Samsung Galaxy S4: the pundits’ verdict

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http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2013/03/SamsungGalaxyS411-610x343.jpg (http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2013/03/SamsungGalaxyS411.jpg)Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S4, a new handset pitched directly against iPhone as the must-have high-end smartphone.It will be released on April 26th, accompanied by an inescapable global marketing and PR frenzy. We asked experts from TechRadar (http://www.techradar.com/), T3 (http://www.t3.com/) and Gizmodo UK (http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/) for their hype-free view on the new handset’s stand-out features, and what it means for Apple’s iPhone.Patrick Goss, editor in chief UK, TechRadar:“It may be iteration and not revolution, but the Samsung Galaxy S4 looks set to be the best phone around when it arrives, despite some hot competition from HTC’s One. The powerful processor will be a main selling point, along with a much-improved screen and both will be a major boon to gamers and the burgeoning Android gaming landscape.The Game Pad peripheral may fall a little short in the looks department, but the effort being put in by Samsung to bring mobile gaming to its phones is a big indicator of how it sees the market changing, and there’s even little bit of a hint about the Galaxy Note 3 being compatible with a whopping 6.3 inch screen.Of course, in phone terms, the iPhone 5 is looking a little long in the tooth now, and actually even the Galaxy S3 had the edge in terms of power, so we’re all expecting (or in some cases demanding) something significant from Cupertino when it shows off the iPhone 6 or 5S in the summer.”Andrew Wooden, news editor, T3 magazine:“The main things to point out are the new ways you can interact with the phone. You can now scroll, preview messages and answer calls without touching the screen – which is all suitably Minorioty Report to get people’s attention. The eye tracking software – which, for example, pauses a video if you look away from the screen – is certainly innovative, but we’ll have to see how users take to it.The camera has a few new rhinestones, like the ability to shoot with the front and rear camera simultaneously. These are all impressive enough, but there may be a fairly low ceiling on how much people actually want to use that sort of thing.There’s a lot of other more conventional – or in this fast moving industry what we can suddenly but reasonably define as such – features packed in, such as the ability to control your TV and track your exercise.For the rest of it, we can see the continued expansion of what we consider a reasonably sized screen for a phone. Five inches is huge, but large-screened devices are fast becoming the norm in the high-end smartphone world.”

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