We take a look at which of the Samsung Galaxy S4's new features make sense and which ones don't.
Samsung made it very clear at Thursday’s Galaxy S4 launch event that the new smartphone’s point of focus wasn’t hardware but rather its refreshed interface and new suite of software features. While we haven’t yet managed to get our hands on a Galaxy S4, some of these features do actually sound great while some others sound like they could have been discarded.
We have to point out here that many of these features can be replicated by apps on both iOS and Android. However, built-in features do have the advantage of better optimization and integration with the hardware.
Let’s take a look at which of the Galaxy S4’s features are promising, and which ones aren’t:
Hits
S Translator
This was the feature that excited us the most during Samsung’s launch event, even though the really lame presenters tried their very best to pour water on the proceedings. Ever since the concept of the Babel Fish was introduced by Douglas Adams, we’ve been waiting for such a tool that can translate everything on the fly. With the S Translator, Samsung may have actually achieved that. The S Translator offers speech-to-text and text-to-speech translations in 10 languages including French, English and Chinese and Samsung hopes to increase that number soon.
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Smart Pause
Smart Pause is one half of the Smart Pause/Smart Scroll duo and while the latter sounds like pure gimmick, Smart Pause sounds like a simple intuitive feature that does one thing well. For the uninitiated, Smart Pause tracks your eyes using the front camera on the Galaxy S4 and pauses a running video when you look away from the screen.
S Voice Drive
Samsung has extended the functionality of its S Voice tool on the Galaxy S4. With S Voice Drive, the icons and commands to be used within the GPS navigation app become simpler so that its safer to use while driving. Icons on the screen are larger and you can also use your voice to command the navigation app. We think it’s a good feature especially for people who rely a lot on GPS navigation in their vehicles.
S Health
Samsung has tried to make mobile fitness apps redundant by packing in a hell of a lot of functionality into the S Health suite. With S Health, you can track things like distance walked/run, calorie intake and even sleeping patterns. We have a feeling that even the laziest among us may be tempted to try out some of these features on the Galaxy S4, just to see how well they work.
Eraser (camera feature)
A very useful feature that Samsung has added to the Galaxy S4 camera’s repertoire is the Eraser feature. This feature lets you analyze a photo you’ve taken and cleanly remove objects that you don’t want in the image. This means that you can cleanly erase unwanted objects, photo-bombers from your photos without much effort.
Misses
Air Gesture
This is another feature that is getting a big marketing push from Samsung. We just don’t understand the use-case scenario for Air Gesture which lets you navigate the phone without touching the display (but still requires your fingers to hover inches above the display). The only time when the feature could be useful is if your fingers are dirty and you still want to use the phone. However, like Smart Scroll, the feature is quite buggy and has inconsistent performance.
Dual Shot
Dual Shot is one of the silliest features on offer from the Galaxy S4. It lets you take pictures with both the front and primary cameras on the phone at the same time. Samsung says this is good because it lets you add yourself to photos that you’re taking but the execution is awkward. First, you are added to the photo within a frame that makes it clear that you weren’t in the shot. Secondly, when was the last time you were conscious about what you looked like when you were taking a photo?
We will properly review all these features when we get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy S4 soon. Till then let us know what you think of these features in our comments section below or on Facebook.
(Edit: Smart Scroll as a ‘miss’ feature has been removed from the story. We had earlier written that the feature depended on eye tracking but as reader Nisarg Kohle mentioned in the comments section, it actually requires the user to tilt the phone up or down to scroll the content. We apologize for the inaccuracy).