Samsung's Galaxy S4 has been unveiled at last, and we have to admit: It looks pretty darn good.
Then again, considering the outrageous groundswell of hype upon which Thursday's unveiling took place, does the Galaxy S4 live up to our impossible expectations of it?
Before saving up for the soon to be released phone, perhaps we should ask: Is the Galaxy S4 really the next big thing?
Three-thousand onlookers crowded together in Times Square on Thursday to learn about the Galaxy S4's specs which, up until now, have been only the stuff of rumor:
- 5-in. screen size. A bit larger than the S3's 4.8-in. display, we're still wondering A) If this means we need to start referring to this luggish thing as a phablet and B) If Samsung's next Galaxy phone will just be a big-screen TV.
- 1920 x 1080 (approx. 441 pixels per inch) resolution. As Shiny Shiny points out, this resolution is greater than Apple's Retina display technology. But, we do have to ask that as "the next big thing," couldn't Samsung have stepped up the S4's Full HD a notch and figure out a way to bring Ultra HD's 3840 x 2160 pixels (16 times 1080p HD) to the S4? Sneaky Samsung rival LG has already made it possible to turn its phones into a "4K media hub." This means 4K is definitely on the way for smartphones soon, so why would we settle for the current big thing of 1920 x 1080 as being the benchmark of "the next big thing"?
- Black and white colors. Now that we know the Galaxy S4 will only come out in two boring colors, we're just as baffled (and a little outraged, to be honest) as we were a few days ago when we worried this might be the case. Yes, the S3 originally only came out in white before Samsung released the thing in more colors later on. But with all those bright colors the Lumia phones come in, why wait until Samsung gets its act together with the S4? By then, we'll already be watching an LG 4K phone, won't we?
- 4G. No complaints here. We're not that crazy.
- Wireless charging. The S4 is the first Samsung phone to offer this feature. That took long enough to implement.
- Infra red control for your TV. Pass.
- S-Translator. So you can more easily translate languages on your S4 now with this feature. We liked that idea better when Google did it a while ago with its Input App.
- The mess of other built-in features. With stuff like Air Gesture, Group Play, S-Health and, the S4 definitely packs a software punch. But, again, sorry: next big thing implies features we've never seen (or, dare we submit, thought of) before.
- 2600mAh battery. Cool: Maybe now our batteries won't drain as quickly as those in our S3s. Then again, with 4G and brighter screens, perhaps we'll start seeing a whole new battery problem with the S4, too.
- Exynos 5 1.6GHz Octa-Core processor (except for those of us in the U.S. who are stuck with the 1.9GHz Snapdragon quad-core processor). Both processors are definitely amazingly fast. Hopefully they won't keep overheating the S4s as had been an occasional issue with the S3.
Other than all these complaints, the Samsung S4 sounds great. Except for the fact that it's plastic.
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