It is April 2013, and Samsung has just unveiled the ‘Life Companion.’ The Galaxy S4 has arrived in the UK to a level of fanfare that feels more like a stadium concert than a product launch. After the astronomical success of the S III, Samsung hasn’t tried to reinvent the wheel; instead, they’ve taken the wheel, polished it, made it thinner, and packed it with more sensors than a weather station. It is a 130g masterclass in polycarbonate engineering, lighter, slimmer, and narrower than its predecessor, yet somehow housing a significantly larger screen. In the ‘Mist Black’ or ‘White Frost’ finish, it looks more refined, with a subtle textured pattern and a faux-metal band that gives it a much-needed ‘premium’ edge over the S III.
The technical headline is the 5.0-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display (1920 x 1080). At 441 PPI, it is one of the sharpest, most vibrant panels ever put in a pocket. Samsung has introduced a new ‘Diamond’ PenTile matrix that essentially eliminates the ‘fuzziness’ of older AMOLED screens, resulting in text that looks as sharp as a laser print. The colours are punchy, some might say over-saturated, but for watching HD movies or browsing photos, the infinite contrast and absolute blacks are peerless. Under the hood, the UK model features a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor and 2GB of RAM. While some regions get an ‘Octa-core’ version, the UK’s quad-core chip is a 4G-enabled beast that handles Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with effortless speed.
But the real technical story of the S4 is ‘Sensor Overload.’ Samsung has included a thermometer and a hygrometer, allowing the new ‘S Health’ app to tell you not just how many steps you’ve taken, but exactly how uncomfortable your office environment is. Then there are the ‘Smart’ features: ‘Smart Pause’ uses the front camera to track your eyes and pauses your video if you look away; ‘Smart Scroll’ lets you scroll through web pages by tilting your head or the phone. ‘Air View’ allows you to hover your finger over the screen (without touching it) to preview emails or calendar entries, thanks to a self-capacitive touch layer. It is a staggering amount of innovation, even if you’ll likely turn half of it off after the first week to save your dignity and your battery.
On the imaging front, the S4 jumps to a 13-megapixel sensor that is arguably the best in the Android world. It captures incredible detail and features a ‘Dual Shot’ mode that lets you use the front and back cameras simultaneously, inserting a postage-stamp-sized image of yourself into the photo of your family. Connectivity is total: 4G LTE, Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, and an IR blaster for your TV. Crucially, Samsung has kept the removable 2600 mAh battery and the microSD slot, technical freedoms that the competition is increasingly abandoning. The Galaxy S4 is the definitive ‘everything’ phone; it is a powerful, intelligent, and slightly eccentric companion that proved Samsung could push the boundaries of what a phone can actually sense.