Samsung unveils the Galaxy S4

When Samsung tipped its Unpacked event in New York City, there was no mystery surrounding what the company would announce. It’s no surprise, then, that the company stuck to the script and opened the curtain to its latest flagship, the Galaxy S4.

Specs

The Galaxy S4 has a similar exterior to its predecessor, the Galaxy S III. The most notable differences are a larger screen (5-inch 1080p next to the S3’s 4.8-inch 720p) and a thinner build. It's around eight percent thinner than the Galaxy S3.

The S4 – like its predecessor – will ship in two different models (depending on region). One version totes an octa-core – yes, eight cores – processor: Samsung’s own Exynos 5 Octa CPU, clocked at 1.6 GHz. The other version is a 1.9 GHz quad-core Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm. The phone sports 2 GB of RAM, and will be sold in three storage variants: 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB. It also sports an improved 13-megapixel camera.

Features

The rumor about the S4's Smart Scroll feature turned out to be legit ... sort of. It will supposedly scroll web pages and emails when you reach the bottom, but the technology is based on facial recognition and wrist movement, not eye movement. The Galaxy S4 features a few other facial tracking features, including Smart Pause – which pauses a video when you look away, and resumes playback when you look back.

The S4 sports several new camera software features. Dual Camera combines video or images from the front and back cameras, under a variety of templates. Also included is Drama Shot, which takes bursts of shots and combines them automatically into a collage. The Sound & Shot feature – as you might expect – adds sound clips to still photos.

The device runs Android 4.2.2 Jellybean, with Samsung’s Touchwiz UI layered on top. Samsung hasn't yet announced pricing or specific release info, but it says that the handset will ship globally beginning in Q2, 2013.

To see how Samsung's new handset compares to its arch rival's, check out our Galaxy S4 vs. iPhone 5 comparison.