Samsung Galaxy SIV: Are You Going to Get One?

Mark your calendars, Samsung fans! The Galaxy S IV is about to land—and on Apple’s turf no less—on March 14, according to recent reports. The New York launch seems to signal Samsung’s desire to fight Apple in its home market, where the latter dominated as “the top mobile phone seller for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2012.” Says JK Shin, Samsung Electronics’ mobile division chief, “We introduced the Galaxy S III in London last year, and this time we changed the venue (to New York)…as we were bombarded with requests from US mobile carriers to unveil the Galaxy S IV in the country.”

Come and meet the next Galaxy.

Luckily, we don’t own an S III so we don’t feel like Samsung is already making our handset outdated. We imagine, though, that for S II owners this would be the perfect time to decide whether they are going to continue being Samsung loyalists or if they should keep an eye out for other business phone (more info) models. But just in case you are planning to switch from Samsung to, let’s say, Apple, keep in mind that there’s a reason why the former has a growing market share and “continues to hold the lead position in many international markets.”And as far as hype buildup is concerned, Samsung has been pretty consistent in terms of offering products that deliver. So if there’s a flurry of excitement associated with S IV’s launch, you can be sure that the South Korean company has good things in store for its smartphone fans. As CNET puts it, “there is no question that the Galaxy S IV will be an improvement over the S III.”

Rumor has it.

No pebble blue? Well, if the rumors are to be believed, the only available colors for the S IV are black and white. Now compared to Nokia’s colorful Lumia series, this is an interesting choice for Samsung; but then again, the company may launch additional color options after the official launch, similar to what it did for the S III. As for its internal memory storage, users can choose among three storage capacities: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB. Experts are also predicting that the latest Galaxy would most likely have a microSD card slot, which could be Samsung’s answer to the iPhone 5’s 128GB memory storage.

With regards to the device’s processor, one report says that the South Korean tech giant would most likely use Qualcomm Inc.’s Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor, at least for the US variant. For the European release, the S IV might go with the in-house eight-core Exynos 5 Octa processor. Design-wise, a physical home button has been confirmed, along with a plastic casing which will keep the handset nice and light, if a bit toy-like in looks, at least compared to the iPhone 5’s expensive-looking glass screen.

IV the win

We all have this wish list of qualities, this vision of what a perfect smartphone ought to be. Now, if we are to push all those items onto the Samsung Galaxy S IV, it would include improved durability, less expensive accessories, wireless charging, better voice control, and more useful features. On a more personal note, we wouldn’t mind if this latest Samsung offering comes equipped with an app that lets us send free fax to anyone in the world. (Yes, we are a bit old school in that regard. Don’t judge!) In terms of durability, we would like to see the S IV actually beat the iPhone 5 in drop tests. We are also hoping that Samsung would make its C-Pen for the S IV cheaper, as well as the dongle that lets users connect their handsets to TV (for streaming videos). Wireless charging and a better S-Voice would also go a long way in convincing Samsung device enthusiasts and other mobile device fans to consider the S IV as their next smartphone. As for more useful features, we are rooting for Samsung’s think tank to develop more Smart Stay-like features and to do away with Share Shot-esque (i.e. somewhat useless) offerings.