New phones are what we are all about. A very specific case has got to be the Samsung series that won ‘bets Smartphone’ Category in the GSM Awards.
This is funny because barely a month after the S3 wins an award, Samsung is already in line to launch a spanking new one just 6 days from today: The Samsung Galaxy S4. What does it have? An Excynos Octa (8 processors) for the non-US model and a quad-core for the US model. Kenya is a non-US market so Yaay! 8 cores! 1080 video resolution on a 5 inch screen and a 13 MP rear facing and a 2MP front facing pair of cameras. The S3 has a 8MP rear facing so this is definitely an improvement.
This one is scheduled to come out on March 14th 2013. Sources say it is thinner and has a better camera coupled with a bigger screen. But this is all expected. There are some technologies that the S4 will have that will completely blow you away.
Here’s a brief description of what we’ve heard they are:
- NFC payments using VISA enabled cards – mobile wallets have long been a thing especially in accomplished markets like Europe and the US. What the NFC payments will take advantage of is the relationship VISA has with Samsung that will see NFC enabled on a specific phone hence allowing you to make payments right off your mobile phone using your VISA card. Amazing huh? The partnership was sealed on 25th Feb 2013 and is documented on the VISA newsroom.
- Flexible screen – Well, not exactly flexible screen so I may have exaggerated. At this past Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung showed us Youm, a technology that allows a screen to be completely flexible to a point where it can be bent while still in use. Amazing stuff that was. See the video here. I am unsure if this will be part of the S4 but I am pretty confident that whatever the S4 has boasts a certain degree of unbreakability. It would be nice to drop a device and not be scared of cracking screens, yes?
- Wireless charging using Qi (pronounced Chi) technology – this is what the current Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 are using to charge. You will only need to place your phone in a certain radius from a wireless and it will charge automatically.
- Eye Tracking Technology – Here’s what this will do for you. It will sense when your eyes are at the bottom of a page and it will move to the next page without you touching the screen. Yes folks, you will flip through pages solely and completely with your eyes. If not flopping through pages, the software on the phone will read that you have arrived at the bottom of the page and it will add more content for your consumption.
- No Touch (touchless) gestures – you will now be able to answer your phone without having to slide the answer button on the screen. I am not very sure how this will happen. Perhaps you will have to only life the phone to your ear to have it answer a call. I am not sure. Let us wait the remaining 6 days to see if it is actually there.
I hope the Apple fan boys are watching. This is going to blow them right out of the water.
