How Samsung is creating its own flame before the launch of the Galaxy S4

By Asif Iqbal Shaik

Samsung is above and beyond the biggest vendor of Android mobiles. In a recent survey by Millenial Media, it was found that Samsung controls 46% of the Android market share. With the Galaxy SIII boasting global sales of over 30 million and the Note 2 also doing well, Samsung is riding a high that most manufacturers can only dream of. With the Galaxy S4 unveiling set to occur on March 14^th, the industry is abuzz with what Samsung will have in store for this handset and already there have been a series of leaks regarding the hardware and features that the device will offer. With launches from other manufacturers already out, the Galaxy S4 is going to be the last of the major Android handsets to be unveiled this quarter. Let’s take a look at what we know about the device so far:

The Hardware

The S4 is expected to have a full HD 4.99 inch screen with a pixel density of 441 ppi and a resolution of 1920 X 1080. In terms of internal hardware, the S4 has an Exynos 5 Octa 5410 CPU clocking at 1.8GHz, and it features four Cortex-A15 cores combined with four Cortex-A7 cores. The device is also set to have 2 GB of RAM. The camera on the S4 is estimated to be 13MP, which is significantly higher than what we’ve been accustomed to, as the Galaxy SIII and Note 2 had 8 MP shooters. Based on the connectivity features that were leaked in an AnTuTu benchmark, it looks like the Galaxy S4 will be a global variant.

A very trusted source with a Twitter handle of @evleaks has accurately leaked various highly-hyped smartphones such as the Nokia Lumia series, HTC One, Xperia Z and others in the recent past. This time around, they have tweeted an image which is supposedly the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S4. It appears from the leaked image that it will still be using the same plastic material and Samsung has no plans to move to better materials, at least this time. In a recent interview with CNET, Samsung’s executive vice president of mobile Y.H. Lee confirmed that the S4 will be built using plastic. Lee mentioned that Samsung does not focus on aesthetic beauty alone, but finds a balance between styling and a fast manufacturing process. While other manufacturers have switched to more exotic materials for use in their high-end devices like HTC with its use of aluminium and Nokia with its polycarbonate design, Samsung looks to continue with heavy use of plastic for now. From the leaked images, it looks like Samsung is continuing the trend of just launching new iterations that are bigger and have better features than earlier models, than focusing on actually creating an innovative handset that is enticing, like most other manufacturers are doing.

The ‘Smart’ Features

The S4 is set to feature Samsung’s new set of Smart features, and these make use of eye-tracking technologies to gauge where users are looking at on a screen. Smart Scroll is a feature which will track eye movements to see when to auto-scroll a document. It is expected to make use of a front-facing camera, which in conjunction with other sensors notes the movement of the head and the eye to estimate where a user’s focus is. These sensors will combine with the accelerometer and use underlying software to give an indication as to when the user reaches the end of the screen, so that the document can be auto-scrolled. A less revolutionary feature is the inclusion of Android Jelly Bean 4.2 and Samsung’s new TouchWiz skin for the UI, called Nature UX 2.

The Marketing

Samsung usually launches a very aggressing marketing blitz when they are about to launch a new high-end device. This was the case with the Galaxy S4. In a teaser video on YouTube, the launch of the S4 is likened to the invention of Colour TV. While this is grossly over-done, there are other details that Samsung glosses over when it comes to illuminating the true nature of some of its hardware. A widely touted feature of the S4 is the Exynos Octa core 5410 processor. While it is said to have 8 cores in total, with four Cortex-A15 cores and four Cortex-A7 cores, the fact that only four cores can run in conjunction at a time is something that is not mentioned widely. So people will tend to think that Samsung Galaxy S4’s ’Octa Core’ processor will be twice as fast as the genuince quad core processor used in all of its competitors such as HTC One, Xperia Z and Asus Padfone Infinity. Also, while the hardware in the S4 seems to be significantly enhanced than what was offered in SIII, only time will tell whether the new TouchWiz interface is better and allows for more interactivity.

Conclusion

Already with their previous models coming under heavy criticism for their styling, or lack of thereof, Samsung needs to innovate and fast, when it comes to the design element of their high-end mobiles. The Samsung Galaxy S4′s price in India is set to be around INR 40,000. With other manufacturers focusing on launching high-end devices that are not only chic but also highly functional, the onus is on the Korean manufacturer to create something new. Let’s wait and see if it does that with the Galaxy S4.