Samsung Galaxy S 4 Unpack
The Samsung Galaxy S 4 Unpack event just finished. It will certainly remain in history as the worst show ever. But no matter, we watched it for the product, the new Galaxy S 4. First, this was a Samsung product presentation, if you expected something about Android, forget it. The first time we heard Android was after 47 minutes and we’ll only see the Play Store icon in a glimpse. This is expected as for every manufacturer, Android is disappearing. But still, the S 4 will come with Android 4.2.2 JellyBean, so up to date.
Of course, the S4 does have a better hardware. Samsung is a manufacturer, so the first thing we expect is the hardware. But for real details, we’ll have to wait for the benchmarks. All this event focused on the software layer. The new Galaxy S4 is not only a new phone, it is a full Samsung product with its own softwares.
So, during the show, we could have discovered:
- The dual camera allows you to take a picture of the photographer and insert it into the main picture. Totally useless, who wants a portrait insert in his family photo ? Besides, where will I do such photos ? Outside, the photographer will be in a backlight. Useless, but a nice selling feature.
- The translator is very similar to Google Translate, but maybe more automatic. We need to see this in real.
- Air gesture is certainly useless most of the time. There may be some situations in which they may be useful.
- S Drive is the direct competitor to Siri and will allow a connectivity in the car. How efficient will it be, we’ll have to wait for some real tests.
- Homesync so you can sync with all your home devices. Ok, but which devices in a real world ? This will need a better testing either.
- Knox is a safe meant to separate your business usage from your home usage. It seems similar to Blackberry’s feature on the Z10.
- Group play will certainly be the most hated feature. It allows to sync music with different phones to get a more powerful sound from all the speakers. Hey, this is a phone, the speakers will be awful, and worse when added together…
So, overall, this is a pretty disappointing product, and certainly because of the show. Samsung tries to convince us that this product is thought to be part of our life, but it looks more that they have only staked flashy features. Features like Google Now may be my assistant and understand how I live my life. I have seen no such feature in this presentation.
But I don’t worry about Samsung and the Galaxy S 4, they will ship thousands of them, even if we still don’t know the price of the beast. It will come in black or white and will be available at the end of April. The most disappointing is that Samsung have everything they need to provide a ecosystem similar to what Apple is providing. But unfortunately, no one can understand how to set it up.
But Samsung have innovated there. The best Steve Jobs legacy is the lesson of how to handle a presentation, we can find an inspiration in any of them. Samsung just did the opposite. This presentation should be watched to learn everything that should not be done, especially the customers alienation.
Did anyone was convinced by the Samsung Galaxy S4 or should I definitely get a Nexus 4 ?
About Darko Stankovski
Darko Stankovski is the founder and editor of Dad 3.0. You can find more about him trough the following links.
Who cares about the event ? The S4 is a great phone, which have more features than the Nexus 4 and a far better hardware. The S4 has introduced more features than Apple did on all the 4 last iphones. The S4 rocks