At the recent Samsung Premiere 2013 event at Earls Court Two, London, Samsung announced the GALAXY S4 Active, designed for active users who love the outdoors. The new smartphone features dust and water protection and sports the familiar GALAXY design and user experience. Samsung also introduced an expanded ATIV family of devices.
With qualified dust and water protection (IP67) the GALAXY S4 Active keeps dust particles out and protects against water damage for up to 30 minutes in up to one meter of water. The tough smartphone comes witha water-resistant earphone jack and its unique construction also lets users capture photos underwater. Because of its reinforced chassis, the S4 Active is slightly bulkier than its GALAXY S4 sibling
Powering the GALAXY S4 Active is a 1.9Ghz quad core processor, 2GB of memory and a large 2,600mAh battery. The 5.0″ Full HD TFT screen (443PP) is stunning, as you would expect from Samsung. A technology called “Glove Touch” enables the touchscreen to be full operational in cold weather, even when the user is wearing gloves.
Samsung has included an 8MP main shooter, and although this is lower spec-ed than its big brother, the GALAXY S4, it should be more than sufficient for capturing good quality images. Samsung has introduced an ‘Aqua Mode’ to increase visual quality and clarity for enhanced underwater images and video. We’re not sure how this works, but until we test it out ourselves, we’ll take their word for it.
Being a derivative of the GALAXY S4, the S4 Active comes with the same bells and whistles in terms of user experience and bundled software and features. The familiar camera features – new ‘Drama Shot’, ‘Sound & Shot’ and ‘Story Album’ are all included in the S4 Active. Users can also enjoy the ‘Group Play’ function to share music, photos, documents and games with others.
Other familiar features include Samsung Smart Pause, Air View, Air Gesture and the useful S Health app.
The GALAXY S4 Active also comes with S Travel (Trip Advisor) and S Translator, handy apps to help users on their travels.
The GALAXY S4 Active will be available for purchase beginning this summer, with initial availability in US and Sweden. Colours available are Urban Grey, Dive Blue and Orange Flare.
With the GALAXY S4 Active, Samsung goes head on with likes of Sony Mobile, that offers a series of water resistant phones including the new flagship Sony Xperia Z and Xperia Z Tablet.
