Samsung Galaxy S IV officially announced

The Samsung Galaxy S IV has been officially announced, putting an end to all the rumors and giving us our first look at the company’s latest flagship smartphone. The Galaxy S IV is slimmer than the Samsung Galaxy S III at 7.9 mm and even though the screen is larger the device is narrower than its predecessor thanks to the slimmer bezels. The GS 4 had a polycarbonate body instead of the plastic body of its predecessor but has a similar hyperglaze finish. Samsung has even managed to make the device lighter at 130 grams despite the generous 2600 mAh battery onboard.

The Galaxy S IV features a  5 inch Super AMOLED touch display with a 1080 by 1920 pixel resolution. This will result in a pixel density of 441 ppi and even though its still a PenTile matrix display we don’t think it will make a difference at such a high density.

The Galaxy S IV offers three internal storage options (16GB | 32GB | 64GB) which can be expanded through microSD with up to an additional 64GB.

 The Galaxy S IV has a  13 megapixel camera at the back which is capable of 1080p HD video capture. A secondary 2 megapixel camera will take care for video calls along with a host of software features which require eye-tracking and hand-tracking.

The Galaxy S IV comes with sensors for just about everything. Along the traditional accelerometer and gyroscope, there are a temperature and humidity as well as a gesture sensor for the Kinect-like Air Gestures functionality. There is even a pedometer that combines with a new S Health feature to track your steps and make you enthusiastic about leading a more active lifestyle.

The device also features NFC, 4G LTE connectivity and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. Additionally the Galaxy S 4  incorporates an IR blaster so you can use it as a remote control with your TV and various other home appliances just like on the HTC One.

The Galaxy S 4 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean but adds several features along with its own TouchWiz UI. Sound and Touch allows you to capture 9 second clips with audio, Drama Shot allows you to capture a burst of photos and combine them into a single image, Cinema Photo lets you shoot a photo and animate certain parts of it, making it a moving GIF image. You can erase objects from a picture and record video simultaneously from the front and back camera (1080p). Samsung's S Translator, which works with email and ChatON can translate all major languages at launch with further ones coming later on. Smart Pause pauses the video you're watching if it detects that your eyes are away from the screen, while Smart Scroll can scroll a web page if you tilt the device while looking at it.

The S Health app can measure steps, calories and even the comfort of your surroundings - temperature, humidity, etc. These features require the S Band and Heart Rate monitor accessories.

All these features need a lot of power and that’s provided by a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa core processor which features four Cortex-A15 cores clocked at 1.6GHz, four Cortex-A7 cores running at 1.2GHz and the PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU with 2GB of RAM. However there will be a second version for select markets which will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset with its 4 Krait 300 cores and Adreno 320 GPU with 2GB of RAM.

The Samsung Galaxy S IV will be available through 327 operators in 155 countries by the end of April. If you live in the United States you can get the handset through Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Cricket or US Cellular. The device will be initially available in Frost White and Mist Black but Samsung didn’t reveal how much the handset will cost