Samsung Galaxy S4 hands-on: First look

Introduction

The successor of the most popular smartphone from the most widely adopted platform - it doesn't get much bigger than this in the mobile industry. After months of rumor frenzy and high-pitched hype, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S4 at their Unpacked event in New York.

At first glance the Samsung Galaxy S4 looks very similar to its predecessor, the S III, but tinges of disappointment, if any, should be soon put to rest. It's a completely new phone on the inside and one that seems to have all it takes to keep Samsung ahead of the Android pack.

Squeezing a larger screen of higher resolution in a more compact and lighter body, the Samsung Galaxy S4 is also the first smartphone to feature an octa-core CPU. The Exynos 5410 chipset has a set of four Cortex-A15 cores to do the heavy lifting and another quartet of power-saving Cortex-A7 cores, which handles the less physical tasks. There will be a version of the Galaxy S4, powered by a Snapdragon 600 chipset too, but we are unsure which markets will get it.

Here are the rest of the Galaxy S4 highlights to get you started.

Samsung Galaxy S4 at a glance:

• General: Optional 2G/3G/LTE connectivity
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9mm, 130 g
• Display: 4.99" 16M-color Super AMOLED HD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (441ppi)
• Chipset: Exynos 5410 Octa / Snapdragon 600
• CPU: 1.6 GHz Quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 and 1.2 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 / 1.9GHz Krait 300
• GPU: PowerVR SGX 544MP3 / Adreno 320
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Memory: 16/32GB/64GB storage, microSD card slot
• Still camera: 13 megapixel auto-focus camera, face detection, touch focus and image stabilization, Dual Shot, Cinema Photo; 2MP front facing camera, video-calls
• Video camera: Full HD (1080p) video recording at 30fps
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0, standard microUSB port with MHL features (TV Out, USB host), GPS receiver with A-GPS and GLONASS, 3.5mm audio jack, NFC, Infrared port
• Battery: 2600 mAh
• Misc: TouchWiz UI, Impressively rich video/audio codec support, built-in accelerometer, Smart stay and Smart rotation eye-tracking, Smart pause, Smart scroll, S Health, Air Gestures

More power, a better screen, a host of new exclusive software features and a larger battery to keep it going longer - the Samsung Galaxy S4 has all the right boxes ticked to be considered a worthy successor to what many considered the uber smartphone. It also has a key advantage over its direct rivals in running on the latest Android 4.2 platform.

   
Samsung Galaxy S4 live photos

The second Jelly Bean release isn't an incredibly massive upgrade, but offers some cool new features that take the user experience up a notch. Of course, Samsung will be more than keen to direct your attention to its home-baked goodies like Eye-scroll and Auto pause, which surprisingly or not, work pretty well.

Let's cut the teasing here - join us on the next page for the rest of our first-hand impressions of the Samsung Galaxy S4, garnished with a bunch of live photos.

Samsung Galaxy S 4 hands-on

Holding the Samsung Galaxy S4 in hand for the first time, there's very little difference to the Galaxy S III. Sure, the slimmer waistline adds to the techy feel, but overall the new flagship is nearly identical to the old one.
It even uses the same Hyperglaze coating, which while not as bad as many make it look, is hardly the most premium finish to have. There's a change to the texture though, the faux metal brush replaced by a dotted pattern. We still cannot quite make up our mind as to whether this is a positive change or not. The color options available at launch are also different. The Galaxy S4 will be available in White Frost or Black Mist, so no more Pebble Blue - at least for now.
  
The Samsung Galaxy S 4 will be available in White Frost and Black Mist at launch
The somewhat underwhelming first impression however all but changed when we switched on that gorgeous 5" FullHD AMOLED display. The thing is absolutely stunning - every AMOLED fan will love it and even those who aren't too fond of the oversaturated colors will have to admit that it's a brilliant piece of engineering. And don't worry - as usual, Samsung has included a setting to tune the saturation down for a more natural look.
  
The display is simply stunning
And the Samsung Galaxy S4 screen's strengths do not end with the unrivaled contrast and super punchy colors. It also offers viewing angles so wide that combined with the 441ppi pixel density, they make the screen look as if printed on paper. The impressively low-reflectivity also contributes to that effect and bodes well for the display's outdoor performance.
   
The Samsung Galaxy S 4 sized up against the Samsung Galaxy Note II
We managed to shoot a quick video of the Samsung Galaxy S 4, demonstrating its hardware and the updated TouchWiz UI.

Needless to say, the smartphone feels extremely snappy, even though the units we had at our disposal were all pre-release samples and their software wasn't finalized. The presence of Android 4.2 is felt with the lockscreen shortcuts, while Samsung's custom launcher has also been significantly improved.

Camera

Samsung has equipped the Galaxy S4 with a new 13 megapixel camera, along with several new camera features and a refreshed camera UI to go with it. The simultaneous video recording and still capture is now coupled with an HTC Zoe-like feature, where the phone records 9 second clips with sound and uses them for previews.

  
The 13MP camera comes with an updated UI and several cool new features

There's also Drama shot, which takes a burst of 9 photos and combines them in a single image and Cinema photo, which is identical to the Cinemagraph functionality in the Nokia Lumia lineup. It lets you create animated gifs where only a part of the image is moving, while the background is static.

The next cool camera feature worth noting is dual-video recording. Just like the LG Optimus G Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S4 lets you capture video with both its back and front cams simultaneously, and combines them into a single clip.

The final noteworthy feature of the Galaxy S4 camera aims to get rid of photo bombs, by letting you remove objects from the frame before saving it to the gallery. All that functionality is accessed through an interface inspired by the Galaxy Camera, where the modes are located on a jog dial.

Our only regret is the lack of a dedicated camera key on a yet another Samsung flagship. Sure the on-screen controls are responsive enough and the touch to focus partially makes up for the lack of a halfpress-enabled shutter key, but it's not quite the same.

   
Once again we get no dedicated camera key

We managed to capture a few photos with the Samsung Galaxy S 4 camera. The lighting at the event wasn't the best and the units there were running a pre-release version of the software, but considering the tricky conditions the output came out pretty decent. It's still way too early to be passing any verdicts though.

   
Samsung Galaxy S 4 camera samples

Air gestures and Smart controls

Samsung set out on a quest last year with the Galaxy S III to change the way you use your smartphone, and the Galaxy S4 continues the push. While Smart Stay is a pretty cool feature to have and Smart rotate had its occasional uses, what the new Samsung flagship puts to the table is far more spectacular.

First you get a couple of new "Smart" controls, dubbed Smart pause and Smart scroll. The first one of those automatically pauses the video you are watching when you move your eyes away from the screen, to resume when you look back. Smart scroll on the other hand, detects eye-movement and scrolls a web page as your gaze moves down towards the bottom of the screen.

 
The front facing camera makes all the cool smart controls possible

The Smart pause seemed to work pretty well, but we found that smart scroll is more likely to respond to you tilting the phone, rather than actually detecting eye movement. Since both of these features use the front-facing camera, Samsung says that they might not be available in darker environments where the camera is unable to locate and track your eyes. However, unless you place the smartphone too far away from your eyes, the illumination of the screen usually suffices to make them work.

The other novelty on the Samsung Galaxy S4 is called Air gestures. Those use the Galaxy S4 new IR gestures sensor and work in the web browser, music player and even in the dialer. The Air gestures allow you to command your phone by simply waiving in front of it. This way you can scroll longer web pages (vertical waves) or change active tabs (horizontal waves). It might sound a bit awkward at first but it's actually responsive and quick enough to be fun to use.

The Galaxy S4 has also borrowed a page from the Galaxy Note II book and features hover touch. Since there's no stylus here, it's made to work with fingers, giving you a small blue dot on the screen whenever you hold your finger a centimeter or two away from it. This makes it easier to avoid wrong presses when handling small items in the web browser and also enables some nice features like previewing the content of a folder in the gallery without opening it.

The hover touch also works on speed dial and Samsung's exclusive edition of Flipboard. While it does use the Note II SDK, Samsung says that it relies on special tech exclusive to the Galaxy S4 display.

We managed to spend some more quality time with the Samsung Galaxy S4, so we took a closer look at the user interface, including some of the gesture controls and the camera UI. Check it out below.

First impressions

The Samsung Galaxy S4 may look pretty similar to its predecessor on the outside, but the truth is it's a substantial upgrade. You get a larger screen of more than twice the resolution, a chipset that offers twice the processing power, a larger battery and better camera in a shell that's actually more compact than the Galaxy S III.

And that's not even all - Samsung also invested quite a lot of effort in the software and made sure the Galaxy S4 ships with the latest available Android release garnished with a boatload of exclusive software features. Sure some of them are mere gimmicks, but many are genuinely cool and/or useful and we can bet the better part of them will catch up.

Samsung I9500 Galaxy S 4

Of course, despite all the war gear it carries, the Samsung Galaxy S4 isn't invulnerable. The fact that the smartphone didn't address the main criticism about its predecessor, the design, means that competitors like the HTC One and Xperia Z have their chance. It's not going to be easy, mind you, and the Galaxy S4 enters the fray as the odds-on favorite.