Eduo Samsung Galaxy S4
Author
Albert FloresThe Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the successor to the Galaxy S III, which maintains a similar design, but with upgraded hardware, more sensors, and an increased focus on software features that take advantage of its hardware capabilities-such as the ability to detect when a finger is hovered over the screen, and expanded eye tracking functionality, it was released the previous year. A hardware variant of the S4 became the first smartphone to support the emerging LTE Advanced mobile network standard (model number GT-i9506). The T-Mobile version of the Galaxy S4, named the model (SGH-M919), was released the same month. The phone's successor, the Samsung Galaxy S5, was released the next year.
The Galaxy S4 is among the earliest phones to feature a 1080p Full HD display, 1080p front camera video recording, and among few to feature temperature and humidity sensors and a touch screen able to detect a floating finger.
Sales and shipping
The S4 was made available in late April 2013 on 327 carriers in 155 countries. It became Samsung's fastest selling smartphone and eventually Samsung's best selling smartphone with 20 million sold worldwide in the first two months, and 40 million in the first six months.
In total, more than 80 million Galaxy S4 units have been sold, making it the most selling Android-powered mobile phone of all time.
The Galaxy S4's successor, the Samsung Galaxy S5, was announced by Samsung in February 2014 ahead of a release in April of that year.
Specifications
Hardware
Comparisons
The Samsung Galaxy S4 uses a refined version of the hardware design introduced by the Samsung Galaxy S III, with a rounded, polycarbonate chassis and a removable rear cover. It is slightly lighter and narrower than the Samsung Galaxy S III, with a length of 137 mm, a width of 70 mm, and a thickness of 8 mm. +more At the bottom of the device is a microphone and a microUSB port for data connections and charging; it also supports USB-OTG and MHL 2. Near the top of the device are a front-facing camera, an infrared transmitter for usage as universal remote control, proximity, and ambient light sensors, and a notification LED. In particular, the infrared sensor is used for the device's "Air View" features. A headphone jack, secondary microphone and infrared blaster are located at the top. The S4 is widely available in black and white color finishes; in selected regions, Samsung also introduced versions in red, purple, pink, brown with gold trim, and light pink with gold trim. In late-January 2014, Samsung's Russian website briefly listed a new black model with a plastic leather backing, similar to the Galaxy Note 3.
The S4's 5 in Super AMOLED display with 1080×1920 pixels (1080p Full HD) is larger than the 5 in 720×1280 display of its predecessor, and also features a PenTile RGBG matrix. The pixel density has increased from 306 to 441 ppi, surfaced with +more'>Corning Gorilla Glass 3. An added glove mode option does increase touch sensitivity to allow detecting touch input through gloves. The Galaxy S4 is Samsung's first and one of the earliest mobile phones of all time to feature a 1080p display.
Unlike previous models, the S4 does not contain FM radio support, citing the increased use of online media outlets for content consumption on mobile devices.
Camera
The camera of the Galaxy S4 uses a 13-megapixel Sony Exmor RS IMX135 image sensor (4128×3096), later used on the Galaxy Note 3.
While the front cameras of the Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2, both released in 2012, are only able to capture videos at up to 720p HD resolution, the front camera of the Galaxy S4 allows 1080p Full HD video recording for the first time in any Samsung mobile phone.
The image sensor of the front camera is a Samsung CMOS S5K6B2
Related section: #Camera software|Camera software
Sensors
Like the Galaxy S3, the S4 is equipped with an accelerometer sensor, a gyroscope, a front-facing proximity sensor, digital compass and barometer.
Unlike the predecessor, the S4 is also equipped with a hall sensor for the S View cover, a self-capacitive touch screen layer for Air View and thermometer and hygrometer sensors, the last two of which only the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 out of all historical Samsung flagship devices are equipped with.
International variants
Galaxy S4 models use one of two processors, depending on the region and network compatibility. The S4 version for North America, most of Europe, parts of Asia, and other countries contains Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 system-on-chip, containing a quad-core 1. +more9 GHz Krait 300 CPU and an Adreno 320 GPU. The chip also contains a modem which supports LTE. Other models include Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa system-on-chip with a heterogeneous CPU. The octa-core CPU comprises a 1. 6 GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 cluster and a 1. 2 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 cluster. The chip can dynamically switch between the two clusters of cores based on CPU usage; the chip switches to the A15 cores when more processing power is needed, and stays on the A7 cores to conserve energy on lighter loads. Only one of the clusters is used at any particular moment, and software sees the processor as a single quad-core CPU. The SoC also contains an IT tri-core PowerVR SGX 544 graphics processing unit (GPU). Regional models of the S4 vary in support for LTE; for Exynos 5-based models, while the E300K/L/S versions support LTE, with the Cortex-A15 also clocked at 1. 6 GHz. the GT-I9500 model does not. The S4 GT-I9505 includes a multiband LTE transceiver.
LTE-A (LTE+) variant GT-i9506
On 24 June 2013, a variant supporting LTE Advanced (model number GT-i9506), the first commercially available device to do so, was announced for South Korea. In December 2013, it was also shipped to Germany as Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE+, but only with Telekom and Vodafone branding. +more It also was equipped with increased processing power by using the same CPU (Snapdragon 800) and GPU (Adreno 330) hardware as the Galaxy Note 3 SM-N9005, although no precluded video recording capabilities beyond 1080p at 30fps.
Storage options
The S4 comes with either 16 GB, 32 GB, 64 GB of internal storage, which can be supplemented with up to an additional 64 GB with a microSD card slot. Unofficially, the S4 microSD card slot supports 128 GB cards as well. +more The S4 contains a 2600 mAh, NFC-enabled battery.
Software
Operating system
The S4 was originally released with Android 4.2.2 and Samsung's TouchWiz Nature UX 2 interface.
Interaction
The Galaxy S4 is known for introducing a range of new extended interaction features to the Samsung Galaxy S series.
Head tracking features have been extended on the S4, summarized as "Samsung SmartScreen". The new "Smart Scroll" feature can be used to scroll while looking at the screen by slightly tilting head or phone forward or backward, and "Smart Pause" allows the video player to pause videos if the user is not looking at the screen. +more "Smart Rotation" tracks the facial orientation using the front camera to match the screen rotation and "Smart Stay" prevents entering stand-by mode by deactivating display time-out while the user is looking at it.
and "Air Gestures" implement gestures and other functionality (such as previewing images in the Gallery, messages in the precluded SMS/MMS app, a preview of the contact name, number and details in speed dial on the telephone app's number pad, and a preview tooltip when hovering above the seek bar in the video player and showing) by holding or swiping a hand or finger slightly above the screen, similarly to Samsung's Galaxy Note series, and adds a feature known as "Quick Glance", which uses the proximity sensor to wake the phone so it can display the clock, notifications and status such as battery charge. Air Gestures can also be used to accept calls ("Air call-accept"), to scroll through pages ("Air Jump") and swipe through gallery pictured ("Air Browse") and to move home screen icons ("Air Move").
There are additional motion gestures, including panning through and zooming into/out of an image in the precluded gallery software by tilting the phone and holding with one or two fingers respectively. To take a screenshot, alternatively to pressing the home button and power button simultaneously, a user can simply swipe their hand from one end of the screen to the other end horizontally.
These interaction features were later inherited by the Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy S5, but most of those features were gradually removed from Samsung's flagship phones released afterwards.
Camera software
The camera app implements numerous new features (some of which were first seen on the Galaxy Camera), including an updated interface, and new modes such as "Drama" (which composes a moving element from multiple shots into a single photo), "Eraser" (which takes multiple shots and allows the user to remove unnecessary elements from a picture), "Dual Shot" (which uses the front-facing camera for a picture-in-picture effect), "Sound and Shot" (which allows the user to record a voice clip alongside a photo), "Animated Photo", and "Story Album" among others. Burst shots at full resolution are supported, but capped at twenty consecutive pictures at any selected resolution.
The S4 also supports High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), a next-generation video codec.
In addition, the Galaxy S4 is able to capture 9.6 Megapixel (4128×2322) still photos during 1080p video recording, even with enabled digital video stabilization.
While the camera viewfinder user interface of the 2012's Samsung Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, the competing iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s require switching between photo and video modes, the viewfinder of the Galaxy S4 camera software shows the buttons for both photo and video capture simultaneously. The virtual buttons for video recording, photo capture and camera modes have a metallic texture.
A "remote viewfinder" feature allows casting the camera viewfinder and controls to a different unit through Wi-Fi Direct.
Accessibility
The Galaxy S4 is equipped with a range of accessibility features such as TalkBack.
Miscellaneous
The "Group Play" feature allows ad hoc sharing of files between Galaxy phones, along with multiplayer games and music streaming between S4 phones. The S4 also introduces Knox in the Android 4. +more3 update, a suite of features which implements a sandbox for enterprise environments that can co-exist with a user's "personal" data. Knox incorporates use of the ARM TrustZone extensions and security enhancements to the Android platform.
The TouchWiz keyboard application on the Galaxy S4 has a built-in clipboard feature that allows holding up to twenty items such as text and screenshots.
The precluded optical reader feature allows the optical character recognition of pictures through the camera or a picture stored in the gallery. The optical reader is also accessible through a menu in the keyboard for direct pasting into a text area.
Other new pre-loaded apps include WatchOn (an electronic program guide that can utilize the S4's infrared transmitter to be a remote control), S Translator, the workout tracker S Health, S Voice Drive, S Memo, TripAdvisor, and an optical character recognition app. The previous "Hub" apps from past Samsung devices were replaced by a single Samsung Hub app, with access to music, e-books, and games that can be purchased by users.
Updates
A minor update was released in June 2013, restoring the ability to move apps to the SD card, and adding HDR video support among other tweaks.
In November 2013, Samsung began rolling out an update to Android 4. 3 for the S4, notably adding the Bluetooth low energy support needed for compatibility with the Galaxy Gear smartwatch. +more However, Samsung halted the rollout following reports from Galaxy S III users that Samsung's version of 4. 3 had caused instability and increased battery usage. The rollout was resumed in December 2013.
In February 2014, Samsung began rolling out an update to Android 4. 4 "KitKat" for the S4; the update adds user interface tweaks such as a camera shortcut on the corner of the lock screen, options for setting default launcher and text messaging applications, support for printing, and a new location settings menu for tracking and controlling the use of location tracking by apps. +more It also makes significant changes to the handling of secondary storage on the device for security reasons; applications' access to the SD card is restricted to designated, app-specific directories only, while full access to internal primary storage is still allowed. Although this behavior has existed since Android 3. 0 "Honeycomb", OEMs such as Samsung previously modified their distributions of Android to retain the previous behavior, allowing applications to have unlimited access to SD card contents.
In January 2015, Samsung began rolling out an update to Android 5. +more1 "Lollipop" in Russia and India, an update which brings all the features of Lollipop, such as enhanced performance and lockscreen, including a refined interface with a flatter and geometric look, as seen on the Galaxy S5. Samsung paused the rollout soon after, when users reported major bugs. The rollout continued in March 2015 starting with unlocked models in the UK, Nordic and Baltic countries and has since then spread to several other countries. US (starting with AT&T and Sprint) and Canadian Samsung Galaxy S4 models received Android 5. 1 Lollipop update in April 2015.
Model variants
Several different model variants of the S4 are sold, with most variants varying mainly in handling regional network types and bands. To prevent grey market reselling, models of the S4 manufactured after July 2013 implement a regional lockout system in certain regions, requiring that the first SIM card used on a European and North American model be from a carrier in that region. +more Samsung stated that the lock would be removed once a local SIM card is used. SIM format for all variants is Micro-SIM, which can have one or two depending on model.