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So we have the details. Finally. The Samsung Galaxy S IV event has come and gone, and what have we gotten from it? Perhaps... The Official Samsung Galaxy S IV Features Announced

So we have the details. Finally. The Samsung Galaxy S IV event has come and gone, and what have we gotten from it? Perhaps totally unrelated to the actual product people have been waiting for, the production was somehow out of this world. The LA Times described the show as “Broadway-esque”, with a kid tap-dancing, a ballerina, a bored housewife, and a hot gardener. I don’t know how that combination will get people to take the Galaxy S IV for a spin (although a hot gardener does have its target market), but you never know what goes on in the mind of creatives. Judging by the reactions online, though, the event was a train wreck.

Forget the funky concepts designs that have been floating around-this is the official Samsung Galaxy S IV shown at the launch event yesterday.

Forget the funky concepts designs that have been floating around-this is the official Samsung Galaxy S IV shown at the launch event yesterday.

Now for the things that matter: the official Samsung Galaxy S IV features. Are they going to blow you away?

The highlights:

  • Cat 3 100/50Mbps (downloads at 100 Mbps, uploads at 50Mbps)
  • Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/a/c (HT80)
  • Bluteooth 4.0, IR LED (Remote Control), MHL 2.0
  • 13mp camera, 2mp front
  • 2gb of LP DDR3 RAM
  • 16GB HD with 32, 64 and microSD
  • Battery: removable 2,600 mAh
  • Two models: black mist and white frost
  • Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3
  • 5 inch Full HD Super AMOLED (1920 x 1080) display, 441 ppi
  • Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean

Speculators got the eye-tracking feature down, but it seems we’re not going to have the 3D camera. Not a loss, really.

You might have noticed something missing from that list – the processor. Well, nothing short of a Whopper – not the Junior – is going to be used: 1.6GHz EXYNOS 5 Octo-Core processor. Does this equate to eight cores or two quad-cores? No matter what angle you approach it from, that’s a whole lot of power for a phone. Or does the Galaxy S IV count as a phablet now? Whatever category the phone falls under, I can’t, for the life of me, imagine why I would need so much power for such a device.

The Official Samsung Galaxy S IV Features Announced

One of the official Samsung Galaxy S IV features that is rather interesting is technology from Mobeam. This basically allows “pulses of infrared light to essentially fool traditional scanners into thinking the light represents a barcode”. (Source) The implications revolve around the use of the phone to communicate with POS systems which rely on barcode scanners. Retrofitting a new gadget to existing, prevalent technology might prove to be a good move.

Official Samsung Galaxy S IV features

S Translator

Honorable mentions include S Translator, which allows live text-to-speech (and vice versa) translation of nine languages and Group Play, which allows you to play music through up to eight Galaxy S IV devices without needing the Internet. Now if your circle of friends are Samsung/Android fans, and eight of you can afford to buy the latest in the Galaxy S series, the latter feature could be very useful. If you meet face-to-face on a regular basis, that is.

Given the highlights of the official Samsung Galaxy S IV features, how do you feel? Put away your biases (for or against, it doesn’t matter) for a moment, and let us know! As for me, while I think “black mist and white frost” are way better than “pebble blue and marble white”, I’m totally fine with “black and white”, if you know what I mean.

[Images via engadget and My Android Chief]