Samsung Galaxy S4 unveiled : An incomplete revolution and a break from Google.

The minute Samsung announced that the Galaxy S4 launch event will take place in the New York Music Hall and will be broadcasted via a big screen on Times square on a big screen and on YouTube all over the globe, everyone got excited. We felt it's going to be special. Finally! A phone that will meet our high, very high expectations.

White waiting for the event to start, the Broadway orchestra played some beautiful pieces of music then the "Show" started.
Mr. G.K Shin the newest Samsung (and third) CEO introduced the product and spoke briefly about its technical specification while he focused a lot more on how much Samsung cares. How much they care about us, people. How much they are inspired by us to come up with these innovations, and widen their imagination, to perceive every possibility. Hence the slogan, Galaxy S4 life companion : life without boundaries.

After Mr. Shin's introduction, Ryan Bidan Director, Product Marketing at Samsung Telecommunications Ameria, "narrated" the technical specification of the Android phone along of an everyday inspired scenes performed by Broadway's best performers.
So for those who missed the event, keep reading along. You're in the right place.

I will divide the specifications into three categories: General specs, Looks and feel, S4 experience.

General Specifications :

I suppose that the picture above tell you almost everything, I just have to add that the integrated IR LED, is useful to control everything around you. In other words, it can be used as a multipurpose remote control, including video on demand services.

And yes, there is one more thing you might want to know, the S4 carries a 1.9GHZ quad-core snapdragon processor. 

 

Look and feel:

The 5 inches screen phone, comes in two colors : Black mist, and white. The smartphone looks more alive with amazing visual effect and an awesome home screen and with new slide transitions.

The phone is 7.9mm thick and 136.6mm tall with a full HD screen and 441 ppi display, and weights 130 grams.

It has the perfect look and feel, slimmer, lighter and stronger : More to see and less to hold.

The S4 Experience

We just got the juiciest part of the review. The application and features presented below are what, aside from the top notch hardware, will make Galaxy S4 #1 and beat the giants.

Anyway there's too many features so I'm just going to enumerate them which will make it easier for you to read and for me to write.

Dual Camera: While taking a picture you will be able to insert yourself anywhere on the screen in one of many beautiful templates. This setting could be turned on and off and available for photos and video recordings.

The Dual Camera can be also used during a video call, for example you can insert yourself somewhere on the screen and show the other parties what you're looking at.

And since we're talking about video calls, now you will be able to share your screen with others so they can see what you're doing.

Sound and shot A pretty cool feature that allows you to record a sound and tag it along with a picture, so your friends and family would hear your voice when they look at the picture you sent.

Drama Shot This will allow you to take 100 shots in 4 seconds and at the end you will be able to select a few shots to make a final picture.

Eraser Good news for you all, no photo bombs anymore!! This tool will allow you to erase anyone who appears by mistake in the background of your photos.

Story Album Automatic album creator based on place, date, theme of the taken photos and it allows you to add text to it. Also, you can get your album in hard copies delivered to 70 countries with blurb.

S Translator Instant translator, you can type and hear the translated voice or you can talk and it will be translated into text. This translator support 9 languages (English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese) .

And of course the translator has the ability to translate your SMS, newspapers, books and magazines.

 

Home sync device Will this is a different machine that acts as a home cloud and allow you to store 1 TB in your own home and it can support 8 different users, each with their own space.

The news is, that now with S4 you will be able to sync with that device so the photos you take will be shown through the Home sync device the second you take them. It will be like a hub for life and memories.

Samsung Smart Switch Transfer all your data from any smartphone with any OS to your new S4 through your PC.

Adapt Display Adjusting brightness, lightening, contrast based on the place and the time. A lot more comfortable to the eyes.

S Voice Drive Offers you the ability to control almost everything with your speech. The idea was conceived to encourage safe driving, the S4 pairs automatically with your car Bluetooth. So briefly , you won't be needing any navigation service since it will be integrated in your phone, no more steering the wheel with your knees while texting since you can reply, forward and call when you receive a  message whit a voice command.

Samsung Hub Search Music, Videos, Books.. with an amazing magazine interface.

Scroll/Pause Very efficient and fast feature that will automatically pause the video when looking away. And replay it when you look back.

Air Gesture Well this is a great idea and it gives you the power you always wanted whenever you was having a meal, a drink,.. or wet hands and wanted to use your phone. Now you can browse and scroll without touching the phone and answer your calls with a wave of your hand.

Knox A security system developed by the U.S. government that will lock your device down and protect it from malicious application. And also would separate your device into a personal and a work space.

Group Play Play music on up to 8 devices without any internet connection. You and your friends can make the perfect sound system.

This also support multiplayer games and photo sharing.

S Health Calculate calories consumption, heart rate, weight and sleep patterns. And put all of your data into an easy to read report.

Taking a break from Google?

I don't know if you noticed but the word "Android" appeared only one time in the whole review. Well, this is the same exact number of occurrence of this word in yesterday's event. Now, I don't want to go so far but it is very noticeable that Samsung is trying to distract attention away from Android and this is all because of Google's  decision to make their own Android Smartphone in partnership with Motorola.

So, maybe Samsung's focus on hardware and independent applications are the way they're telling Google let's take a break until we figure out our relationship.

An incomplete revolution

There's no doubt that the S4 is going to be the best smartphone out there and to easily lay off the some giants. And there's no need to affirm that this device is the best life companion for its richness and simplicity and also no need to affirm that it seems that it understands the way we live more than any other "device" out there. Hell, for a minute there during the scenes you could've seen that most lines describing the phone could work on a perfect escort.

But while this is a great thing, we were promised more, we expected more, we expected a revolution. And this wasn't delivered and you can feel that today on most of tech magazines and social medias. People were disappointed.

Maybe this is why the presentation of the product was the way it was, maybe this is why they wanted so much to tell us how much they care about people.Maybe Samsung knew that a bunch of people, would be disappointed. They had to add a glare, somehow.

Because to me, it seems like Samsung started a revolution (by rumors and lifting expectations), and then after they got to some point they stopped and said: "Ok, we're happy with this let's just launch the product and we'll figure it out later".

But after all this is still the greatest product so far and certainly would make a joke of Apple's announcement 2 hour before the launch of S4 : "We aren't scared of the Galaxy S4".

And for those who are still waiting for a revolutionary product, maybe we'll have to wait and see what the promised Google X will turn out.