As has been the case for nearly every major smartphone release in recent memory, leaks, hints, and rumors surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S4 have been flooding RSS feeds everywhere as we get ever closer to the launch of the phone. The latest of these may prove to be the most interesting, as one forum is claiming to have photos of Samsung’s soon to be flagship in hand.
There’s no questioning that the success Samsung has seen in the last year has been significant. The Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 have both been commercial successes in their own right, offering users fairly different experiences while managing to create a design brand that stands out in a crowd. The S3 and Note 2 are pretty easy to pick out of a lineup, and Samsung clearly has the attention of the technology world right now, so the desire to see and experience “the next Galaxy” couldn’t be higher. There’s been plenty of speculation regarding how Samsung might change their design, especially given the increase in sleek phones like the BlackBerry Z10 and HTC One. If the photos that showed up on a popular Chinese forum for Samsung hardware are in fact the Galaxy S4, it’s clear Samsung is sticking with what they know on the outside.
At first glance, you’d almost think the phone being held in these shots is a Galaxy S3 $99.99 at Let's Talk . If you look a little closer, you’ll see the screen size has been increased and side bezels shrunk down to almost nothing. The long rounded button in the center with the two soft buttons on either side is more of Samsung’s current generation design, only now the phone appears to have a brushed aluminum band going around the rim of the hardware. The back of the phone featured more of the same glossy material, with the whole cover apparently removable. This particular model won’t be seen in too many places outside of China, with its dual SIM setup and Unicom carrier branding. The hardware designation for this model reads “GT-i9502″ which would continue to lend to this being a variant of the GT-i9500, which is believed to be the Galaxy S4′s designation.
The design of the phone is a little clumsier than the Galaxy S3, which casts a little doubt on these images being real. If this really is the next phone from Samsung it’s not nearly as elegant as its predecessor, whose “inspired by nature” design was all about an experience that was as seamless as possible in the hand. The almost carbon fiber texture of the plastic is curious as well, as it almost perfectly matches the patter in the background of the press invitations that were sent out. It’s possible that the design seen here is just a false casing, which both Samsung and Apple have done in the past to hide the final design of their hardware.
Alongside that dual-SIM setup in this Chinese Galaxy S4 is the Exynos 5410, a sort of octo-core processor that flips from four A15 cores to four A7 cores for better power consumption. There’s not a whole lot known about that chipset outside of rumors, and either way Samsung is rumored to only be using that chipset in non-LTE environments. Much like the Galaxy S3 release, Samsung is expected to have multiple hardware variants of the Galaxy S4 that rely on Qualcomm for LTE support. Coupled with one of Samsung’s 1080p SAMOLED+ screens and 2GB of RAM, this would make a competitive piece of hardware both for spec sheet enthusiasts and those interested in the latest and greatest smartphone on the market.
While this is one of those “we’ll know for sure soon enough” situations, if these photos are fake, the effort that went into the setup feels significant. Knock off smartphones, especially in China, are nothing new though. Considering that we’ve seen shots now of two different color casings and software that seems at the very lease plausible, it’s hard not to offer a slow golf clap to those responsible if these shots turn out to be fake.
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