Samsung’s immensely popular Galaxy S4 is not only one of the best smartphones on the planet, it’s also one of the hottest selling. In fact, Samsung says it sold more than 10 million Galaxy S4s in its first month of availability, and analysts at Merrill Lynch project the company to move as many as 65 million handsets by year’s end.
So how can Samsung build on that kind of momentum? By releasing a slew of different S4 variants. Thus far, Samsung has announced five different versions of the Galaxy S4 in addition to the original, including the Mini, Zoom, Galaxy Active, Developer Edition and the Galaxy S4 with 4G LTE Advanced. What’s the difference between all these Galaxy S4s? Check out our handy-dandy Galaxy S4 Guide to find out.
One of the best smartphones on the market, Samsung's original Galaxy S4 packs a fast 1.9-GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a big 5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display and a sharp 13-MP camera. Plus, this handset has enough features to put a Swiss Army knife to shame, including motion gestures and the ability to pause videos just by looking away.
If you're looking for the most powerful and versatile Galaxy S4, you can't beat the original.
More: Samsung Galaxy S4 (Verizon Wireless) Review
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Jun 17, 2013 01:55 PM EDT by Cherlynn Low
Twitter’s music service has been available for almost two months and if you haven’t figured out how to use it yet, you should. The social media giant teamed up with radio streaming providers Spotify and Rdio to offer a hashtag-driven music discovery program that puts artists and the Twitterverse at the forefront of music recommendation.
Whether you use the iOS app or access Twitter #music on the web, here’s how to make full use of this new and powerful recommendation service.
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In early June, Gmail for Android added a feature which automatically places senders’ Google+ profile images next to their emails in your inbox. Unfortunately, this new feature is of limited utility because many (if not most) senders don’t have Google+ profile images which forces the program to display the first letter of a sender’s name instead. If you find the sender images and their letter replacements a waste of space, Gmail provides an easy way to make them disappear.
To remove sender images form Gmail for Android:
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Just ahead of the company’s upcoming London event on June 20, the Samsung rumors and teases are heating up. The latest from TechTastic is a series of blurry photos that a tipster claims are of the imminent Galaxy Tab 3 8.0. This time, however, these images show a two-tone device. The front of the 8-inch tablet appears to be a glossy black plastic surrounding an all-white home button, while the back is white.
According to TechTastic, the tablet’s components are even classier than its tuxedo look. An improvement from earlier reports, Samsung’s upcoming 8-inch slate will sport a 5-MP rear-facing camera. However, the tablet is now said to have just 1.5GB of RAM, a quarter less than the previously-rumored 2GB. Save for a purported upgrade to Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, nothing else on the spec side has changed from reports earlier this spring.
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New York Attorney General Erich Schneiderman just introduced the “Secure Our Smartphones” initiative last week, but it looks like one manufacturer may already be preparing to take action. A new report from Asia suggests that Samsung could roll out a new “kill switch” feature for smartphones as early as next month.
Samsung was one of several tech companies to meet with Schneiderman to discuss the issue of smartphone theft and new preventative measures that can be implemented in future devices. One such method proposed by Schneiderman was a kill switch feature that would allow manufacturers and carriers to remotely wipe, lock and disable any smartphone so that it can no longer be used. This means that the handset wouldn’t be able to function even if the thief replaced its SIM card or registered it with a new carrier.
The idea behind this feature is that disabling a smartphone should be as simple as canceling a credit card, Schneiderman said during a press conference last week.
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We heard about Samsung’s game pad controller just as the Galaxy S4 was announced, and now it looks like Apple fans may have a new video game accessory to look forward to. Created by Logitech, the purported device is large enough to fit an iPhone 5 and comes with a built-in Lightning dock connector, Kotaku reports.
According to the allegedly leaked image, the accessory snaps on to the device and houses the smartphone in its center, placing action buttons and a D-Pad on either side of the display. This is different from the design of Samsung’s wireless remote, which looks similar to an Xbox 360 controller with a holster for the handset just above its controls.
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Today’s 4G too slow for you? Samsung plans to release a variant of is Galaxy S4 phone with 4G LTE Advanced technology, promising up to double the speed. U.S. carriers have yet to roll out LTE Advanced, but when they do Samsung says users will be able to download videos that usually take 3 minutes in a little over a minute.
This new handset is one of many devices joining the ever-growing Galaxy S4 family. AT&T is taking pre-orders for the rugged Galaxy S4 Active. Then there’s the S4 Zoom (camera with optical zoom) and S4 Mini models (made for smaller hands), not to mention the Developer Edition being sold by Google for Android purists.
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When Apple demoed the upcoming iOS 7 earlier this week during WWDC 2013, the company focused solely on how it would look and operate on the iPhone 5. Now we know why, thanks to new images of the operating system posted on Apple’s iOS 7 Web page .
As it turns out, and as we all pretty much expected, iOS 7 on iPad and iPad mini will look and feel just as it does on the iPhone 4 through iPhone 5 — just on a bigger canvas. Well, save for iPad 2, iPhone 4 and any iPod Touch before the fifth generation: Those models lack access to Siri. As you can see above, not much changes between iOS 7 on iPad and iPhone aside from the spacing between its divisive icons.
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Jun 14, 2013 01:14 PM EDT by Cherlynn Low
Ever wish there was a sleeker way to carry your charger, earphones and other peripherals with your iPad? A newly-launched Kickstarter project says it will solve that problem. The Smart Cargo for iPad snaps on to your tablet to store your accessories in a convenient, aesthetically-pleasing case. It will retail at $30 once available. Using the magnetic cover of Apple’s Smart Cover, the Smart Cargo attaches firmly onto your iPad.
You will need to have the Apple Smart Cover or Smart Case to use this product, but for iPad users that already have that, this appears to be a valuable upgrade. Its interior is lined with felt to reduce noise, and it also doubles as a grip and wrist support for typing on the tablet.
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Jun 14, 2013 12:07 PM EDT by Cherlynn Low
Do you know what your children are doing online? According to a recent study, 30 percent of American parents don’t monitor their children’s social networking activity. The University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for the Digital Future found that of that 30 percent, 28 percent said they trusted their children. Only 12 percent said checking up on their kids “would show lack of trust.”
Other reasons included not knowing how to use Facebook (9 percent) and not having the time to do so (7 percent). The same study, now in its 11th year, found that most parents feel the average appropriate age for children to own a mobile phones is 13 and having a Facebook account is 15.
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