Today is the day that Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone will be released at Radio City Music Hall, and it is the most highly anticipated release of this year thus far. Tech enthusiasts will be able to finally match the hype against the reality and see which rumors about the phone are actually true.
Samsung is expected to actually ship the phone about 1-2 months after pre-ordering begins today. Leaked photos have been springing up on the internet ahead of the event, with colorful photos showing a device slightly longer than the hit product Galaxy S3.
Retained in the new phone are: a home button, a plastic body and similar shape.
Rumors have the smartphone carrying a 5-inch display, another step up from the 4.8-inch phone that came before. This is in keeping with the smartphone industry in general, which has been pushing ever-larger phones. Samsung was instrumental in this trend, by pushing boundaries with the Galaxy Note line of products. This is one of the ways that Samsung has distinguished itself from Apple, whose products such as the iPhone 5 have eschewed larger sizes in favor of slim and thin design.
Consumers expect the Galaxy S4 to have a Super AMOLED display with 1080p resolution, which means a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels.
Other rumors describe an eye-scrolling technology that allows the user to interact with the phone without using their fingers. This has been disputed by some publications. Regardless, some type of touchless interaction is rumored, including the possibility of a "hovering" effect to interact with the device.
The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S4 is rumored to have 13MP with a special lens. The front facing camera should be at least 2MP.
Powering the device, an Exynos 5 Octa 5 quad-core (four processors) is expected to make its debut in the S4. This technology should bring faster performance along with better battery life than before, one of the gripes customers had about the S3.
And of course, customers expect Android 4.2 Jelly Bean to be the interface for the S4.
A live blog is available here, with live video available on YouTube's Samsung Channel.
