clocked at 1.6 ghz Cortex A15 and 1.2 ghz Cortex A7 and PowerVR SGX 544MP3, a dedicated GPU.

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The Octa Core chipset is the driving force behind Galaxy S4 and this makes it stand out from its rivals. This mind blowing chipset is based on big.LITTLE architecture (http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/biglittleprocessing.php) by ARM holding.

It has one 1.8ghz quad-core Cortex A-15 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortex-A15) cluster and one 1.2ghz quad-core Cortex-A7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortex-A7) cluster, which makes the Galaxy S4 the first ever and the only one Octa Core phone available right now.

In this architecture the 1.8ghz quad-core Cortex A-15 processes and handles more resource-hungry processes and 1.2ghz quad-core Cortex A-7 processes and handles less resource-hungry processes, in order to conserve battery consumption and smoother running of applications in foreground and background.

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The Galaxy S4 is 0.7mm thinner then its predecessor and shows off full HD display at 1080 x 1920 pixels, 4.99-inch screen with pixel density of 441 ppi (pixels per inch), though pixel density is 28 ppi less than its rival HTC One due to S4's larger screen real estate.

The Galaxy S4's 2GB RAM gives memory hungry apps a breather and is available in varying internal storage capacities of 16/32/64 GB.

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It has 13 MP, 4128x3096 pixels, 1080p@30fps, auto focus camera with LED flash in the rear and 2 MP 1080p@30fps camera in front.

The new camera includes a feature called Dual Shot where it simultaneously uses both front and back cameras to share your picture and what you see; simultaneous HD video and image recording, geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilisation.

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Few more features make the Galaxy S4 a fierce competitor.

Sound and Shot: You can add your voice to every picture you click with the S4.

Drama Shot: This feature helps you create your own collage of moving objects in a single frame.

Group Play: Share what you listen, play games, share documents and pictures with other Galaxy S4 devices.

Story Album: Customise or organise your pictures in various layouts.

Samsung Hub: Like Google Play you can shop for apps, games, Music at one place.

S Translator: Helps you translate speech and text and in response it reads or writes the translation. Of great use when travelling abroad.

Chat On: Adds a new feature that helps you do video chatting by using dual cameras.

Smart Pause / Smart Scroll: It pauses the video when you look somewhere else. Just tilt the phone in direction to scroll.

S Voice Drive: Drive integrated with S Voice to communicate with the phone using your voice for direction, making and answering calls or organise messages.

Air View / Air Gesture: Added floating touch gestures we have seen in Xperia Sola. It enables you to communicate with the phone without touching the screen by just waving your hand or hovering finger over the screen.

Watch On: Remotely communicate or interact with you TV using built in infrared port.

S Health: It tracks your workouts, food intake and weight levels daily with the help of other accessories.

Samsung KNOX: It is a comprehensive enterprise mobile solution for work and play. With increasing use of smartphones in businesses, it addresses mobile security needs of enterprise IT without invading privacy of employees.

In a layman's view it might seem that its just overhauling to Galaxy S III but technically Samsung has really worked hard to build this ultimate device till date.

Will the warrior prove its might? Only time will tell but with all the features it sports this warrior stands out and can easily take on future smartphones from Apple, Sony and HTC.

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