South Korean Samsung has designed a phone that is technically the best on the market. The Samsung Galaxy S4 has some of the most remarkable technological advances that we can find compared to other devices. But it is not only striking in that sense. And it is that the new flagship of the Asian firm has placed a large part of its bet on intelligent functions. Its predecessor already anticipated the trend that has been confirmed with the Samsung Galaxy S4, which comes to deploy a rich range of integrated applications that further enhances the idea that smartphones are the new Swiss army knives of the digital age. Let's see in a flash what themore exciting features to debut on the Samsung Galaxy S4.
The untouchable touch phone
The rumors anticipate what eventually confirmed. The Samsung Galaxy S4 offers control modes that do not require touch interaction. The Samsung Galaxy S3 already had Smart Stay, a system with which the phone interpreted when we stopped looking at the screen so that it went to sleep mode without having to touch it. And the Samsung Galaxy S4 goes one step further in this regard.
What we find are functions such as Air View, an ingenuity that comes from the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, although in the case of the South Korean house tablet, this system requires the S Pen to work. In the Samsung Galaxy S4, Air View works by placing the finger suspended on the panel "" without touching it, as we say "", so that previews of certain contents can be offered without opening files "" either photo albums, emails or other types of documents "".
Another new control option without accessing touch commands is Smart Pause. In this case, what is achieved is that the multimedia player reacts, as in the case of Smart Stay, to the gaze. What it is about is that the Samsung Galaxy S4 interprets when we stop looking at the screen so that the video we are playing pauses and starts again when we look at the panel again. Simpler is Smart Scroll, another of the functions that was leaked during the days prior to the presentation of the Samsung Galaxy S4, and which basically helps us to move web pages up or down without moving our finger across the screen. To do this, the phone uses theaccelerometer, so that when we tilt the Samsung Galaxy S4 forward or backward, the content of the browser will move one way or the other.
A mobile to stay in shape
Samsung wanted to focus on making its new flagship an ally for the user, and not a mere instrument. The section dedicated to applications and functions dedicated to health is an example of this in the Samsung Galaxy S4. It is true that in order to take advantage of all the possibilities offered by the terminal it is necessary to resort to certain accessories "" which we previously reviewed during this week "", although this does not detract from the attractiveness of knowing that from the first moment, the Samsung Galaxy S4 will offer those serial functions.
The idea is that the phone can keep track of the exercise we do through the S Health suite, with which our steps, heart rate and progression are measured. It can also help us to stay in line, performing activity and diet checks. However, making the most of this section, as we say, requires the complementary use of some of the accessories that Samsung will launch in parallel to the Samsung Galaxy S4.
Improving attendance
With the Samsung Galaxy S3 we saw direct competition from Siri on the iPhone. It's called S Voice, and with this Samsung Galaxy S4 it goes one step further. It will no longer only serve to search for information or to launch applications, but it also integrates with the GPS navigation options to generate what we will now know as the S Voice Drive. This system will not only allow to have an assistant geo point to point, as we know by the application Navigator of Google, but it will also keep active control functions of telephone functions that would be managed with incoming and outgoing voice commands.
That is, while we use the S Voice Drive system, we could make or answer calls or have the Samsung Galaxy S4 read us the messages or emails received. In this sense, it will be interesting to see if third-party applications will also be integrated into S Voice Drive so that, for example, WhatsApp messages can be read while driving.
The polyglot smartphone
Another novelty that comes standard on the Samsung Galaxy S4 is the S Translator. There are several languages recognized by this function, which allows you to pass both written and oral texts from one language to another. At the moment, this function comes with support for Latin American Spanish, although it is expected that the South Korean boys will expand the range of languages and accents after the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S4.
The camera still has a lot to say
There are two cameras on the Samsung Galaxy S4. The main operates with a sensor megapixel thirteen, while secondary operates with one of two megapixels. We already know that they will carry a multitude of settings, effects and filters with which to significantly improve the capture results. But that is not what draws our attention within the framework of novelties included in the Samsung Galaxy S4. In this sense, it is worth highlighting four very interesting functions. The first is Dual Shot, a system that allows you to merge two photos or two videos captured simultaneously from each of the Samsung Galaxy S4 cameras.
Another utility that adds to the options built into the Samsung phone is called Sound and Shot, and it is used to add an audio contextualization to our photos. The idea is that a few seconds of sound are captured when we take a photo so that it is reproduced when we see the image later. The third function that we want to highlight is Eraser, a utility that helps us to clean the photographs of elements that at the time of capture we would have wished they were not there "" such as a traffic sign, an unexpected passer-by or the brother-in-law who ends up bothering at Christmas dinner ””.
Finally, the Samsung Galaxy S4 includes a new gallery of images that, although it is not properly a feature integrated into the camera controller, it does improve communication between one application and another. Albums are now generated in a way that allows you to manage the order in which they are presented and sorted more efficiently. Thus, for example, we can find images according to various criteria, such as geolocation, opening up enriched options that, for example, would allow an entire album to be launched on social networks.
"Listen to this"
Its a classic. We have a song ”” or a video, or a picture… ”” in the memory of our terminal, and we want our friends and family to take good note of it. With the Samsung Galaxy S4, no more passing headphones from ear to ear "" or even worse: activating the phone's speaker, a practice that will have caused many to make a face of disapproval on the bus or in the subway "". For this, we have in the new Samsung flagship of Group Play. This feature offers the option to pass multimedia content between Samsung Galaxy S4 devices, and not only that: the main attraction of this application is that it synchronizes all the linked computers so that the contents play at the same time. It may not sound like a big deal, but in the long run, fellow wagon riders who come across Samsung Galaxy S4 users will appreciate it.
Two phones in one
During the past Mobile World Congress 2013 we were able to know how Samsung Knox works, a utility that will be present in some phones of the firm during this year, but that will be released on the Samsung Galaxy S4, being the first that we will see with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. Knox is a proposal similar to what we also saw in BlackBerry 10, and that allows you to have two desktops based on security and privacy guidelines. One of the desktops is used remotely, that is, all the content is located and encrypted in the cloud, while personal use is focused on the local section of the system "" at least, everything local that so far can be considered ””. Samsung has made an effort to highlight the virtues of Knox in terms of safety and agility in its operation, and for the moment the proposal that we can see in detail in the Samsung Galaxy S4 is very interesting .
