Samsung Galaxy series has been the most successful smartphone series for Samsung. Samsung, when launched the Galaxy S3, it set the benchmark for other companies and helped Samsung dominate the mobile handset market. Samsung launched Galaxy S3 with best hardware specifications and nice software tweaks which helped Samsung dominate the smartphone market.
In 2012 with Galaxy S3 Samsung over shadowed the legacy of Apple, this was the first time Apple felt the heat and Samsung cheered the success of Galaxy S3. But Samsung has bigger dreams this year and with the launch of brand new Galaxy S4, it is clear that Samsung will not let it go easily to any of its rival.
Galaxy S4 is a massive 5 inch handset with some break through hardware features (except the old plastic design). In software department, Samsung has nailed it by giving some features that allows you to control many features without even touching your device.
Here is a detailed comparison of what Samsung has improved in S4 when we compare it with S3.
1. Built Quality
Samsung galaxy S3 has a plastic body design with 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm dimensions and weighs 133 grams.
Samsung galaxy S4 comes with the plastic body with some noticeable difference over its predecessor like the metallic banding and texture to make the phone look premium. The phone is bigger, thinner and lighter having dimension 136.1 X 69.8 X 7.9 mm and weighing 130 grams.
2. Hardware
Samsung galaxy S3 has a 1.4 GHz quad-core cortex A9 processor with Exynos 4412 chipset and Mali 400MP GPU for graphics performance. The phone supports all the basic sensors like accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass, and barometer.
Samsung galaxy S4 comes with 2 variants one for the LTE networks powered by 1.9 GHz quad-core snapdragon 600 processor and Adreno 320 GPU.
For the rest of the world S4 will come with octa core (Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7) Exynos 5 Octa 5410 processor with PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU. Samsung has added 2 new sensors, humidity sensor and gesture sensor. The screen supports floating touch identical to what we have seen on Note 2.
3. Display
Samsung galaxy S3 has a 4.8 inch screen based on Super AMOLED plus technology with screen resolution of 1280 X 720 and 306 ppi. The screen supports 10 point multi-touch along with Corning gorilla glass 2 for protection against scratches.
Samsung galaxy S4 has a 5 inch 1920 X 1280 FULL HD display with 441 ppi based on Super AMOLED plus technology. It supports 10 point multi-touch and comes with Corning Gorilla glass 3 screen protection.
4. Storage and memory
Samsung galaxy S3 has 1GB RAM and 16GB internal storage which is expandable up to 64GB via micro SD card.
Samsung galaxy S4 has 2 GB DDR3 RAM and comes in 16/32/64 GB variants with an option to expand the memory up to 64GB via micro SD card.
5. Camera
Galaxy S3 has a 8MP rear camera with LED flash which can shoot videos at 1080p at 30fps. The front cam is 1.9 MP which too can deliver 1080p video recording at 30fps.
Galaxy S4 has a massive 13MP rear camera with LED flash and front 2 MP camera, both can shoot at 1080p full HD at 30fps and can capture photos, videos from both the camera simultaneously.
6. Software and UI
Galaxy s3 comes out of the box with android 4.0 ICS and is upgradable to android 5.0. Jellybean (update is already available via OTA or kies air.)
Some unique features are
- There’s S Voice, which is a voice recognition service, like Siri needs data connection.
- Smart Stay, which uses the front-facing camera to periodically check if it can recognize a pair of eyes looking at it and if not, it turns the screen off to save power.
- Smart Call, which dials a contact’s number for you by raising the phone to your ear from the contact details screen or in messages.
- NFC and S beam to transfer video and photos quickly between other S3.
- Smart Alert, Phone will vibrate as soon as you pick it up to let you know about the notification.
- Social Tag, Recognize faces from pics and automatically offer to text the image to the people featured in the image.
- Pop up play, You can do multitasking while seeing a movie or video, by enabling pop up play the video will play in a movable widget which is movable.
Galaxy S4 comes out of the box with android 4.2 jellybean and will readily receive android 5.0 in near future. Some unique features are
- Smart pause, While watching a video the camera will track your eye movements, it will pause the video when you look away from the screen and will resume when you look at it again.
- Smart Scroll, It checks when you are looking at the screen and will move the page as you tilt the phone back and forth.
- Air gestures, You can flick through the pictures, answer phone calls, change music, scroll through web pages without even touching the screen by just hovering your hand over the screen.
- S4 Knox security feature, This feature provides protection against malicious apps that users might download by separating work and play profiles.
- S voice Drive, Samsung’s solution to Nokia drive feature of Lumia series, it activates in the car and you can dictate messages, ask for navigation or app can read messages for you, just by using your voice.
- S health, This feature can manage your daily workout and your health report by using some accessories.
- Group play, A group of galaxy S4 phones can share photos, music, documents, play games without using WiFi access point.
- Story album, Samsung’s reply to HTC zoe feature of HTC One, S4 allow you to create an album of an event by using location, weather information, memos, photos and videos.
- Dual camera, If taking pictures from one camera was not enough for you, then now you can capture videos or photos with both the cameras of the phone simultaneously with options to add a ton of effects.
- S translator, Samsung adapt sound, auto adjust touch sensitivity, IR sensor and Samsung adapt display, these are some other new features added to the phone.
7. Battery Life
Galaxy S3 has a 2100 mAh removable battery which has a talk time of 11 hours over 3G and standby time of 790 hours over 3G.
Galaxy S4 has a 2600 mAh removable battery which means bigger battery and more standby and talk time over 3G, but official data is not available.
8. Price factor and availability
Galaxy S3 is available at 29000 INR or 530 USD for SIM free unlocked version in various countries.
Galaxy S4 will launch with a price tag of around 700 USD or 38000 INR for SIM free unlocked version but still official pricing may vary in different countries from april 2013.
Image courtesy:techotv
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